On the other hand, in the US freedom of speech would likely protect this person. And there are strong arguments in favor of absolutist versions of freedom of speech.
I find it interesting how people on HN are decidedly non-Utilitarian. I don't know, but for some reason I expected software engineers to be utilitarian. Not exactly sure why
Perhaps the Utilitarian view is actually that freedom of speech leads to the best outcome for the most people, even with all of its negative side effects.
Utilitarianism does not induce a stable steady state. It thinks of everyone as having a set of wants (of some cardinal magnitude), and says you should arrange the world so that the total magnitude of satisfied wants is maximized.
The immediate implication is that, in order to get something, the right approach is to want it more. This produces no benefit to anyone, but it lets you appropriate things that used to be assigned to other people.
I would prefer to relabel "wants" as "demands", admit they do indeed have different magnitudes, but also assign a quantity measuring the reasonableness of the demand. The mere fact that you want something isn't evidence that you should have it.
>And there are strong arguments in favor of absolutist versions of freedom of speech.
First, American freedom of speech isn't absolutist. There are laws against certain kinds of speech in the US, such as fraud, slander, libel, incitement to violence, conspiracy, etc. And many people seem to believe that Americans' right of association is in conflict with freedom of speech, as it allows the owners of private venues to determine what forms of speech can and cannot take place in those venues.
Second, this is not a strong argument in favor unless you happen to be an anti-vaxxer or simply lack empathy.
> fraud, slander, libel, incitement to violence, conspiracy, etc.
Let's go one by one:
* Fraud: not sure what you mean here. Fraudulent speech? Lying isn't a crime. Fraud is a crime that might involve speech, but there are more elements than simply stating an untruth.
* Slander/libel: Yes, this is an exception, but it is notably narrow and again has additional required elements.
* Incitement to violence: Nope. Incitement to _lawless_ action is simply one of the elements of the sole case in which someone can be prosecuted for _speech alone_ ("directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.")
* Conspiracy: Again, unsure what you mean. Where is the "conspiracy" exception to free speech?
Can you provide citations for this? "Honest dealing" and "honest services" laws all require more than simply "untrue speech", in every case that I've seen.
The recent college admissions scandal mostly charged parents with wire fraud, if I recall correctly. The fraudulent part of their conduct consisted solely of untrue speech, representing to a school that an SAT score was earned by their child when it wasn't, or representing to the College Board that the person taking the test was their child when it wasn't.[1]
[1] There were other methods, but the two I list here seem in my eyes to consist exclusively of untrue speech. There were also fraud charges associated with representing payments as donations to a charity (for tax reasons) when they were meant as quid pro quo payment for services. If the tax fraud was the basis for every fraud charge, I'll admit that this example is invalid.
Wire fraud requires an intent to defraud ("obtaining money or property"). In your example, the defendants were all free to lie about someone being their child. They were not free to lie about it for the purpose of defrauding the College Board, which meets all of the standards of Brandenberg (inciting imminent lawless behavior that is then likely to occur).
> Second, this is not a strong argument in favor unless you happen to be an anti-vaxxer or simply lack empathy.
He spoke out against vaccines on Facebook, and suggested using papaya leaves and/or vitamin C instead. You don't have to be an anti-vaxxer or lack empathy to disagree with his being arrested for this.
>He spoke out against vaccines on Facebook, and suggested using papaya leaves and/or vitamin C instead.
In other words, he suggested people in the midst of an outbreak of a deadly, contagious but treatable disease avoid that treatment in favor of homeopathic bullshit that will only result in more deaths and further contagion.
Believing he should be allowed to do so without consequence shows a complete lack of empathy for his victims.
Sure, I totally disagree with him, but I'd like the bar for freedom of speech to be a bit higher that. He didn't specifically threaten anyone, and he's not dispensing advice in a professional capacity. He's just some guy with a different opinion, on that bastion of obvious truth known as Facebook posts. That opinion might lead someone who reads it to not get vaccinated, which might cause real problems, but just putting his opinion out there shouldn't be cause for arrest. In my, obviously unpopular, opinion.
> He's just some guy with a different opinion, on that bastion of obvious truth known as Facebook posts.
Not really, though. I searched his name and found an interview with Stuff magazine[0] which describes him as a "Samoan traditional healer and well known anti-vaxxer." It also describes his social media efforts as being far more active than "just putting his opinion out there" would imply. This isn't some random guy the government decided to harass for "wrongthink", He's an activist trying to undermine and hinder his government's attempt to vaccinate people in the midst of a medical emergency, as part of a greater anti-vaccination movement.
I find it interesting how people on HN are decidedly non-Utilitarian. I don't know, but for some reason I expected software engineers to be utilitarian.
> On the other hand, in the US freedom of speech would likely protect this person
I'm not so sure of that. You cannot yell "FIRE!" in a crowded American movie theater because of the danger it creates. The government in this case declared a state of emergency and this person ignored that emergency and instead fanned the anti-vaxx flames, which feels pretty similar to causing a stampede in a theater for no reason.
That seems like a cunning DA could argue reckless endangerment of a child to me...
This is not the standard in the US (although it's an incredibly common misconception), which is defined by Brandenberg v. Ohio, and requires " "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."[0] In other words, it must not only have a purpose of inciting _lawless_ (not dangerous) action, but likely to produce said action.
Additionally, while the case involves "fire in a crowded theater", it's in a substantially more narrow concurrence that holds that the speech would have to, additionally, _actually produce_ said action. Under existing the "fire in a crowded theater standard" suggested here, yelling "FIRE" in a packed theater, but everyone ignoring you would be protected.
For the sake of argument, the law in Samoa under the state of emergency is that you must vaccinate. Is the accused not attempting to incite lawless behavior by telling people to not vaccinate? If one person resists because they read his FB posts, that seems enough to me.
American law doesn't apply in Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa). But for the sake of argument, yes, it would satisfy part of one element ("directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action"). However it wouldn't satisfy the imminence requirement. Further, it would not satisfy the other ("is likely to incite or produce such action").
It's fairly easy to see that this is the case just by looking at what Americans have actually said. A memorable example to me was Zach de la Rosa telling the crowd at Coachella 2007 that every President since Truman should be lined up and shot. That is absolutely inciting lawless action, but no one with any kind of understanding of US free speech law would suggest he could be prosecuted.
I guess we don't know exactly what was posted from the article, but I was imagining that it wasn't just "Vaccines are bad" but rather something more like "Don't open your door when the emergency vaccinators come around", which would be advocating for imminent action.
I still think the only reason this wouldn't be illegal in the US is that the underlying law forcing vaccination would probably be unconstitutional, not that the First Amendment protects anti-vaxx speech indefinitely.
The US has applied imminent incredibly narrowly. "Don't open your door when the emergency vaccinators come around" would absolutely be protected speech in the US.
One man's rights can't be violated to save a few hundred/thousand lives?
Ideally, they shouldn't be but in a state of emergency, you can bet they will be and the Courts can sort it out after the fact.
It's not exactly like they took him out back and shot him for disagreeing. Though, it would be super ironic if he caught measles while locked up.
Going the Sith route, eh?
But seriously, parts of the Patriot Act are still in use and enforceable, and so far neither party has seriously taken any attempts to do away with it.
Is that "right" or "just" or "fair"? Hell no. But nobody ever said this life is fair.
I agree with your take. Other comments are going into freedom of speech or anti vaxxers and I think those are complicated issues but aren't quite the crux of this story.
