Aside from the obvious (it is clearly somewhat tongue-in-cheek, especially given the author's sense of humor) the truth is that the U.S. still has some unsettled business regarding what counts as protected speech. The past few decades have seen a lot of debate and legal back-and-forth regarding what to do with lolicon and shotacon illustrations, which FSE also addresses in another linked post[1]. (Not sure if any other remnants of obscenity law still exist: I'm sure they do, they just don't seem to come up very often online.) In any case, it seems like their fediverse server runs on the idea that if it's legally protected speech it should generally be allowed, or at least not disallowed on the basis that it's gross or something like that. Personally, I can get behind the spirit even if I'm not sure I'm in to go along for the ride. I definitely lean in that general direction. (The counter example would be, well, basically every other fediverse instance. They get pretty long on the rules and instance block lists.)
> The past few decades have seen a lot of debate and legal back-and-forth regarding what to do with lolicon and shotacon illustrations
wild that of all the examples you could choose to bring up, this is the one. not saying the conversation doesn't need to happen, but i think there are a lot more concrete examples that affect many more people that come to mind first.
for GP, there are a lot of other contested ideas around what constitutes free/protected speech in america that aren't related to pedophilia - much of it revolves around political speech, especially with Citizens United (the supreme court case that effectively declared monetary support for political causes to be considered "free speech"). conversely, ground-up economic speech (such as BDS) is often stifled (even calling for boycotts etc under the BDS framework is not considered protected speech in some places).
As far as protected speech as it relates to the Internet and American law though, I don't think I've really seen anything that has been debated quite as much, and not only that, it actually seems to have picked up considerable heat over time rather than quieting down. It first came around (at least in any way that I noticed it) with the Chris Handley case in 2008 and has become a serious point of debate online especially with younger people.
Citizen's United isn't even really about free expression IMO, and I personally don't think people are all that split on it anyways, I think it's just a case where the people and the establishment disagree. BDS I'm simply not familiar with.
It does seem that there are new mounting challenges to free expression right now, but they're relatively new and it's unclear if they will stick around yet.
> Citizen's United isn't even really about free expression IMO
unfortunately, it is about free expression in the opinion of the supreme court:
'the Court found that laws restricting the political spending of corporations and unions are inconsistent with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.' [0]
BDS is a topical instance of a bottom-up movement recommending boycotting, divestment and sanctions against organizations that are considered to materially support the israelli government. naturally, you can imagine this attracts strong opinions from many sides. in some cases, states/municipalities have deemed this to be unprotected speech. [1]
Oh that is a good point, I have heard of some free expression debate going on around the Israel/Palestine conflict lately.
I think the reason those don't come to mind is because even though they really do regard the interpretation of free speech law, they don't actually feel like they're about expression. When it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict though, even the opinion that it isn't really about free expression might be controversial, so clearly it is.
"Extremist" is just a pejorative variant of "radical". I assume they're using it tongue-in-cheek.
When it comes to speech, it's really not hard to imagine positions that would have been controversial at any point in the history of the US. That doesn't mean you can't hold them, but others don't need to agree, and that's how you end up with labels of this sort.
Aside from the bit about "frontiers", Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is pretty straightforward:
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
As is the First Amendment to the US Constitution:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I can't speak for Pete. However, given that the expressed position of influential portions of the US government (as well as many of my peers and acquaintances) runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Article 19 and the spirit (if not the letter) of the First Amendment, I consider myself to be a free speech extremist.
Because there are inumerable forms of banned speech. Because freedom of speech is in reality a very narrow construct. See Hustler Magazine v. Falwell 1998.... or just watch the last few scenes of the movie.
You're asking that on a story specifically describing how the FBI is either avoiding or directly violating the constitutional restrictions they are supposed to follow?
I'm sorry, how did the FBI violate anyone's First Amendment rights here? Where in this story did they take down content? Where did they compel speech or silence or association?
LMAO you do not have a first amendment right to not be investigated for making threats in public, even if those threats are baseless! You do not have a right to baselessly threaten people!
Their agents were bypassing OP's security measures (and breaking the CFAA) to make an extremely broad search of their papers. That's absolutely a Fourth Amendment violation.
The courts have held that the rights in the constitution have limits. Generally, anyone operating outside of the limits would be called an extremist when someone disagrees with them.
A feature of extremists is that they tend to support one cause over all others. They see no room for compromise or balancing of concerns. A breathing extremist may prioritize breathing over eating food and drinking water which are also important for survival.
While, from an immediacy standpoint, breathing is the higher priority, if you prioritize breathing continuously to the exclusion of drinking and eating, you will have problems on the 3-5 day and 8-21 day horizons.
Because the US has very unfree speech, despite what someone wrote on a piece of paper in 17-whatever year.
In general, the US ranks pretty low on most freedom metrics, except for the freedom to kill with a gun. In general, the more your country has to tell you you're free, the less free you actually are.
Many other countries explicitly do not have free speech in their constitution, but something more narrow, like freedom of opinion. In those countries, what rights the constitution says you get, and what rights you actually get, tend to be more closely in alignment.
US ranks 78 of 80 on the Free Speech Index here, not sure what your metrics are that make it supposedly "very unfree". Perhaps you'd like to share with the class?
>There has been debate over whether the laws violate the right to free speech and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) have challenged many of them in court cases.
Freedom of noise might be more descriptive than freedom of speech, in so far as the Western democracies are concerned.
In the US unlimited money has unlimited political power, so free speech, is irrelevant to power distribution, although it might have some academic or personal value for some.
