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What problems would absolute free speech have? (fedia.io)

submitted 11 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Say it were implemented in this world and you could say anything you like (written, spoken, signed whatever) to anyone who can hear/read/see it. What kind of problems could that create and are there any ways to resolve them without limiting that absolute free speech?

Could it even create unsolvable logical errors? E.g an omnipotent god can't create a stone too heavy for itself to lift. Maybe there are similar things with absolute free speech.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

Well if it's really absolute then you could legally point a knife at someone and say "give me your money" . You haven't caused physical harm at that point and you're only exercising your freedom of speech.

You could say OK, that's not allowed because you're mugging somebody and that's a threat of violence. But in that case you've carved out an exception for threats of violence and therefore calling for violence against a person or group also becomes not allowed.

What about exceptions for fraud? What about for verbal abuse or harrassment?

And if you're going to have exceptions, then how do you deal with obfuscated language and insinuation? "Would be a real shame if something bad were to happen to your family" - is that allowed? A nice friendly, supportive comment like that? If you can't say that you can't say anything.

Or that's usually how it goes with people defending hate speech or veiled threats of racial violence.