What do you consider freedom of speech?

Pretty close to how it works now in the US. No libel, no copyright infringement, no threats or inciting riots. Pretty much anything else goes.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz Pretty close to how it works now in the US. No libel, no copyright infringement, no threats or inciting riots. Pretty much anything else goes.

What about paying huge sums of money to bombard television with political ads? Does that count as freedom of speech?

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Original post by ChurchSkiz Pretty close to how it works now in the US. No libel, no copyright infringement, no threats or inciting riots. Pretty much anything else goes.

Mine is pretty close to yours...
No libel, no copyright infringement, no threats or inciting riots, no dumb ass questions in the forums. Pretty much anything else goes.

I like the line "Your rights end where my nose begins".

Freedom of speech means you can say or act out whatever you want. You can criticize whatever you want. But that right stops when it gets to another person.

It does not grant you the ability to violate MY rights.



So you have a right to say what you want, but I have a right to be compensated for my creations. You the right to discuss my creations and mock my creations, but you don't have the right to take them for your own.

You have the right to speak about any issue in a civil manner. That includes anything from discussing civil disobedience to discussing socially offensive material in a restricted environment. You are free to discuss any topic without reprisals.

When the speech would impact another person's rights, the time, place, and manner of the speech are important.


You have a right to yell and scream all you want, but I am not compelled to listen to you.

You have the right to protest, but in an appropriate time, place, and manner. For example, protesting with megaphones across the street from a funeral is not appropriate. Walking among the throngs of a religious gathering and burning crosses is not appropriate. Using a blaring PA system in a residential area at midnight is not appropriate.

Time/place/manner restrictions are a good thing, just like restraining orders are a good thing. You can do your free speech in one place, and I can do my free speech in another place, and we can all live our lives peaceably. It does not restrict what we can say, but it does restrict how we say it.

To me, freedom of speech is being able to voice your opinion without being punished for the views expressed.

If there is a law that abridges somebodies freedom of speech, it can't be because of the viewpoint expressed. For example, if a tea party person were to shout out on a megaphone in the middle of night about how Obama is a communist Nazi, he would be punished for disturbing the peace - not because he is speaking out against Obama. If somebody wants to speak out against a particular law, that is perfectly acceptable. If he is actively encouraging people to break that law, then that is a problem and he should be punished accordingly.

I also don't believe that limiting campaign contributions or restricting the amount of money spent on political advertisements is an inherit strike against freedom of speech. As long as the restrictions are uniform across the political spectrum and not set up to stifle a particular ideology, I am fine with this. The purpose of such measures would be to limit the influence of money in politics, not to silence political views.

I think they should limit campaign contributions. I don't understand how limiting campaign funds limits free speech in any way shape or form - It may reduce the cost of the blow-horn, but I can't see how this limits what the message of the candidate can be. The way I see it, it's just a way to ensure the rich have a louder voice.

Two things I disagree with:

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Original post by frob I like the line "Your rights end where my nose begins". Freedom of speech means you can say or act out whatever you want. You can criticize whatever you want. But that right stops when it gets to another person. It does not grant you the ability to violate MY rights.

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Original post by ManaStone To me, freedom of speech is being able to voice your opinion without being punished for the views expressed.

Freedom of speech does not give you the right to criticize people, but rather opinions that a person might have. As far as vilolating the rights of other people, that's a touchy subject that I'm not going to get into at the moment.

Also, I would say that it allows you to voice your opinion without being legally punished for it. Freedom of speech guarantees nothing else. You accept responsibility for any and all speech that you say.

That being said, personally I feel freedom of speech is a lie. And that's even if you take into account only what the founding fathers stated of it.

Opinions can sometimes lead to violence because of the responsibility that a person must accept. I'm not talking about violence towards others, rather, violence towards the person who states an unpopular opinion. While the law states that you are protected, there's this little thing called mob justice.

Freedom of speech is designed not to protect the speech that you like or agree with, but it's designed to protect the speech that you don't like. It's designed to protect the instigative speech. The problem comes down to that this type of speech is almost guaranteed to be viewed as stepping on someone else's rights, regardless of if it trully does. And because of that, it's limited, and what's not limited is going to have you punished in a way outside of the law.

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Original post by rethan I think they should limit campaign contributions. I don't understand how limiting campaign funds limits free speech in any way shape or form - It may reduce the cost of the blow-horn, but I can't see how this limits what the message of the candidate can be. The way I see it, it's just a way to ensure the rich have a louder voice.

If a person were note allowed to pay for a commercial endorsing a candidate because they already spent "too much" doing so, they are not free to speak in a way that others can (advertising products on tv, endorsing people for non-government positions that aren't similarly limited by contribution laws, etc).

I agree with the basic idea that freedom of speech is the right to express yourself without limitation or fear of retribution. The problems arise when expressing yourself harms another person. Intent is the main key, but we have no reliable way to objectively determine intent so essentially arbitrary lines are drawn defining what is or is not considered harm.

I don't think advertising or political contributions count as "speech" so would have no problem regulating them (on that basis, there may be other reasons not to). I think the argument for them is that you are having someone speak on your behalf. However it's not actually you speaking. Restricting how much money you can give to a politican doesn't restrict your speech.

I believe in complete freedom of speech. I don't support copyright laws, or laws against slander, or laws against inciting violence or hate speech (I support laws against people following through with violent acts). I don't support any limits on campaign contributions.

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Original post by Myopic Rhino I believe in complete freedom of speech. I don't support copyright laws, or laws against slander, or laws against inciting violence or hate speech (I support laws against people following through with violent acts). I don't support any limits on campaign contributions.

Are you being facetious? Aren't you the owner of this site? I find it hard to believe that the owner of a game development site doesn't believe in copyright laws.

I'm not being the least bit facetious. I'm opposed to nearly all IP-related laws on principle, and I believe that they have stifled innovation and held back progress.

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Original post by Myopic Rhino I'm not being the least bit facetious. I'm opposed to nearly all IP-related laws on principle, and I believe that they have stifled innovation and held back progress.

Do you think a game/book/movie can fairly be enjoyed without compensating the people/company that made it? I guess I'm interested in what you mean by 'nearly'?

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Original post by Extrarius If a person were note allowed to pay for a commercial endorsing a candidate because they already spent "too much" doing so, they are not free to speak in a way that others can (advertising products on tv, endorsing people for non-government positions that aren't similarly limited by contribution laws, etc).

Not sure what you mean by this. If person A has 100 bucks and person B has 200,000,000, then obviously person A will, using your argument, not be "free" to speak in a way that others (person B) can (based on money).

I guess your point is that people should be free to spend whatever amount of money on anything equally, and my point is that there will be inequality no matter what, and I'd rather the inequality be that campaign contributions be limited unlike other ads in favor of equalizing the playing field for candidates no matter what their income, and no matter how deep the pockets happen to be for whoever likes candidate X more. Do you not see that as an issue, or how do you see equality of unrelated ad space on TV as being something greater to worry about than fairness in political campaigns?

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Original post by Extrarius If a person were note allowed to pay for a commercial endorsing a candidate because they already spent "too much" doing so, they are not free to speak in a way that others can (advertising products on tv, endorsing people for non-government positions that aren't similarly limited by contribution laws, etc).

Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom to be heard. A candidate who can't get on tv is free to stand in the public square and say whatever he wants. Having thousands of people hear him at once is not a "right" and is not protected by the constitution.

The intent of the first amendment is to prevent persecution of beliefs, not to put everyone on an equal platform.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz [...]Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom to be heard. A candidate who can't get on tv is free to stand in the public square and say whatever he wants. Having thousands of people hear him at once is not a "right" and is not protected by the constitution. The intent of the first amendment is to prevent persecution of beliefs, not to put everyone on an equal platform.

Being on TV has nothing to do with a right to be heard. Anybody that doesn't want to hear you can watch another channel, or mute the TV, or turn it off and do something else (even more options than they have if you're speaking on a street corner).

Allowing somebody to buy a private place to speak is not putting everybody on equal footing - quite the opposite in fact, since the rich will have a far easier time paying for their commercial to go on TV. Note that I've said nothing about forcing a station to sell to everybody equally. The issue is that anybody that could purchase advertising time on TV is prevented from doing so based on the contents of the speech in the commercial. How is that any different from saying you can speak freely unless you want to talk about the government (especially since in many cases, one of the candidates is already in the office)?

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Original post by Extrarius Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz [...]Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom to be heard. A candidate who can't get on tv is free to stand in the public square and say whatever he wants. Having thousands of people hear him at once is not a "right" and is not protected by the constitution. The intent of the first amendment is to prevent persecution of beliefs, not to put everyone on an equal platform. Being on TV has nothing to do with a right to be heard. Anybody that doesn't want to hear you can watch another channel, or mute the TV, or turn it off and do something else (even more options than they have if you're speaking on a street corner). Allowing somebody to buy a private place to speak is not putting everybody on equal footing - quite the opposite in fact, since the rich will have a far easier time paying for their commercial to go on TV. Note that I've said nothing about forcing a station to sell to everybody equally. The issue is that anybody that could purchase advertising time on TV is prevented from doing so based on the contents of the speech in the commercial. How is that any different from saying you can speak freely unless you want to talk about the government (especially since in many cases, one of the candidates is already in the office)?

Sorry I think I misunderstood your initial post. I'm pretty sure we are in agreement.

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Original post by rethan Do you think a game/book/movie can fairly be enjoyed without compensating the people/company that made it? I guess I'm interested in what you mean by 'nearly'?

I'm not sure what you mean by "fairly enjoyed". I believe (and do) compensate the creators of things I enjoy because I want them to continue to create those things. I just don't support laws forcing me to do so. I think that in a world free of (most) IP laws, creators would simply find different ways to make money. Granted, the landscape would look different from what you're familiar with, but I believe that overall as consumers we'd be better off under such a system than we are now.

There are plenty of examples of this already. There are game companies that give their games away that make money from subscriptions, microtransactions, etc. Bands encourage people to download their mp3s so that more people are aware of them to go to their concerts and buy their merchandise. I know of at least one book publisher that releases all of their titles under Creative Commons, and makes electronic versions of their books freely available for download. Since doing so, their physical book sales have skyrocketed. They even had a competing publisher publish one of their books, but they were able to lower their prices and still beat them in sales.

I say "nearly" and "most" IP because there are certain things that fall under the umbrella of intellectual property that I do support, such as trade secrets (which is merely the enforcement of private contracts) and trademarks (although I think that it should be consumers who punish companies who violate trademarks, not the trademark holder).