Is hurting someone's feelings good reason to limit freedom of speech?

YUpeeping777

CYDdharta said:

Plaffelvohfen said:

@CYDdharta

I still don't see how phone companies relate to this debate at all... Seems you're mixing multiple issues together, privacy issues, free speech issues, property issues... 

Let's tackle them one at a time, let's start with crowdfunding service provider, if you don't like one, try another, what's the problem?? They should not have terms of use or what?? Give me a concrete example of where or how, you think a crowdfunding service provider could infringe on free speech. 

The same could be said of phone companies that decide to turn you down because of your political beliefs.  If Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Boost, MetroPCS, and Virgin all get together an ban all people of a particular political persuasion, what's the big deal?  There's still Cricket and Straight Talk, right?

YUpeeping777

There called our rights and Race creed or color or denomination that’s why we came to America for those freedoms and they’re being choked out of a living breathing document. That’s why we had to take up arms To defend against TierneyThe oppression of Our rights even if it’s it’s our government it’s our duty to overthrow Tierney as it states in the constitution. 

Plaffelvohfen

Who's Tierney?  

CYDdharta

YUpeeping777 said:

Truthfully we supposed to have that right but do the patriot act nothing is ever a private anymore it’s all an illusion and words are for national security they say  it’s still an invasion of our privacy if they want to listen to everyone else’s conversations they do but now they don’t listen to your content it’s all about the meta-data who you talk to and who you’re affiliated so yes you should be able to speak on your phone and say what you like because you pay for that service but read the fine print big brother is listening. 

It was an illusion long before the patriot act.  Look up the ECHELON program.

CYDdharta

Plaffelvohfen said:

Sorry, you've asserted this not WE, I don't agree with you at all that phone conversations are not private... Sure they can be accessed with a legal warrant but no one can access my phone conversations without one...

That's done all the time, and if you're not in a private setting, it's even legal.

Plaffelvohfen

CYDdharta said:

Plaffelvohfen said:

Sorry, you've asserted this not WE, I don't agree with you at all that phone conversations are not private... Sure they can be accessed with a legal warrant but no one can access my phone conversations without one...

That's done all the time, and if you're not in a private setting, it's even legal.

Even if that's the case, it is entirely a privacy right issue not a free speech issue, which is the actual topic of this thread...

CYDdharta

Plaffelvohfen said:

Even if that's the case, it is entirely a privacy right issue not a free speech issue, which is the actual topic of this thread...

Once again, a distinction without a difference.

Plaffelvohfen

@CYDdharta

Once again, a distinction without a difference.

How's that so? I'm interested in hearing this... 

CYDdharta

Plaffelvohfen said:

@CYDdharta

Once again, a distinction without a difference.

How's that so? I'm interested in hearing this... 

What difference does it make if people are being silenced because they have no freedom of speech, or if they have no privacy rights?

Plaffelvohfen

CYDdharta said:

Plaffelvohfen said:

@CYDdharta

Once again, a distinction without a difference.

How's that so? I'm interested in hearing this... 

What difference does it make if people are being silenced because they have no freedom of speech, or if they have no privacy rights?

The difference is that you can't resolve legal privacy problems with legal free speech argumentation and vice-versa... 

CYDdharta

Plaffelvohfen said:

The difference is that you can't resolve legal privacy problems with legal free speech argumentation and vice-versa... 

Thank you for pointing that out.  If you come up with anything pertinent to add, get back to us.

Plaffelvohfen

@CYDdharta

Will do lad! I'm always ready to help!

MayCaesar

Regardless of the ideological considerations, limiting speech based on individually hurt feelings would lead to a civilizational apocalypse. Think about it: anyone can declare that something hurts their feelings, and then that something would have to be limited nationwide. I can even say, "Everything that does not hurt someone else's feelings, hurts mine" - and that is it, nobody logically can say anything any more.

One could say that it does not have to be as extreme as outright ban on any hurtful speech, but the logic behind proposals in usually best explored in them taken to their logical end.

One could also say that only genuinely hurtful speech, as opposed to what we claim hurts us, should be limited - but that is problematic because of how difficult, if not impossible, it is to practically verify the hurt feelings as opposed to the pretense of them.

I would also argue that the only person who can hurt a person is themselves. It is not other people who make us feel hurt when doing something to us, it is how our psychology reacts to that. No one is hurt by the claim that they are ugly - after all, it is just a few random words - but them taking that claim seriously and wanting badly for it not to be true may result in them feeling hurt.

That said, there are good reasons for limiting certain disrupting free speech expressions. One heckler, for example, could halt an event with thousands people participating, and obviously should be shown out. Spammers also can deal a lot of damage online - imagine if someone creates 100 posts an hour here filled with spam messages! And on a funeral, you do not want someone laughing loudly and telling jokes.

There is this notion of "disturbing the peace", where one person does something that poisons the social environment for everyone else, and that can be sometimes something as minor as an inappropriate comment - but it is highly dependable on the context, and hurt feelings alone are not sufficient for treating the speech as such and taking measures to preserve the social environment.