I can’t help but feel like you’re drawing this freedom along arbitrary limits. If something is subject to whether it’s popular shouldn’t there be forces who influence that?
>I can’t help but feel like you’re drawing this freedom along arbitrary limits
I'm not. Saying that freedom of speech is for unpopular opinions doesn't imply it only protects unpopular opinions, any more than saying that wheelchair ramps are for wheelchairs doesn't imply only wheelchair people can use it.
If we’re discussing wheelchair ramps we are going to default to matters related to people in wheelchairs first because they are who the ramps are for.
Whether a person is in a wheelchair and the access that wheelchair ramps are meant to provide them is seldom arbitrary. Is it not? For example, there are comprehensive laws in the US that regulate them.
You said freedom of speech is exactly what unpopular opinions are for. What do you mean? If popularity isn’t subject to the arbitrary whims of people then how is it determined?
Can popularity be regulated like wheelchair accessibility? If so then how is it anything but inevitable that someone’s freedom of speech will be restricted depending on the nature of the law.
>Whether a person is in a wheelchair and the access that wheelchair ramps are meant to provide them is seldom arbitrary. Is it not? For example, there are comprehensive laws in the US that regulate them.
There's also comprehensive case law on what is first amendment protected speech, but how "comprehensive" the relevant regulations are is irrelevant to my point. Despite regulations clearly intending wheelchair ramps to be used by people in wheelchairs, anyone can use them. We don't ask "how is a wheelchair user determined" or whatever.
> We don't ask "how is a wheelchair user determined" or whatever.
Because it’s obvious who’s in a wheelchair and who isn’t.
Why does it appear difficult for you to explain un/popularity with regard to free speech though?
If you want to make the point that popularity could be determined by case law then that sounds fair, I mean it’s an idea I would look into myself at least. But you’ve already deemed that to be irrelevant to your own point. It’s like you shot yourself in the foot. I appreciate the assistance though.
I'm more interested in how moderators react to such accounts. There are a couple accounts that do stuff like that, but somehow they are always "just on the line" somehow without crossing it (in the eyes of moderators). Essentially saying "kill all {insert race}" is bannable, but what this person is doing (continuously) is all good.
I think that the difference may be whether the comment portrays the person as the cat or the mouse, or an ally to either.
For instance: the recent thread on student protests in Iran which last I checked (before the discussion propelled the actual submission off of the front page) was teeming with tacit appeals for foreign intervention, plausibly by the most vocal critics of the most likely interventionists.
Maybe not the best example for you. But I think it’s a matter of context. A comment is censurable on HN according to how it appears in relation to its more dominate and/or more well-received siblings.
It also may help to consider submissions here as belonging to something like a decentralized subreddits; drawing crowds all familiar with an approved narratives to convene around, for or against respectively. The trick may be to strategically posit your offensive remarks where they’re least likely to be received as such.
