Category Archives: mark friedman

The First Amendment to our Constitution provides a near absolute level of protection against governmental censorship of expression based on its content. There are no exceptions for even obviously false statements or those that most people would regard as offensive or hateful. I defend the (non-utilitarian) moral basis for this protection in Chapter 3 of my Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World, and more casually here.

Some restrictions on speech, not based on the ideas presented, are morally permissible. For example, the state should punish expression that credibly threatens violence or seeks to incite it because this is an example of a crime committed by means of expression. Similarly, there is no constitutional protection for “Your money or your life!” or for publishing information on troop movements during wartime.  Finally, state officials, provided that they do so in a fair and neutral way, may legitimately regulate the “time, place, and manner” of expression, so that the rights of other innocent citizens are not violated. There are gray areas, but the principle is clear-cut.

By its terms, the First Amendment applies only to Congress, but has been extended to the various states and their instrumentalities (administrative agencies, universities, etc.) by the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not apply to private citizens, groups, associations, and corporations. Thus, large social media providers (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and platforms (Reddit, etc.) may enforce markedly different rules, and they do. For instance, Facebook’s “Community Standards” expressly bans “hate speech,” which it defines as:

a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability. We also provide some protections for immigration status. We define attack as violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation.

Continue Reading »