Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Is There an Obligation to Correct False and Oppressive Speech on Social Media?

Saul, Jennifer

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-72154-1_8

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In contrast to a universal duties view, you may think that the costs of counterspeech should primarily fall on institutions, starting with the state (Brettschneider, 2012;Gelber, 2012;Lepoutre, 2017) and encompassing other organizations (Saul, 2021). It is often a matter of public interest that the harms of discriminatory and deceptive speech are mitigated.…”

Section: The Deontic Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the victims of the harmful speech, or by non‐targeted addressees of the harmful utterance, or by mere bystanders. It can be performed by ordinary citizens, or by people in authoritative roles, including state actors acting on society's behalf (Brettschneider, 2012; Gelber, 2012; Lepoutre, 2021; Saul, 2021). Counterspeakers can speak out on their own, or as part of a coordinated group (Buerger, 2021; Friess et al., 2021; Fumagalli, 2021).…”

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The audience may include the person whose speech is being challenged, victims, bystanders, or any combination of these. In many online contexts, counterspeakers cannot know in advance who their actual audience will be (Saul, 2021).…”

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Worries about backfiring are often explained in terms of salience . Some authors claim that counterspeech can increase the salience of the speech it is addressing, or specific pernicious features of that speech (Simpson, 2013, McGowan, 2018, Saul, 2021, Maitra ms). Different mechanisms can link unintended salience to unwelcome outcomes.…”

Section: The Efficacy Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But the impact of this may be overwhelming, as you absorb repeat doses of other people's ire and disdain. In online contexts, heavy individual costs can be incurred in unpredictable ways; for instance, one may become the transient target of an online mob (Aly & Simpson, 2019; Saul, 2021).…”

Section: The Deontic Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Counterspeech

2022

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Counterspeech is communication that tries to counteract potential harm brought about by other speech. Theoretical interest in counterspeech partly derives from a libertarian ideal -as captured in the claim that the solution to bad speech is more speech -and partly from a recognition that well-meaning attempts to counteract harm through speech can easily misfire or backfire. Here we survey recent work on the question of what makes counterspeech effective at remedying or preventing harm, in those cases where it is effective, as well as work investigating when and why there is a duty to engage in counterspeech. We suggest that the most fruitful area for philosophical inquiry on this topic, currently, relates to the questions about efficacy. Specifically, we argue that there is a need for better frameworks for conceptualizing the efficacy of counterspeech. Philosophers have collaborative work to do, alongside social scientists, in developing these frameworks.

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Section: The Deontic Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Efficacy Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Deontic Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Counterspeech

2022

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Understanding Children’s Participation Rights Through a Postdigital Epistemology of Silence

Hanna

2023

Postdigital Science and Education

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A Republican Conception of Counterspeech

Whitten

2023

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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Abstract‘Counterspeech’ is often presented as a way in which individual citizens can respond to harmful speech while avoiding the potentially coercive and freedom-damaging effects of formal speech restrictions. But counterspeech itself can also undermine freedom by contributing to forms of social punishment that manipulate a speaker’s choice set in uncontrolled ways. Specifically, and by adopting a republican perspective, this paper argues that certain kinds of counterspeech can dominate when they contribute to unchecked social norms that enable others to interfere arbitrarily with speakers. The presence of such domination can pose just as much a threat to freedom of speech as unchecked formal restrictions by threatening an individual’s discursive status, revealing a problem for those who defend counterspeech as a freedom-protecting alternative. Rather than rejecting both counterspeech and legislation outright, however, this paper argues that the republican principle of parsimony ought to be exercised when deciding on appropriate harmful speech response. While the principle of parsimony allows for suitably-checked formal punishment for some of the most egregious forms of harmful speech, citizen-led counterspeech must be guided by a reliable set of norms against the use of social punishment where those who do engage in social punishment face certain costs. The presence of robust, widely-known, and reliable norms thus supports both formal and informal responses to harmful speech while maintaining a secure discursive status for all.

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Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Is There an Obligation to Correct False and Oppressive Speech on Social Media?

Cited by 7 publications

References 22 publications

Counterspeech

Counterspeech

Understanding Children’s Participation Rights Through a Postdigital Epistemology of Silence

A Republican Conception of Counterspeech

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