TED演讲：为什么言论自由是正常社会的免疫系统？（附视频&演讲稿）

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众所周知，言论自由是一项基本人权，它是指公民可以享有对政治与社会问题表达个人见解与思想的权利。

今天分享一个美国律师奥林·约翰逊在TEDx的关于“言论自由”的演讲，他在演讲中说：当有些思想或观点是否太危险，不能听？我们是否应该给政治家以权力，将 "仇恨言论 "定为非法？或者我们应该继续信任（美国）第一修正案，因为我们知道，接触到令人反感的想法，以及其他人反对这些想法的权利会使我们接种疫苗，使我们作为一个社会更加强大？

奥林·约翰逊以两个与内华达大学里诺分校有联系的人科林·卡佩尼克和彼得·克杰塔诺维奇为例，解释了为什么言论自由是社会的免疫系统。

Why free speech is

society's immune system

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Our absolute right to free speech, the ability to publicly share ideas, a right that is absolutely protected by the First Amendment, is civil society's immune system.

It's not just ideal, it's necessary to ensure a healthy society.

We are more secure, safer and stronger when any idea or philosophy, however repugnant, is exposed to sunlight and debate.

Last August, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a group of self-described White Nationalists, went marching through the streets waving torches and shouting slogans associated with Nazis.

Protesters predictably appeared and one of those protesters was murdered, when a man sympathetic with the White Nationalists, drove his car into thir crowd.

"Hate speech killed that woman," people said, ironically excusing the murderer himself.

and my Facebook feed was suddenly filled with my friends on the left demanding that we water down the First Amendment by outlawing hate speech.

There is one meme in particular that caught my attention and it went something like this: Nazism is illegal in Germany, flying Nazi flags and giving Nazi greetings is illegal in Germany.

So why isn't the KKK unconstitutional here? Why aren't white hoods and white supremacist propaganda illegal in America? Why? Because Germany is ashamed of its bigotry and America is proud.

Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is ridiculous.

Germany outlaws Nazi speech because on some level, Germans don't trust themselves.

A society that bans speech is a society that is so terrified that it can be seduced by evil, that it tries to hide itself away in a bubble and pretend that bad things, bad ideas and bad people don't even exist.

Only the timid and the fearful demand that the government, people with guns, prevent bad ideas from being spoken aloud.

And history is littered with the regrets of people who've had that wish fulfilled.

In America, most of us are so confident in our society's ability to resist evil, that we're not afraid to hear it spoken aloud and we are right.

The reason we can be unafraid is because the exposure to offensive ideas, and more importantly, the ability of other people to refute those ideas, innoculates us, it makes us stronger and more resistant.

We are going to test that theory today with a couple of people who are associated with the University of Nevada in Reno.

And we are going to start with this guy.

This is former university student, Peter Cvetanovich, who was marching with the White Nationalists in Charlottesville.

So, let's share his ideas today: that skin colour matters, that white people need to march through the streets waving torches, to stick up for their race.

This, audience, is America.

Is there anybody here who is proud of this guy's bigotry? Is there anybody here who's suddenly been converted to this repugnant point of view, simply by having been exposed to it? Is anybody that weak-willed? Has this caused anybody to lose control of themselves? I don't see any cars driving through the crowds, so that's good.

no writhing, no chairs are on fire.

Now, later interviews of this young man show him to be what he is: pitiable and foolish.

He is only scary in the dark of night when we can't see who and what he actually is.

And his ideas, like all disgusting things, only grow and thrive in dark, dank, and hidden away places.

There is an online petition to actually get him expelled from school or to get him fired from his job with the university.

But ladies and gentlemen, we want to see him in the light of day.

We want to hear his ideas put up against better ones.

Because sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Seeing it, exposing it, examining it, laughing at it, that's how you make ideas like this lose power.

And that's how an idea like that could take control of the government populous, of a country like Germany that was afraid, but it can never happen here as long as we remain proud and confident of our freedoms.

So then we have this guy, professional football player Colin Kaepernick, who is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nevada.

Now, kneeling as he is doing in this picture for the national anthem is deeply offensive to a lot of people, and I am one of them.

I am a veteran of three military deployments.

It's not anywhere near as disgusting as a White Supremacist shouting Nazi slogans but there are people out there who think: "This needs to be shut down," that this represents some kind of threat to the republic.

We see this debate come up periodically when politicians, mostly those on the right, vote for constitutional amendments which would ban flag burning.

But I think it's a great opportunity to try this experiment again.

So, who in this audience has now been inspired by Mr Kaepernick, to renounce their patriotism, or to commit treason against the USA? Is there anybody down for a little armed overthrow of the government and its institutions? For those of us who are offended, still no writhing, I don't see any chairs on fire.

Now, I think that Mr Kaepernick is foolish for this, this is a guy who didn't even bother to vote in the last presidential election, nonetheless, he's risen to the top of American society and made millions of dollars based on his talent and hard work.

He's clearly ignorant of the tens of millions of people worldwide that American power, both hard and soft, has liberated from the murder of Nazism and the slavery of international communism.

And I think that it is also ignorant of the good work Tens of thousands of community police officers do every day in this country.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is self-aggrandising nonsense.

He's not risking anything.

The only thing he did was make himself marginally more relevant on the back end of a short football career.

But the thing I think is worst of all, is that the way he went about this protest invited such a push back that actually makes it harder to address truly legitimate concerns that this protest might otherwise represent.

But banning him? Hiding him away? Punishing him? Making him a martyr? Our country is so strong that it can withstand criticism both legitimate and illegitimate.

Our country isn't a song or a piece of cloth.

It's an idea.

And it's the idea that freedom self perpetuates.

It's the idea that we don't give a politician that we like the power to shut down the wrong ideas because that means some day a politician will come along that we don't like and he'll have that same power.

And so, with that in mind, let's do one more experiment.

Who are here today as willing to give president Trump the power to: A) decide what speech is okay, and b) the power to punish speech he doesn't think is okay.

Me either.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.

互联网时代言论自由的边界

The limits on free speech in the internet era

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How quickly, in a crisis, the unthinkable can become reality. If it might have seemed fanciful a week ago that a US president could incite insurrection or face a second impeachment in a single term, so, too, would the prospect of social media platforms barring the “leader of the free world”. The bans by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on President Donald Trump raise profound issues — of freedom of speech, and the precedents they may set for less free societies. While the “permanent” nature of Twitter’s suspension is questionable, however, not acting would have created even bigger risks.

在一场危机中，先前难以想象的事情也能够迅速变成现实。如果说在一周前，一位美国总统煽动叛乱或者在一届任期内面临第二次弹劾听起来还像天方夜谭的话，那么众多社交媒体平台封禁这位“自由世界领袖”，那时看来也是难以想象的事情。Twitter、Facebook、Instagram封禁美国总统唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)账号之举，引发了围绕言论自由、以及它们可能为不那么自由的社会开创何种先例的激烈争论。然而，虽然Twitter是否应该“永久”地封禁特朗普账号值得商榷，但不采取行动将会造成更大风险。

In the exceptional circumstances of America today, platform companies were right to suspend Mr Trump’s access at least until the end of his presidential term. The president has glorified violence and egged on a challenge to US institutions that left five dead. Critics are right to say the move came cynically late. The president has repeatedly flouted the platforms’ user rules. Had the platforms acted earlier to remove offending presidential posts selectively, the need for tougher actions might have been averted.

在美国如今所处的这种特殊情况下，平台公司封禁特朗普账号的做法——至少直至他的总统任期结束——是正确的。特朗普美化暴力，煽动对美国的机构进行挑战，由此引发的暴力事件已导致5人死亡。批评人士说的没错，可悲的是这些禁令推出得太迟了。特朗普一再藐视这些平台的用户规则。如果这些平台能早点采取行动，选择性地删除特朗普的违规帖子，可能就无需采取更强硬的行动了。

Police had good reason for concern, moreover, that the president’s supporters were using both mainstream and more niche platforms to plot further violence. That justifies moves by Apple, Google and Amazon to restrict access to Parler, the “alt-tech” Twitter alternative beloved of the radical right.

此外，警方有充分理由担忧，特朗普的支持者正在同时利用主流以及更小众的平台策划更多暴力事件。正因如此，苹果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)和亚马逊(Amazon)下架Parler是正当的。Parler是一款深受激进右翼人士喜爱的、替代Twitter的应用。

These are, without doubt, complex ethical issues. German chancellor Angela Merkel criticised Twitter’s indefinite suspension of Mr Trump as a breach of the “fundamental right to free speech”. Alexei Navalny, the Russian anti-corruption blogger, said it could be “exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world”.

毫无疑问，这些都是复杂的道德问题。德国总理安格拉•默克尔(Angela Merkel)批评Twitter无限期封禁特朗普账号侵犯了“基本的言论自由权利”。俄罗斯反腐博主阿列克谢•纳瓦尔尼(Alexei Navalny)称，这种做法开创的先例可能被“世界各地反对言论自由的人士利用”。

Yet America’s ability to promote democracy and political freedoms elsewhere collapses if it cannot defend its own. While some question why US enemies retain Twitter access while Mr Trump is barred, the president has unique power to undermine American democracy, should he so choose. It is misleading to suggest Mr Trump has been “silenced” when he retains access to the powerful US presidential pulpit.

然而，如果美国无法捍卫本国的民主和政治自由，它在其他地方推动民主和政治自由的能力就会瓦解。虽然有人质疑为什么美国的敌人都可以使用Twitter而特朗普却遭到封禁，但特朗普作为美国总统在破坏美国民主方面拥有独特的力量——如果他选择这样做的话。特朗普仍占据具有强大影响力的美国总统讲坛，因此称他被“噤声”是一种误导。

Free speech, moreover, cannot be wholly untrammelled. Liberals should be wary of their own arguments being misused to undermine what they believe in. Constraints are legitimate on hate speech and online incitement. Though the cultural context is very different, Ms Merkel notes the US would be better to follow Germany in passing laws restricting such behaviour than leaving it to social media platforms to devise and police their own rules.

此外，言论自由不能完全不受约束。自由主义者应警惕自己的理论被滥用，以至破坏他们笃信的原则。对仇恨言论和网络煽动进行限制是有合法性的。虽然两国的文化背景迥然不同，但默克尔指出，美国最好效仿德国，制定限制此类行为的法律，而不是任由社交媒体平台自行制定和实施它们自己的规则。

Such legal restraints in the US might run into First Amendment problems. Yet recent days highlight above all the need for debate on the limits of American free speech and the power of the tech companies. Clearer regulation must be a priority for the incoming Biden administration and for Congress.

在美国，此类法律限制可能会与宪法《第一修正案》(First Amendment)发生冲突。然而，最近几天最明显的一点是，有必要就限制美国的言论自由和科技公司的力量展开辩论。更清晰的监管必须成为即将上台的拜登政府以及美国国会优先处理的事项。

That may not mean repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives internet companies immunity for user-generated content on their sites. But it should at least be reformed, with exemptions extended to cover, for example, incitement to violence or terrorist propaganda. A more effective redress mechanism is needed.

这并不意味着要废除《通信规范法》(Communications Decency Act)第230条——该条款规定互联网公司无需为其网站上用户生成的内容承担责任。但至少应该对该条款进行修订，使煽动暴力或恐怖主义宣传等行为不受该条款保护。还需要一项更有效的纠正机制。

What cannot be overlooked, either, is the responsibility of conventional TV outlets such as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which has enabled Mr Trump for too long, and according to one study has been more influential in spreading false beliefs than social media. The UK, which has given approval for a Murdoch-owned “opinionated” news channel, should pay careful heed.

同样不能忽视的是一些传统电视媒体的责任，例如鲁珀特•默多克(Rupert Murdoch)的福克斯新闻(Fox News)，后者已经为特朗普充当了太久的发声筒，而且一项研究显示，福克斯新闻在传播虚假信息方面的影响力比社交媒体更大。英国已批准一个默多克拥有的、“持有自己立场”的新闻频道开播，美国的事态应促使英国三思。