Let’s Get Real About Free Speech | Greg Lukianoff | TED — Transcript

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1. 0:04"Shut it down."
2. 0:07That was the order given by angry students
3. 0:10in response to a pro-Israel speaker.
4. 0:13This is UC Berkeley, 2024,
5. 0:16and pro-Palestinian students were determined
6. 0:19not to let this talk happen.
7. 0:22A call to action went out on social media
8. 0:24urging students to shut down the event,
9. 0:27and nearly 200 students showed up.
10. 0:30They attacked the venue,
11. 0:32they broke down a door,
12. 0:34they broke a window,
13. 0:35and they forced the speaker to flee.
14. 0:39Now I have defended the free speech rights of literally thousands of students
15. 0:43and their right to protest.
16. 0:45But you do not have the right to shut down someone else's talk
17. 0:49and decide for everyone else who they are allowed to hear.
18. 0:54(Applause)
19. 1:01That is mob censorship, not freedom of speech.
20. 1:05But unfortunately,
21. 1:062023 and 2024 were the two worst years for mob censorship
22. 1:12and shout downs on record.
23. 1:15Now to be clear,
24. 1:17not all speech is protected, nor should it be.
25. 1:20There are certain categories of speech acts,
26. 1:22like incitement to violence,
27. 1:24harassment and true threats that aren't protected.
28. 1:28Indeed, if there is such a thing as a free speech absolutist,
29. 1:32I have never met one.
30. 1:35But I am an opinion absolutist.
31. 1:39I believe that all opinions should be protected,
32. 1:42and your right to free speech is a human right.
33. 1:45But I also believe everyone's opinion is crucial data to have about the world.
34. 1:52But then again, I'm the weird law student
35. 1:54who went to law school specifically to study freedom of speech
36. 1:58and the First Amendment.
37. 2:00There was this one dude who actually laughed at me
38. 2:02that I would never find a job in this field.
39. 2:06Well, joke's on him.
40. 2:08I've been doing this now for 25 years
41. 2:10at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression,
42. 2:13FIRE.
43. 2:15(Applause)
44. 2:19And that 25 years of experience has allowed me
45. 2:22to see both how far students have fallen from understanding freedom of speech,
46. 2:28but also how principled
47. 2:30and even joyful they used to be in defense of free speech
48. 2:34not very long ago.
49. 2:37I think of West Virginia University about 20 years ago.
50. 2:40It was a lefty student group,
51. 2:42and they were objecting to a free-speech zone policy.
52. 2:47Free speech zones is an Orwellian name
53. 2:49for these policies that actually restrict
54. 2:51and quarantine free speech to little tiny corners of campus.
55. 2:56They thought this was ridiculous,
56. 2:58so they protested the zone outside of the zone.
57. 3:01And what would happen is sometimes locals would walk by
58. 3:04and they'd make fun of the students.
59. 3:06They’d heckle them, they’d insult them.
60. 3:08Want to know what these students did in response?
61. 3:11They cheered their hecklers.
62. 3:15They believed -- and I love these students,
63. 3:17I absolutely love them for this --
64. 3:19they understood that free speech belongs to everyone
65. 3:22or it belongs to no one.
66. 3:25But unfortunately, today, not just students,
67. 3:27I feel like too many people believe in something closer to freedom from speech
68. 3:32rather than freedom of speech.
69. 3:35But I'm not willing to accept that.
70. 3:38I believe that there are four truths that everyone needs to understand
71. 3:41that can help get us back to understanding
72. 3:44and appreciating free speech.
73. 3:47And they are:
74. 3:49one, free speech makes us safer.
75. 3:53Two, free speech cures violence.
76. 3:58Three, free speech protects the powerless.
77. 4:01And four, even bad people can have good ideas.
78. 4:06So let's start.
79. 4:08Free speech makes you safer.
80. 4:10My mentor is a civil libertarian named Harvey Silverglate,
81. 4:14and he spent his career in part defending freedom of speech,
82. 4:17both on and off campus.
83. 4:19But when the idea started to hit campus, maybe back in the '80s,
84. 4:23that bigoted or hurtful or hateful speech had to be banned,
85. 4:27he would say,
86. 4:29"I'd prefer to know who the Nazis in the room are.
87. 4:33So I know who not to turn my back to."
88. 4:37Now Harvey was right.
89. 4:39It's about knowledge.
90. 4:41Simply, you are not safer for knowing less
91. 4:46about what people really think.
92. 4:49(Applause)
93. 4:54Gosh, you're making me blush.
94. 4:56(Laughter)
95. 4:59So I'll give you an example.
96. 5:02And I hate to break this to everyone here at TED,
97. 5:05but lizard people,
98. 5:07who live under the Denver airport,
99. 5:10do not, in fact, control the world.
100. 5:13(Laughter)
101. 5:15They don't, I'm sorry.
102. 5:17But knowing that your future husband thinks they do
103. 5:21or your congressman thinks they do
104. 5:24or every single one of your neighbors thinks they do
105. 5:27is pretty important information to have.
106. 5:30(Laughter)
107. 5:31To understand the world, you must know what people really think.
108. 5:36Truth number two.
109. 5:38Free speech cures violence.
110. 5:42About half of Americans, by some estimates more,
111. 5:46believe that words can be violence.
112. 5:48And this is especially true,
113. 5:49it's actually much worse on American college campuses.
114. 5:52Ann Coulter, conservative,
115. 5:54tried to speak at Cornell a couple of years back,
116. 5:56and her speech was also shouted down.
117. 5:59And students actually literally shouted:
118. 6:02"Your words are violence."
119. 6:05Now I have experienced real violence.
120. 6:09I was once punched out, I was randomly assaulted.
121. 6:12I got a concussion,
122. 6:14and I couldn't see out of this eye for a month.
123. 6:18Worse, one of my friends was stabbed in the chest.
124. 6:22And I was there.
125. 6:24It was right here.
126. 6:27There was blood everywhere,
127. 6:29and I was sure he was going to die.
128. 6:32That's violence.
129. 6:35And we insult the victims of actual violence
130. 6:39by equating words with bloody violence.
131. 6:42(Applause)
132. 6:47Free speech is not violence.
133. 6:49It's the best alternative to violence ever invented.
134. 6:53Truth number three.
135. 6:55Free speech protects the powerless.
136. 6:59I fear, and I noticed this about 15 years ago,
137. 7:01that people were showing up on my radar,
138. 7:05who seemed to have been taught that free speech is a cynical tool
139. 7:09of the three Bs:
140. 7:11the bully,
141. 7:13the bigot
142. 7:14and the robber baron.
143. 7:16Now this is just bad history.
144. 7:19So historically, the robber baron, the wealthy and powerful,
145. 7:23have not needed a special protection for free speech
146. 7:26because they are wealthy and powerful.
147. 7:30And historically, the bully and the bigot,
148. 7:33in a democratic society, if they have the votes,
149. 7:36they still get to call the shots.
150. 7:39You only need a special protection for freedom of speech,
151. 7:42like the First Amendment,
152. 7:44for people who are either unpopular with power
153. 7:48or unpopular with the majority.
154. 7:51This is why revolutionary figures like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells,
155. 7:56Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King
156. 8:00and Nelson Mandela all championed freedom of speech.
157. 8:04It's why John Lewis, someone I got to meet, actually,
158. 8:08because he was in my neighborhood a lot,
159. 8:10the great John Lewis, civil rights icon,
160. 8:14he would argue, he would often say that without freedom of speech,
161. 8:19the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings.
162. 8:23They understood that free speech was not the weapon of the powerful.
163. 8:27It is the best check on power ever invented.
164. 8:32Now, truth number four.
165. 8:34(Applause)
166. 8:36Even bad people can have good ideas.
167. 8:40So much time is wasted in social media debates --
168. 8:43I can just probably end the sentence there --
169. 8:45(Laughter)
170. 8:46But so much time is wasted in social media debates
171. 8:49trying to establish that your opponent is a bad person.
172. 8:53As if that's the same thing as saying that they're wrong.
173. 8:57Hopefully, by now we understand that good people aren't always right,
174. 9:02good people aren't always right,
175. 9:04and bad people aren't always wrong.
176. 9:06I mean, like it or not,
177. 9:08people with truly awful beliefs have made massive contributions.
178. 9:13Take Wernher von Braun.
179. 9:16Rocket scientist, got us to the Moon.
180. 9:20Also Nazi.
181. 9:24Or take Genghis Khan.
182. 9:26Absolutely spectacular for trade routes.
183. 9:29(Laughter)
184. 9:30But ...
185. 9:32Or take someone like Thomas Malthus,
186. 9:36reportedly a kind and thoughtful man.
187. 9:40But his ideas on overpopulation actually were used to justify famines
188. 9:45and mass sterilization.
189. 9:47Or take another Thomas,
190. 9:49Thomas More, great intellectual and literal saint
191. 9:54who also burned people.
192. 9:57To death.
193. 10:00But morality and accuracy don't always line up.
194. 10:04So I want you guys to do a little exercise with me.
195. 10:07This is participation time.
196. 10:10Participation time.
197. 10:11So please, look at your neighbor, look at your neighbor,
198. 10:15and repeat this after me.
199. 10:16You're really getting into it, I love it.
200. 10:18(Laughter)
201. 10:20Repeat after me.
202. 10:22Just because I hate your guts doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
203. 10:27(Laughter)
204. 10:28Just because I hate your guts doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
205. 10:33Yes.
206. 10:34Thank you so much.
207. 10:36(Applause)
208. 10:38OK, OK.
209. 10:40I know nobody hates each other at TED.
210. 10:42(Laughter)
211. 10:44But it kind of points out
212. 10:45how just labeling someone bad is kind of meaningless.
213. 10:49So, like, for that matter, labeling someone, I don't know,
214. 10:52like, woke or fascist or libtard or grifter,
215. 10:57it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they are right.
216. 11:01The way we figure out truth is a process of checking and rechecking,
217. 11:05and it doesn't work if you just talk to people you already agree with.
218. 11:10(Applause)
219. 11:16And think about the poster boy
220. 11:20for questioning his society's sacred cows and certainties.
221. 11:23This is, of course, the great Socrates.
222. 11:26He was so good at questioning certainties and sacred cows
223. 11:30that he angered his society so much
224. 11:32they made him poison himself.
225. 11:35To death.
226. 11:39Socrates embodied the idea that certainty is the mind killer.
227. 11:46Young people used to be the great drivers of free speech,
228. 11:50and they can be again.
229. 11:52But for that to happen,
230. 11:54we all must remember that to understand the world,
231. 11:58it's crucial to know what people really think.
232. 12:03And that is only going to happen in a situation
233. 12:06in which people feel like they can be their authentic selves.
234. 12:10And for that, we need free speech.
235. 12:15Thank you.
236. 12:16(Applause and cheers)