Simpson, Robert;
(2023)
The Chilling Effect and the Heating Effect.
SSRN: Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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Abstract
Chilling Effects occur when a restriction on speech deters lawful speech, because of people’s un-certainty about the risks of incurring costs related to the restriction. I propose that, contrary to an orthodox account of this phenomenon, individual-level deterrence of speech sometimes intensifies discourse, at the group level, rather than suppressing or subduing it. The deterrence of lawful speech may, somewhat counterintuitively, trigger a Heating Effect. This hypothesis offers us a promising (partial) explanation of the relentlessness of public debate on topics for which there is, simultaneously, evidence of people self-censoring, for fear of running afoul of speech restrictions. It also helps to identify and rectify two shortcomings in existing theoretical accounts of the Chilling Effect – in how they (i) explain the relation between individual- and group-level discursive phenomena, and (ii) characterize the distinctive objectionability of inadvertent speech deterrence.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Chilling Effect and the Heating Effect |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.2139/ssrn.4333970 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4333970 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Free Speech, Public Discourse, Self-Censorship, Hate Speech, Liberalism |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195838 |
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