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German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

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Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#241
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to define all Christians as X, you're probably mistaken. If it's a negative definition designed to insult then it's probably discrimination. The whole point of being anti racism, anti religious discrimination etc., is that race and religion are not good qualifiers for making assumptions or decisions.

The parent asked you if disliking Christianity was racist, not if it was religious discrimination. Please answer them. If, say PEW Research asks a statistically significant portion of people who identify themselves one way, and a large amount of them self declare they have awful views, is reporting this bad because it's 'negative'?

No, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion about an ideology, like: "I don't believe in the Bible/Christianity, etc.". A statement like that only makes a judgement about yourself which is of course your right.

If you dislike something, there's usually a fear underneath that. People who dislike Christianity on a deeper level are probably afraid that if everyone was Christian X would happen. Sometimes that's realistic, sometimes it's not, but expressing your fear is OK and usually helps people understand you better than if you simply say "I don't like X type of people".

When you switch your focus to a group of human beings and say "I don't believe Christians are...", you're judging others. When we judge others we're probably bias in some way because none of us have enough accurate information to uniformly judge the millions of unique people that identify with a race or religion.

Just saying "I" first doesn't mean you can then say whatever you want. If the target of your judgements is a person or group of people, you're probably not being honest with yourself about what you're uncomfortable with and projecting your fears onto a group of people. That's typically what racism is about.

Instead, it's usually more accurate to express your fears about a particular non-human target (like a law, behavior, etc.) and leave people out of it.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#242
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you focus on certain groups you're probably missing the point. There are Christian parents who have banned their child from returning home when they renounced religion. And there are many Muslims who accept people after they renounce Islam. Instead, probably better to say: When people harass someone who doesn't agree with them, I feel afraid for that person's safety. That's not racist and still honors your fear.…

Focusing on ideas is necessary to deal with the problem. By ignoring it, you're missing the point. You seem to think I'm focusing on people, but: a person who believes in the idea of Islam is a Muslim, is the same way a person who believes in communism is a communist and a person who believes in fascism is a fascist. There is little difference between saying a bad idea is bad versus saying supporters of a bad idea ar…

It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs.

If the gay equality issue is important to you, why are you focused so narrowly on Muslims? Why not simply focus on your core issue which is equality for gays?

Making it about your fear allows people to hear you and is not arguable. Saying "Muslims are anti-gay" is arguable because you can't accurately survey billions of Muslims worldwide and statistically you'll probably find millions of Muslims who don't agree with every aspect of the religion and some that are gay themselves.

Religion and races are not consistent or homogenous. Lumping people together on those criteria is rarely accurate or productive.

For semantics, the term racism applies to race as you mentioned. If you hate Muslims that I suppose the best way to describe you is bigoted or a religious discriminator.

And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person. While hating a pizza sounds like anger issues, it's certainly not the same connotation or implications of hating a person. If you want to be kinder to your pizza friends, you could say "I prefer the taste of thin crust pizza". If you want to be kinder to your human friends, I would focus on what you want rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#243
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent asked you if disliking Christianity was racist, not if it was religious discrimination. Please answer them. If, say PEW Research asks a statistically significant portion of people who identify themselves one way, and a large amount of them self declare they have awful views, is reporting this bad because it's 'negative'?

No, it's perfectly fine to have an opinion about an ideology, like: "I don't believe in the Bible/Christianity, etc.". A statement like that only makes a judgement about yourself which is of course your right. If you dislike something, there's usually a fear underneath that. People who dislike Christianity on a deeper level are probably afraid that if everyone was Christian X would happen. Sometimes that's realistic,…

Addressing some weird off topic bits:

- Not believing in the bible is different from saying Christianity is harmful.

- I agree it sounds harsh to say one dislikes Scientologists or Muslims or Stuffed crust pizza lovers. However that doesn't address the fact that you implied doing one of these was racist, when none of these are races and all are beliefs.

And responding to the point you made:

> When we judge others we're probably bias in some way because none of us have enough accurate information to uniformly judge the millions of unique people that identify with a race or religion.

Many seperate, independent groups have surveyed significant portions of Muslims across the world and found consistent and disturbing results.

Do we mean every individual person? No, to measure things we need to paint broad brush strokes.

- No sensible adult would think that a group has a hive mind.

- Nearly all would (and should) be concerned if most members of a group wanted to make being gay illegal (amongst other issues).

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even with the second sentence it is still borderline. According to regular case law of the Federal Constitutional Court the most charitable interpretation needs to be taken. Without the second sentence this is a factual statement (even though extremely worded, it has happened at least once on New Year's Eve 2016) and transports a political statement. No court would do anything about that. Twitter has nonetheless…

> No, even with the second sentence it is still borderline. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. In your previous post, you said the two sentences were not fine (i.e. they did qualify as Volksverhetzung). But now I understand you're saying the opposite? Or did you want to say "... even without..."? > Twitter has nonetheless removed a very similarly worded tweet by a member of parliament. This is what I was ge…

I am not comfortable giving a assessment of the second example with both sentences. Rulings might turn out either way depending on context and I'd advise not to publish anything close to that. It starts going into Volksverhetzung territory.

She tweeted something like the second example, first sentence only. There should be no legal problem with that (it was just a pretty extreme wording of "the police shouldn't tweet in Arabic"). Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#245
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on ideas is necessary to deal with the problem. By ignoring it, you're missing the point. You seem to think I'm focusing on people, but: a person who believes in the idea of Islam is a Muslim, is the same way a person who believes in communism is a communist and a person who believes in fascism is a fascist. There is little difference between saying a bad idea is bad versus saying supporters of a bad idea ar…

It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs. If the gay equality issue is important to you, why are you focused so narrowly on Muslims? Why not simply focus on your core issue which is equality for gays? Maki…

> It's much better to say "I'm afraid for the safety and lack of equality and freedom for gay people if being gay is illegal." By focusing on Muslims, you're making it personal and ignoring many non-Muslim countries and religions which have anti-gay beliefs.

No, you're avoiding the root causes because you're afraid to address them, which in turns harms gay people, women, ex-Muslims, atheists and other victims of Islam. Not focusing on Islam- related violence towards gays and women because other violence towards gays and women exists is awful.

> Religion and races

We haven't talked about a single race the entire discussion. Why are you introducing it?

> And as you seem intent on the pizza aspect, pizza isn't a person.

You're right, it's an idea. Let's call people who believe in this idea StuffCrustPizzaLovers. Do you think disliking StuffCrustPizzaLovers is racist?

If I say 'Islam is bad' - since Islam isn't a person - is that now OK according to your rules?

> rather than what you think a group of unique people is all acting out in unison.

Not sure if you're lying or just not reading anything I'm writing, but I'm focusing on what's been measured, as previously discussed, using Muslims' opinion as a primary source. Are you saying think most Muslims are liars?

If you want to stop making the world worse, let people who have the courage to report problems do their jobs without labelling them racist.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#246
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

military or organized physical violence is not the same as a random yokel saying dumb things on the internet. invoking real world violence as a stand-in for which one calibrates their regard for a person's tweets seems more like an emotional appeal rather than a logical dialog.

The internet is a great organizing tool, and you have no way to know whether any given comment is random or coordinated.

seems like a nonsequitur; either way, if a bad guy wants to throw away opsec and publicly document information for a court to use as evidence... well, i guess it's nice that they're making policework much easier.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#247
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Logic and reason have value, of course, but most people are emotional animals rather than pure rationalists. there isn't an either/or situation... people are both. and people must obviously be sufficiently rational, a sufficient amount of the time, because civilization exists and society progresses. you don't get to the moon and back if your species is nothing but bloody barbarians. > incitement this discussion see…

It is an either/or situation. I said people are emotional animals rather than pure rationalists, who would by definition not be subject to irrational impulses. It is not a contrast between pure rationality or irrationality, but pure rationality vs partial rationality. I'm not sure what point the rest of your comment is seeking to make, other than that you don't like my point of view.

then it seems like word games around a useless dichotomy. if "emotional animals" includes rationality then my point stands. based on how you seem to be stressing the words, i don't know what "pure rationalists" is supposed to mean.

> I'm not sure what point the rest of your comment is seeking to make, other than that you don't like my point of view.

you blithely inserted another concept to the thread, which is what prompted my comment. your point of view isn't clear enough for me to have formed much of an opinion.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#248
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, philosophically stereotyping doesn't have to be a "bad thing". When I went to school there we "polack" jokes, blond/e jokes, yo mamma jokes, etc. They were not "mean" or meant to denigrate people. They were ways to "break the ice" as it were. But nowadays people are super sensitive, unless it's a majority or almost majority population, or it has power, unless it has power but it's also seen as being singled out…

> They were not "mean" or meant to denigrate people. I don’t know how things were where you lived, but where I grew up, those types of jokes were definitely meant to be mean and hurtful. I speak from experience when I say that the repeated mental abuse from peers taken as a child can have long term effects on one’s psyche.

The old tradition of mammals to kick one in the group - usually the social weakest- to feed him to the wulfs. By now we are the wulfs - and still they kick.

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#249
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that not wanting to be friends with someone because they want your kids to die for being Jewish is necessarily a dickish thing. It's an extreme example, yet an unfortunate practical one today.

Or you could take the route which others have taken, and show them why their ideas are wrong through your actions. There are plenty of examples of extremists being converted through friendship.

Trudeau? Is that you?

Re: German hate speech law tested as Twitter blocks satire account

#250
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an either/or situation. I said people are emotional animals rather than pure rationalists, who would by definition not be subject to irrational impulses. It is not a contrast between pure rationality or irrationality, but pure rationality vs partial rationality. I'm not sure what point the rest of your comment is seeking to make, other than that you don't like my point of view.

then it seems like word games around a useless dichotomy. if "emotional animals" includes rationality then my point stands. based on how you seem to be stressing the words, i don't know what "pure rationalists" is supposed to mean. > I'm not sure what point the rest of your comment is seeking to make, other than that you don't like my point of view. you blithely inserted another concept to the thread, which is what p…

No it doesn't. 'Pure rationalists' means people who purely rational and never irrational, and I find it hard to believe you couldn't work that out for yourself.

The vast majority of people are not pure rationalists, and a good many of them (though I don't know exactly what proportion) are easily swayed by emotional stimuli rather than logic and reason alone. If you place all your reliance on logic and reason then you are likely to experience an unpleasant surprise because it's possible for bad actors to shape the behavior of large numbers of people in non-rational ways.

Logic and reason work on you. I'm saying that you are overestimating their persuasive power because of an (apparent) assumption that either they work equally well on everyone else, or that irrational people are generally incompetent. Sadly, neither is true. Think of religious fundamentalists whose core premises may seem irrational to you but who are nevertheless competent to act in the world and impact others, eg through terrorism.

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