I wonder if rules like this level-up a country's skill in sarcasm and irony.
That dry sense of british humour mostly arises from the fairly extreme forms of censorship in Britain until the 70s.
Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
41–50 of 235 posts
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#42Personally I feel this is law is a great step forward to stop hate speech and other forms of severe harassment but the thought that if you happen to “rage” on someone mid game and receive jail time for that scares me. Society is becoming more and more closed off in a way where rather then freedom of expression you have to limit ur speech to not offend another.
>Personally I feel this is law is a great step forward to stop hate speech and other forms of severe harassment
... maybe if we somehow knew and trusted the results of whatever computer systems were being used to condemn the guilty -- or had some classical and well known and agreed upon definition for hate-speech that was internet-spanning... but we have neither.
the reality of it is that data moves in a lot of imprecise ways, and you'd better really hope that the hammer never falls accidentally on the innocent , otherwise such policy causes more harm than good.
My opinion : this will become unintentionally weaponized, like DMCA reports -- and worse yet it'll be intentionally weaponized, too. It's too easy to make data look like it's coming from elsewhere -- what happens when your node is the one that's somehow coerced into breaking the law by some malware, bad actor, or kid with abusive remote administration privs?
we as a society should probably get a grasp on data and data flow before we throw folks into a prison for things the data flows indicate; 'computers as witnesses' is too falsifiable and imprecise as a concept at the current stages of things to be used in good faith.
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#43As I get older I'm more in favor of this kind of thing. Freedom of speech ought (here I go; a terrible Kantian asserting an, "ought") to apply to political speech. Using FoS as a defense against aimlessly attacking others seems to undermine what is a basic expectation of civility (ie. not being made to feel unsafe) in advanced societies. I feel like there's a class of people that would gladly slaughter cows in front…
These rules typically get applied in ways that advantage the already privileged. e.g. privileged people can say mean stuff online to those under them, but those without such power will go to jail for trying to expose the crimes or bad behaviors of those they work for. Basically, Masayoshi Son won't ever go to jail (he's too important to go to jail), but someone trying to expose his financial crimes will.
To give a concrete example for this, here in Germany we have laws against insulting others. These have pretty strict requirements, and almost never get in front of a judge. Last year, some guy in Hamburg called the minister of interior of the state a "Pimmel", a dick, and his house was raided by law enforcement, his and his ex-girlfriends electronic devices confiscated. [0]
Meanwhile, a german talk show thought they'd see how police deal with hate speech being reported by normal people, and found that it was very hard to get anywhere - even stuff like calling for the extermination of specific groups or threatening to rape others hardly led to any reaction. [1] Some police departments basically just said nothing is going to happen, others took the statement and then didn't follow up anymore. To my knowledge none of them led to police storming apartments, although a select few initiated prosecution.
[0] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/hamburg/Pimmelgate-Nach-Durch...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdm8SG8_v0I
(Both sources in german, can't find any in English)
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
This law has good intentions but will be used to imprison political rivals and online gamers. The first link in the chain is forged, captain, get ready for a wild ride.
Wait why would they go specifically after gamers?
Because gamers are the most oppressed minority.
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious which jurisdiction you operate-from. If it’s within the United States, you probably haven’t done much else but “vigorously defend” the ideology for most of your life. There’s never been an absolute right to freedom of speech, and each jurisdiction takes a different approach; this is even more pronounced internationally.
The United States has more freedom of speech than just about anywhere else, although it was a recent development, only coming into its full modern form after a hard fight the 1970s.
It does, while noticeably not being 100% free
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#46This would suggest the only winning move is not to play.
Aside from this, I haven't used Social Media/ Online Dating in about 5 years.
For example, if someone posts something like "Where can I find an apartment in LA , my income is only 35k a year".
And I respond with " Your not going to make it here, you should move somewhere cheaper."
That can be interupted as an insult. On the other end of the spectrum, back when I used social media heavily I'd get called slurs all the time. Never been called a slur in real life.
It was very bad for me emotionally. I'm much happier, and meet great people, social media free.
I'd rather place restrictions on social media companies, many of which encourage negativity vs passing the blame to end users.
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
So let's throw one of the most important pillars of a free society under the bus because it makes someone uncomfortable? We have a functional justice system where a specific crime must be charged and proven. If it is a serious crime, a randomized group of citizens of the society must be convinced (Grand Jury). This kind of laws have no place in a free society and would lead to oppression and loss of liberty. Malaise…
Interestingly, a close analogy, hate speech, is perfectly legal in the United States. It looks like laws to ban hate speech have been found unconstitutionally. This is in contrast to most of the other countries around the world. United States values freedom of speech much, much more than any other country around the world does. Both fortunately and unfortunately. I'd expect most of the rest of the world to follow wha…
> Bullying is different though. If narrow/specific enough, causing mental and emotional distress online, must have the same level of punishment as it does when it's done in the real world.
Bar needs to be far, far higher. Someone here just said that seeing naked people on a zoom call is akin to a sexual-assault. All you have to do is close the browser window. No really, that's all you need to do. If someone is threatening you with death threats, that's already illegal.
So speech limitations are well grounded in US. It must be some kind of an imminent harm to an individual or a group.
Absolute free-speech isn't a thing and shouldn't be IMO. Giving up that 0.01% of free speech (Yelling "Bomb" in an airplane) keeps the rest 99.9% clause healthy. The bar needs to be quite high and shouldn't be about someone's emotions or mental health. There is no end to subjectivity there and it'd be open for misuse and exploitation. Generally, free speech already includes aforementioned provisions and is accepted by most people living in US or otherwise. I'd even argue to push that boundary to 0.001% but that's debatable.
I commented about one of the most beautiful interpretations of 1st Amendment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31691145
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#48Results this are why I vigorously defend even the outer fringes of free speech. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Define speech
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#49Personally I feel this is law is a great step forward to stop hate speech and other forms of severe harassment but the thought that if you happen to “rage” on someone mid game and receive jail time for that scares me. Society is becoming more and more closed off in a way where rather then freedom of expression you have to limit ur speech to not offend another.
I disagree on both counts.
> Personally I feel this is law is a great step forward to stop hate speech and other forms of severe harassment
I can't speak to Japan, but harassment is already a crime in all US states. Using a telecommunications device to harass often carries even stiffer penalties than just harassment.
All US states also have laws specifically about cyberbullying [1]. Although there have been successful challenges (e.g., in Colorado) most of these laws are almost certainly constitutional.
It's hard to form an opinion on this particular law without more details (about both the law and Japan's legal system), but the way it's described in the article is worrying. Publicly insulting someone can be a component of harassment, but on its own is clearly not harassment. There is a distinct difference between insulting someone in the course of a conversation and a sustained campaign against that person.
> but the thought that if you happen to “rage” on someone mid game and receive jail time for that scares me.
"Trolling" in gaming is like "tagging" in certain tagging-adjacent communities. In both cases the crimes (vandalism, criminal harassment) have become so normalized that membes of the community reframe plainly criminal behavior as positives -- "free speech" and "art" respectively.
Criminal behavior has become completely normalized among certain pockets of heavy internet users, most of which are heavily adjacent to gaming.
I'm not talking about being rude or divisive on a forum. I'm talking about things like death threats, doxxing, brigading non-public-figures, messaging people on all social media channels from dozens of obvious sock puppet accounts and continuing for months after being asked to stop (happened to a local teacher after appearing on a 3 minute news segment), etc.
A lot of what passes for "just trolling" among heavily online individuals -- gaming-adjacent communities in particular -- is in fact textbook criminal behavior. A lot of the behavior during Gamergate, for example, should've resulted in restraining orders, fines, and jail time.
Re: Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
#50Results this are why I vigorously defend even the outer fringes of free speech. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
That link has already sailed. Libel and slander are already illegal speech, as is inciting violence, as is yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, as is saying curse words on broadcast TV and radio.
> as is yelling “fire” in a crowded theater
You really should stop spreading that falsehood. It was overturned over 50 years ago.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...