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Is Hate Speech Legal?

thefire.org

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Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#21
>In other words, the First Amendment recognizes that the government cannot regulate “hate speech” without inevitably silencing the dissent and dialogue that democracy requires

While I'm all for debates about the pros and cons of more or less permissive speech policies, sentences like this always betray the quasi religious nature of American speech attitudes. Many of the oldest democracies in the world work perfectly fine and do not follow this line of thinking.

It would probably be worthwhile to have a much more empirical approach, trying to actually measure what the impact of prohibiting certain speech is. How many people are unduly silenced, how much intended harm is prevented, and so on. Because statements like:

"It is quite clear that the perceived benefits of censoring psychically harmful hate speech are far outweighed by the costs of such suppression."

aren't clear at all. We often don't know because these are really not evidence driven claims. In our information age there should be a rigorous science on how moderation of speech impacts networks and it deserves fairly high priority.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#22

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Reading that article it doesn't sound like they created a stable definition, it contains no exceptions for factual statements that may differ by a persons race/gender. Further, the term group is quite broad and could be applied to groups of people expressing themselves in a way others may find offensive

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#23

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Am I understanding correctly that if I were to fly to Germany, step out of the airport, and shout “Americans are evil”, I’d have violated this law?

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#24

Banning “hate speech” without restricting political speech is prohibitively difficult because of the target’s inherent subjectivity. That's the crux right. As soon as you decide that a certain kind of speech is "illegal", the goalposts shift to convincing others that speech you don't agree with falls in the illegal category. Even what seem like sensible categories like inciting to violence immediately get spun around…

You talk about how categories that "seem like sensible" ones get "spun around" too much for politics. So are you promoting no restrictions whatsoever ? How close to violence do you want to allow? How allowable is a specific threat before it is actionable? How much intimidation is allowed to influence "free" action in your mind in the name of preserving "free speech" before it has too high a cost of preventing "free a…

In America we seem to have a fairly decent handle on those issues. Exceptions apply of course. We are now dealing with edge cases such as the infamous baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple. The main issues such as fraud, threats, etc. are handled pretty well via existing law.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#25

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Germany, like most countries in the world, is a political definition that circumscribes a culture that exists in a geography. Its culture is somewhat tacit to its laws.

The US (and a fewer other countries) is a political definition merely circumscribing a geography—explicitly independent of culture. Laws governing social expression therefore are more challenging to define, establish and execute.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#26

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Well yeah, the German constitution doesn’t guarantee an absolute right to freedom of speech. There is a clause to the effect of “These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws” In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment…

The US Supreme Court does, however, have the power to add limits. In fact all all of the current limits to free speech are inventions of the Court.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#27

All speech must be legal short of threats,fraud, etc. If one administration is given the power to outlaw speech you don't like, you may not like it when the next administration you didn't vote for does the same. Everyone should have the right to say what they want free of government repercussions. I would even go so far as to say what someone says and does on their free time is their business and not their employers…

Employers (unless you work for the government) are not bound by the first amendment, and can fire you or penalize you for expression outside of the workplace.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#28

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Well yeah, the German constitution doesn’t guarantee an absolute right to freedom of speech. There is a clause to the effect of “These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws” In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment…

>In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment.

That there are limitations means it isn't an absolute right. The fact that the First Amendment only limits Congress means private enterprise has the right to limit speech in ways the government can't - this right is also defined in the Constitution by the 10th Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#29

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

Well yeah, the German constitution doesn’t guarantee an absolute right to freedom of speech. There is a clause to the effect of “These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws” In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment…

Why is it that Americans don't use Germany as an example of a country sliding into authoritarian censorship, but would argue such if the same restrictions were applied to the US?

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk about how categories that "seem like sensible" ones get "spun around" too much for politics. So are you promoting no restrictions whatsoever ? How close to violence do you want to allow? How allowable is a specific threat before it is actionable? How much intimidation is allowed to influence "free" action in your mind in the name of preserving "free speech" before it has too high a cost of preventing "free a…

In America we seem to have a fairly decent handle on those issues. Exceptions apply of course. We are now dealing with edge cases such as the infamous baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple. The main issues such as fraud, threats, etc. are handled pretty well via existing law.

Slight correction: the baker refused to bake a cake celebrating a gay marriage (i.e. the refusal was not about who was asking for it but what was being asked for).
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