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Is Hate Speech Legal?

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Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#41

Post by cjbgkagh »

mbgerring wrote: post #4

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 - because nothing bad happened there… The Weimar Republic had strict hate speech law that were rigorously enforced. These backfired to such an extent that I’m surprised anyone is looking to repeat it. In fact it appears that neo-nazi accelerationists are encouraged by hate speech laws as it serves as a purity test, brings more people to their cause, and they have their own people they wish to silence.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#42

Post by yongjik »

version_five wrote: post #11

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…

As other comments said, this argument, while sounding superficially logical, does not agree with reality: most Western European countries don't share the same idea of free speech as in America, yet they continue to be democratic.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#43

Post by drooby »

majormajor wrote: post #16
version_five wrote: post #11

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…

https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/unprotected-speech-sy...

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#44

Post by majormajor »

wonderwonder wrote: post #37
majormajor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really have a great handle on things like swatting? The wave of ICO scams a few years back? Death threats to local government officials or public figures? I see more "grudging acceptance" than any sort of good control. And if that's what the people want, that's fine. But in my view, if we wanted to do better on those things, we should have the freedom as a society to do those things. That's the place I argue ag…

I think so, all of the items you mentioned are illegal and punished by the law. Laws can only be enforced after a crime has been committed, not really sure what you are advocating for.

Things like "puffery" and other "I wasn't being serious" defenses. Good luck prosecuting those things when everyone can hide behind "speech alone is harmless."

Note also that the comment I was originally replying to was saying we already have too many restrictions on speech. So they'd presumably want to loosen those things even more.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#45

Post by croes »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #19
version_five wrote: post #11

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…

We want to ban speech today that was considered acceptable 60 years ago; and the things we celebrate today are things people wanted to ban or censor 60 years ago. You can’t have it both ways: if you want to speak freely about what you care about, you have to let the people you hate speak freely too. Over the last 100 years, it has done far more good than harm to let people express themselves

Are you sure?

Didn't it help that is wasn't unacceptable to call a black person n**r and to call a homosexual f**t?

Freedom of expression always goes in both directions. Your free expression can suppress my freedom of expression.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#46

Post by krapp »

ohCh6zos wrote: post #33
akerl_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like that is an oversight we should fix.

It's not an oversight, it's the inevitable and intended consequence of freedom of speech, freedom of association and private property as defined by the US Constitution and law. "fixing" that would mean undermining those fundamental rights in favor of a right that doesn't exist in the US, the right to employment.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

majormajor wrote: post #39
kashkhan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social discouragement is often more effective than legal. The 'n' word is mostly stopped by social means.

The recent "pro-free speech" crusades are explicitly targeting the rights of private individuals to have non-legal recourse, such as the ability of social media platforms to have editorial control over their platforms. So... fight back against that if you want to still have the right to push back in the future.

You know what we call the right of private parties to choose which viewpoints to promote with their resources? (Hint: rhymes with “key peach”)

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#48

Post by majormajor »

dragonwriter wrote: post #47
majormajor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recent "pro-free speech" crusades are explicitly targeting the rights of private individuals to have non-legal recourse, such as the ability of social media platforms to have editorial control over their platforms. So... fight back against that if you want to still have the right to push back in the future.

You know what we call the right of private parties to choose which viewpoints to promote with their resources? (Hint: rhymes with “key peach”)

That's not what the "twitter shouldn't be able to remove anything that's not illegal" folks call it.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#49

Post by pyuser583 »

mbgerring wrote: post #4

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

There was book written a while back that criticized aspects of trans rights movement.

Many Americans called it hate-speech, yet the book was freely published in many countries with anti hate speech laws.

Publishers and distributors were more willing to sell the book in countries where hate speech is illegal. After all, it’s not like it’s hate speech.

One downside of having hate speech undefined is that anyone can claim your words are hate speech.

One downside of having hate speech defined is you can stay bad things, and as long as it’s not hate speech, it’s not hate speech.

Edit: I actually read this book. I would be horrified if it was outlawed or even boycotted.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#50

Post by slg »

version_five wrote: post #11

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…

Do you think this has happened while libel and defamation laws? If not, why are those laws different?

I simply don't understand why I could be sued for saying "[individual X] is a pedophile" but it is fine to say "all [race/religion/gender/sexuality Y] individuals are pedophiles" even if that individual X is included in that group Y. Aren't you defaming individual X either way? Why does including other people in your defamation make it acceptable?

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