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Is Hate Speech Legal?

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Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#61

Post by wardedVibe »

bacchusracine wrote: post #59
yongjik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Western European countries don't share the same idea of free speech as in America, yet they continue to be democratic. But are they really? Can you really claim to be democratic when you have wholesale determined that only approved speech can be uttered? How does democracy work when some can speak and others cannot?

If e.g. the Lepin family can thrive in a socialist country, yes, they obviously are.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#62

Post by scarmig »

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.

Would you say Code-era Hollywood was a shining example of free speech? After all, it was private organizations restricting what kinds of content and people were allowed participation, for the well-being of society.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#63

Post by BitwiseFool »

slg wrote: post #50
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…

It is best to look at this from a procedural standpoint. If you make a specific claim against an individual, that individual has the ability to prove that they are harmed/affected by what you have done. Which means they have standing and the case is much less likely to be immediately dismissed. Additionally, that individual is able to defend themselves against the claims that you have made and would actually be able to present evidence in any proceedings.

Whereas accusing a group means no individual has a clear case that they have been harmed. And, there is generally no individual or organization from said group that is able to speak for it. Although there are indeed some organizations that exist for this purpose, like the ADL.

It is not so much that being non-specific makes defamation acceptable, but rather, being non specific makes it so much more difficult to go after the person.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#65

Post by SllX »

gizmo686 wrote: post #26
oceanplexian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Court jurisprudence over time continues to favor more free speech rather than less. Even abominations like Schenck v. United States have been overturned with Brandenburg v. Ohio constraining the limitations to inciting imminent lawless action (e.g. intentionally trying to start a riot).

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#66

Post by yongjik »

bacchusracine wrote: post #59
yongjik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Western European countries don't share the same idea of free speech as in America, yet they continue to be democratic. But are they really? Can you really claim to be democratic when you have wholesale determined that only approved speech can be uttered? How does democracy work when some can speak and others cannot?

Of course, if you define "democracy" to mean absolute free speech, then countries without absolute free speech are not democratic, by definition. That's not exactly insightful.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#67

Post by dragonwriter »

oceanplexian wrote: post #17
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

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.

No, its not, just as conflicting affirmative grants of government power are not absolute grants.

Were it an absolute right, there would be no such thing as defamation liability, for instance.

> 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’s true in theory, but in practice whether an exception exists and what its boundary is not a question which is resolved until after a legislatige body (federal or state) creates a new prohibition, and it is challenged. So there are potentially infinite unknown limitations that exist, but merely haven’t been discovered because a legislature has not created a law which would require them. So legislatures can provide an opportunity for courts to discover new exceptions via normal legislation, even if they can’t create them.

And sometimes, courts discover new ones in areas previously thought settled, like the 1st Circuit “discovering” a broader defamation exception for private matters than was generally understood to exist: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2009/04/feder...

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#68

Post by adamredwoods »

ru552 wrote: post #35

What is hate speech? How often does it's definition change?

The definition can, and should, change with society. The problem is the US amendments are rigid and slow to change, so therefore, protest against hate-speech is left to the people to voice.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#69

Post by yjk »

slg wrote: post #50
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…

Not a lawyer, but I think with libel/defamation, you need to show that you lost something of value because of the statement. Odds are this won't be as widely applicable as something like 'hate speech' (eg. how will you show some internet racist's words caused you monetary damages?).

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#70

Post by krapp »

ohCh6zos wrote: post #55
krapp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We should have all of those, but right now we have those asymmetrically depending on your cause.

What does "asymmetrically" mean other than freedom of speech not implying freedom from consequences?
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