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Is Hate Speech Legal?

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Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#71

Post by jmuncaster »

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…

Sounds like a straw man. The comment did not say “no restrictions whatsoever” - my read is that it said that even the most sensible sounding restrictions on incitement to violence have their difficulties. It’s messy and nuanced.

I agree with your sentiment to deal more with actual, not theoretical problems. However, I think there have been enough actual historical examples of abuses of power in free speech regulations that are self-reinforcing. This should create a high bar when considering any particular restriction. It’s not paranoia, it’s lessons learned.

So some restrictions? Sure, and the courts have indeed allowed some. But they are and ought to be well-reasoned exceptions with clear distinctions so we don’t end up with something akin to a thought-police.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#72

Post by fluoridation »

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…

Perhaps because people intuitively understand that "all X are Y" really means "most X are Y" or possibly even "a lot of X are Y". In other words, that the phrase "all X are Y" does not imply "A is an X, and therefore it's also a Y". Generalized statements are known to be generally more inaccurate than statements about specific objects.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#74

Post by wonderwonder »

michaelmrose wrote: post #56
wonderwonder wrote: post #3

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…

This isn't even true now. There are all sorts of limits including but not limited to gag orders, no contact orders, defamation, harassment, malicious use of a telephone device, obscene phone calls and so forth. You imply that it is utterly impossible to draft a law forbidding some speech without handing the tools of oppression to the next fellow to hold office but we already deal with plenty of nuanced situations now…

I'm not a free speech absolutist and think current laws do a pretty good job of dealing with things like fraud, threats, etc. I don't think that openly disliking a group of people should be illegal though. I don't think we should hate others but of more importance to me is that I don't want to give the government more power to police speech and thought. In my mind that's far more dangerous. If someone thinks Jewish space lasers are to blame for the weather, or whatever it's pretty dumb, but shouldn't be illegal. Only when it rises to the point of "we should do something about the Jewish problem" and plans are taking place should it be illegal. The police / FBI are pretty good at determining which is which and acting on it. Exceptions apply.

Giving the government more power is a slippery slope. Is Christianity arguing against homosexuality hate speech? Should we round up all of the pastors and priests? Should we demand people provide the government with a list of their personal beliefs and send those that are on the fringe to reeducation camps? Should there be a government mandated listening device in every home? Bad people and those we disagree with will always exist I'm totally good with that. I'm not good with thought police.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#75

Post by colonCapitalDee »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #29
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…

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?

Because German society is very different from American society due to historical factors. The modern German state and people must grapple with their country's role in WW2 and the Holocaust. They have chosen to limit free speech for the sake of preventing future catastrophes, and that seems quite sensible to me. America's history isn't pristine by a long shot, but we don't have a legacy comparable to the Germans to grapple with. Without a clear and compelling reason for limiting speech, myself and most Americans favor free speech. Attempting to restrict speech without a clear and compelling reason (and I believe that such reasons do not currently exist in America) would be tyranny.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#76

Post by _cenw »

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

Typically, hate speech wasn't afforded the same reach 60 years ago that it may have now. You have to remember that all these idealistic views happened in the context of a very harsh monopoly on mass media and a much tighter control of which opinions would be platformed on there (can you imagine a communist being allowed to speak during the cold war, other suppression of speech in that area aside?)

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#77

Post by _cenw »

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?

Can you claim to be democratic with a two party system, first past the post, gerrymandering, vote suppression...

The US really isn't the model country for democratic participation.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#78

Post by adamredwoods »

torstenvl wrote: post #9
13415 wrote: post #2

The title of this post and the blog post itself should be "Is hate speech legal in the US?"

This post is on an American website running as a service of an American startup accelerator running out of America's tech hub, running on an American operating system based on a research project at an American university, and links to a post from an American organization concerned with American free speech law and policy. I feel like the applicable context is easily inferred. https://www.thefire.org/about-us/mission

I call BS on this company:

>> Yet, across our nation, this cornerstone of our free society is under serious threat. Far too many of us fear sharing our views or challenging those that seem to dominate. Nearly 6-in-10 Americans believe our nation’s democracy is threatened because people are afraid to voice their opinions.

They "fear" voicing opinions because of society's backlash, which IMO, is the true regulator of "free" speech. There is no "free" speech except in one's own head. Anything said, can, and will, have impact with others, as is the nature of communication and society. OTOH, it is government that cannot silence the people, by law. Society can silence others through protest... which itself is protected free speech.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#79

Post by sofixa »

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?

> 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?

Democracy works best when unhelpful fringes cannot speak. Antisemites for instance contribute nothing of substance to any democracy. Same goes for people insisting on abusing fellow humans based on their sexual orientation or skin colour. How, exactly is democracy hurt by not letting them speak publicly? Their opinions are invalid, not based on any reason (so reasoning with them is pointless), and thus their voice is suppressed, and that's actually a good thing for all those that would otherwise have to suffer harassment and abuse.

Re: Is Hate Speech Legal?

#80

Post by akerl_ »

croes wrote: post #52
akerl_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Calling them evil is not prohibited, but if you say they are evil, so we should kill them all. That's a different level.

That’s not what the law says, though. It criminalizes speech that incites hatred or calls for violence.
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