Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–32 of 32 posts

Re: France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship

#31

Post by ugh »

DrJokepu wrote: post #20
notaddicted wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech isn't a law of nature, and it wasn't handed down from God or whomever. In the United States it is provided by the Constitution. In Canada we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and hate speech is forbidden, for example, members of the Westboro Baptist Church are banned from Canada.

Actually, the US constitution does not provide any rights, it does assume that Freedom of Speech and other rights are inherently ours and it only limits the powers of the federal government.

Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?

Re: France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship

#32

Post by tttp »

notaddicted wrote: post #14
tttp wrote: post #2

France had an unfortunate history of self censorship from the media and active control of the public media from the president(de Gaulle that controlled the only TV channel, Mitterand ordering illegal wiretapping of journalists) The actual french President is a control freak. Sarkozy has strong relationship with most of the private media owners and is using it. He has since the start of his mandate tried to control th…

Freedom of speech isn't a law of nature, and it wasn't handed down from God or whomever. In the United States it is provided by the Constitution. In Canada we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and hate speech is forbidden, for example, members of the Westboro Baptist Church are banned from Canada.

Didn't mean to imply it was, but in the US, it seems to be more permissive (ie. no matter how stupid and outrageous, you can say it) than in France. That's a general attitude about what is "allowed" to be said in the public sphere (a bit of a generalisation, but mostly confirmed on my biased sample of people I know on both countries).

eg. when Chomsky said that Faurisson had the right to write whatever crap he wanted (ie. pro freedom of speech), it was widely understood in France as a support of Faurisson's theories (Haulocaust denial)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair

Which is rather ironic in a country where Voltaire is said to have written "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Post reply on HN