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Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#41

Post by _ak »

DominikR wrote: post #38
nsaje wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech does not give you the right to hate speech. The title is misleading, because they only agreed to remove hate speech only, not all anti-immigration comments. EDIT: To clarify, hate speech is for example speech inciting doing harm to others. As a concrete example, in the heat of the refugee crisis, I was regularly seeing calls to arms to go shoot all the refugees at the borders on my Facebook wall. It made…

To support free speech is to support free speech precisely when you disagree with the opinion voiced. Either you support that people may say whatever the hell they like to say or you are definitely NOT in support of free speech.

Except people are calling to torch refugee homes and for violence against refugees, and refugee homes have been attacked and/or torched, more than 800 this year. At least one person was killed in these attacks. That's far beyond where free speech ends.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#43

Post by [deleted] »

legulere wrote: post #39
jacobolus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post-WWII Germany has had strict controls on public hate speech of all types, as a legacy of national shame/disgust about the Holocaust. I’m all for free speech, but I can’t really blame them for exercising caution, all things considered.

The law against it actually already existed previous to WWII, starting with 1871. But it wasn't strongly enforced, and worded not clear enough.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#44

Post by illumen »

isolate wrote: post #31
illumen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not impossible. It happens all the time already. The HN system which allowed people to downvote you is limiting your speech. Facebook removing posts about sex is limiting your free speech. I find it really perverse that people are ok with banning people talking about sex, but are fine with them calling for murder. Take a guess which society has tens of thousands of murders, and millions in prison? The one t…

It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it. https://xkcd.com/1357/

The freedom of speech applies when other people than the government are calling for it to be stopped.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights for example does not say "it only applies to when a government are restricting those rights".

Article 19

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#45

Post by DominikR »

_ak wrote: post #41
DominikR wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support free speech is to support free speech precisely when you disagree with the opinion voiced. Either you support that people may say whatever the hell they like to say or you are definitely NOT in support of free speech.

Except people are calling to torch refugee homes and for violence against refugees, and refugee homes have been attacked and/or torched, more than 800 this year. At least one person was killed in these attacks. That's far beyond where free speech ends.

Making a racist statement is something completely different than telling you to go out and torch someones home.

The latter encourages you to actually commit a criminal act, while the first is just an opinion that you might dislike or not and therefore criticise.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#46

Post by DominikR »

illumen wrote: post #37
DominikR wrote: post #33

They are now introducing "hate-crimes" here in the EU. This punishes there mere act of publicly saying or writing a hateful comment. (non threatening, non endorsing or inciting criminal acts) If people take offence, you will be persecuted. So it's a great law to further tighten the control over what can be discussed and what can't. And if that wasn't enough, our government now allows NGO's and other non state organis…

Which law precisely are you talking about? Racist hate speech was already illegal in Germany. I'm genuinely interested if you could link to something describing what you are talking about.

Example (sorry, it's in German):

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

The second item of StGb 130 (updated in 2015) is interesting here:

die Menschenwürde anderer dadurch angreift, dass er eine vorbezeichnete Gruppe, Teile der Bevölkerung oder einen Einzelnen wegen seiner Zugehörigkeit zu einer vorbezeichneten Gruppe oder zu einem Teil der Bevölkerung beschimpft, böswillig verächtlich macht oder verleumdet,

It states that if you attack/insult the dignity of a person or group with a statement, you are a to be punished.

This part in specific: "oder zu einem Teil der Bevölkerung beschimpft" -> or some group within the population without further specification.

So if a prosecutor feels like it he/she might persecute you for insulting for example Feminists.

Compare this with the version of the same law from 1871:

„Wer in einer den öffentlichen Frieden gefährdenden Weise verschiedene Klassen der Bevölkerung zu Gewaltthätigkeiten gegen einander öffentlich anreizt, wird mit Geldstrafe bis zu zweihundert Thalern oder mit Gefängniß bis zu zwei Jahren bestraft.

Seems more reasonable to me, only inciting violence is criminalised here.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#47

Post by marklgr »

trav4225 wrote: post #2

Free speech, European style.

Free speech, American stylen is all or nothing: either you can say absolutely everything, without any reserve, or it is not free speech.

Free speech, European style, is: let's cut the bottom 1% in public places--knowing full well it will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary, debatable and potentially dangerous--if it gives a much, much saner space for everybody else. That's a trade-off, and not an easy one: opponents to it will immediately ask "who decides", "what if they want to shut _you_ up", or they'll invoke slippery-slope style arguments. But, for all these issues, there is some point where the trade-off is a huge win for society, according to proponents. That's always debatable, but I think it is as reasonable a stance as the previous one.

Besides, it's not because a limit is very difficult to set that we should give up defining one. For instance, think about under age sex; who's to say what age is ok, but two weeks before is a serious crime? It is prone to the same kind of induction and slippery slope arguments as free speech, but most people (me included) don't argue about setting some arbitrary limit.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#48

Post by CM30 »

nokcha wrote: post #40
isolate wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it. https://xkcd.com/1357/

>It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it. The First Amendment applies only to the government, but the principle of freedom of speech is broader. Large corporations, especially those that effectively operate as common carriers (e.g., ISPs), are rightfully criticized if they block speech due to its viewpoint. Facebook has a legal right to censor speech on its own website, but…

So at what point does a private business become a 'common carrier'? Because pretty much everyone agrees a business can chuck someone off the premises for just about any reason, and most internet forums and communities end up being more about 'what the owner wants to allow' rather than anything else.

Do you suddenly lose the right to tell people what they're allowed to say or do if your community becomes popular? How about if it's the leading resource in a field of study, or half the population end up using it?

Because this is what's bugging me about these arguments. Why can a community like a forum, mailing list, Usenet group, Slack group or subreddit choose what people can say and block comments for any reason, but say, Facebook gets criticised for the same thing? They're all communities, they're all privately owned...

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#49

Post by marklgr »

ferrari8608 wrote: post #14

I don't understand how deleting an online record of hate speech and threats of violence is going to do anything to help solve any problems. It will make the net look prettier, but the people who would post such things will still be there thinking and feeling exactly as they do now.

The goal is to prevent "echo chambers" where prone to be influenced people build violent or extreme views that will have a real and very detrimental impact on society. It denies the premisse that "speech is just speech and does not harm anyone". It sure is debatable and it raises many issues, but it is not about just making the net look prettier.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#50

Post by emp_zealoth »

marklgr wrote: post #49
ferrari8608 wrote: post #14

I don't understand how deleting an online record of hate speech and threats of violence is going to do anything to help solve any problems. It will make the net look prettier, but the people who would post such things will still be there thinking and feeling exactly as they do now.

The goal is to prevent "echo chambers" where prone to be influenced people build violent or extreme views that will have a real and very detrimental impact on society. It denies the premisse that "speech is just speech and does not harm anyone". It sure is debatable and it raises many issues, but it is not about just making the net look prettier.

What you get is exactly an echo chamber - like ok HN,anyone disagreeing with consensus gets downvoted into oblivion.
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