Slashdot Mirror
Europe Continues Work on Cybercrime Treaty
Tosta Dojen writes: "I haven't seen this posted yet, but the Council of Europe is proposing a ban on Internet 'Hate Speech'. Fortunately it looks like some intelligent comments are already being made." This is a continuation of the Cybercrime treaty, which we've mentioned before. Wired had a story about this a few days ago.
This is not right at all. I know that (especially in America) people are afraid of being called a racist more than death itself, but that's beside the point. Every racist should be able to have his opinion, and he should be able to share it with his fellow racists.
The world is headed down a scary path, and this is just one of the early steps...
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Perhaps this whole argument is best summed up by one of my favorite quotes (from none other than George Orwell):
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I was going to post anonymously, but I said, fuck it, the most karma i can lose is 2 points. So here goes:
Prevalent on Slashdot is the notion that Europe is somehow superior to the US. I hate to make such a generalization, but it's not true, and things like this lend some creedence to this.
I am a citizen of the United States, so perhaps this post is a manifestation of a major difference between the European point-of-view/thought process and the American, but I cannot see how this is can posibly be a good thing.
There are multiple issues I take with this law:
1. Who decides what is hate speech? An argument made by a Palestinian against Jewish occupation, etc. could be easily mis-construed as being anti-semetic. Where's the council, the ruling body? What is defined as "hate speech?" Where's the rubric?
2: Who are you to decide what I can and can't view and decide upon for myself? What if I want to be offended? What if I'm a researcher for the NAACP trying to tear down the argument made by the KKK or some other racist organisation?
3. Shouldn't I be the one to ultimately decide what is hate speech? Laws like this don't just stifle free speech, they stifle my ability to be informed and my ability to make my own decision.
4. Laws like this also stifle personal responsibility. It's like the liberal argument to gun control. If somebody shoots somebody, go after the gun manufacturer. If people cannot control their violent nature and attack/kill somebody after they read something on a website, there's a far greater problem than the proliferation of "hate speech."
5. Allowing laws like this to come into play open's Pandora's box of similar regulations. What's next? Subversive/anti-government speech will be made illegal?
Voltaire said it best: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
Sites which include this (and all its variations and others you can think of) would be the real life equivilant of holding a car rally against driving
I think your car analogy might go more along the lines of a Chevrolet rally against every other car manufacturer. It seems, of course, that what you propose is to exclude Chevrolet from the next open rally. Then again, since freedom of speech isn't that abstract of a concept, I don't think we need to go into these kinds of analogies.
The issue I take with your post is that you are advocating censorship. Granted, that vast majority of racists are incompitent assholes. Of course, I've known some very intelligent and erudite racists. Now this is not to say I agree at all with what they are saying, quite the contrary, but I firmly believe that they have every right to say it.
Let us imagine this circumstance. This assumes that you agree that the pro-life pro-choice dialog is a healthy one, and that both sides are equally entiteled to their argument. Now imagine that Roe v. Wade is overturned and that abortion is summarily outlawed in all 50 states. At that point, the discussion heats up and a conservative U.S. legislature outlaws pro-choice speech on the basis that it advocates murder.
Would you now argue that pro-choic speech should be outlawed because it promotes murder?
You see, for any controversial topic, there will always be strong arguments for banning all, if not part, of its discussion. Racism, communism, abortion, the list goes on. The important thing is to never let either side be muted. If that happens we have opted not for freedom of speech, but for uniformity of speech.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Wasn't it Voltaire who said, "I may not believe in what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to do so?" (Or something along those lines)
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Why not include, say, anti-Americanism (or perhaps "encouraging treason"), or anti-capitalism, etc.
Once you start making lists of things which are unacceptable, it's not too hard to find things sort of similar that might also be included. Quite the slippery slope.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No, that's not dangerous. Meeting at the Channel Tunnel entrance is not dangerous. Only when you actually start to give some immigrants a whipping are you dangerous. Why can't we simply punish people for their actions....not try to regulate what led them to those actions?
Although almost all of Western Europe has now been a democracy for at least 60 years, with constitutional provisions for the freedom of speech in all democracies (except the UK where the European Treaty on Human Rights serves this purpose), there are strict laws against 'inciting race hatred', which limit free speech w.r.t. open racism etc.
Although the European countries and their laws and practices are quite diverse, there seem to be two main arguments which have lead to the introduction of these laws. The first is practical: Europeans have experience with regimes based on bringing this kind of speech in practice; World War II is still very much a defining moment in the collective history of Europeans. Most democracies were either founded just after the war, or have been re-established with new constitutions after 1945. In this way, anti-nazism and anti-fascism has been one of the primary foundations by which the democratic ideals were established and affirmed. The idea was: never again should a democracy change into a racist totalitarian state, and it's worthwhile to give up that bit of freedom to prevent this from happening again.
The other argument is more philosophical: there seems to be a difference in the basis for the fundamental freedoms and rights between the US and Europe. In the US, these freedoms and rights are seen as 'god-given' (or 'self-evident'), and are seen primarily as a way to protect the citizen against the state. In Europe, the basis for the democratic system with its freedoms is the notion of the right to live in 'human dignity'. This implies that the citizen should not just be protected from the state, but also from people and corporations who try to infringe on 'human dignity'. In this sense, 'inciting race hatred' is seen as more threatening to minorities' right to dignity than the person uttering those 'threats' (remember that Europe has witnessed 'incitement' changing to actual genocide).
You may or may not agree with these laws, but in Europe there seems to be a broad majority in favor of these laws, mainly because of WWII.
I hope my point is still clear in this long rant :-)
Sander
Legislation can, should, and traditionally has regulated the actions of people. This is how we send murderers to prison.
Well thought out legislation should also regulate intent where it is blatantly obvious that this will lead to action. This is how people get sentenced for conspiracy to commit murder.
Regulation, however, cannot and should not regulate the mental process leading up to either intent or action; this is the thought police straight out of 1984. The notion that thinking certain things can be dangerous to either you or your society.
Regulate this and you've violated every man and woman's right to see all the facts and make the right choice.
Since when did legislation become involved in the average citizen's ability to distinguish between good and bad?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
did anyone else read it as "Council of Elrond"?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If you don't like the content of a website you can simply not go there. No case can be made for imminent harm when the act of browsing is a selective one based entirely on personal choice.
But banning hate speech is never about preventing harm; it's about enforcing your own morals on others, to the point where they no longer have the right to voice an opinion that you disapprove of. The goal is not to make a better society but to wield power to such a degree that you can effectively silence your opponents. This makes the 'ban hate speech folks' just as malicious and evil as the people engaged in the hate speech itself.
Of coure, Europe can engage in any silliness it wants. If it decides to restrict its own folks in this manner, then that's something that I, as a U.S. citizen, am really not concerned about. However, Europe will have a difficult time with U.S. web sites that lie within the purview of the First Amendment and are not bound by European laws - or morality - in any way, shape, or form. Unless Europe decides to wall itself off from the U.S. in much the same way that China has, this attempt at banning speech on the internet is nothing more than pissing into the wind.
Which is as it should be. It's incumbent on Europe to 'protect' its citizens from the dangers of free speech, not upon American web site owners to conform to foreign laws. The French aside, Europe has no business trying to regulate internet activity outside of its own borders.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
That's correct. So don't listen to stuff you don't like. You don't get it; no one can force you to listen to anything, no matter how hard they try. If worst comes to worst, you can still just plain not pay attention. And yes, you can do this.
I deplore hate speech as much as the next person. In fact, I may have the occasion to deplore it even more. But if speech is to be free, then all speech must be free; even garbage like this. You cannot take the good without taking the bad.
Laws like this are supposed to "protect human dignity." Shame they're self-defeating. The second you limit the human mind -as you do by limiting speech, the way by which ideas are propagated- you have diminished the very thing which makes us human, and thus the laws meant to protect human dignity, actually destroy human dignity.
And likely from that fabled UK, the place where you're supposed to be able to speak freely.
Is that why historically there is this one place,in Hide Park, where this is not punishable? IDIOT!
Yet I fully agree about the French Petain government being a giant blot on the French history that nearly every Frenchman tries to deny.
There is no more "behind the schemes"(?) drafting of laws in Europe as there is in the UK, as a matter of fact there is a representative number of British European Parliamentarians to oversee this....
Talking about the British Parliament, how in the world is it, for example, possible that your government can publish it's annual budget and subsequently raise the fuel tax hours later,
without any prior discussion in that fabled Parliament!
The difference between the British and the other Europeans is that the others are not exposed to your (or is it an Australians??) stinking press.
Yes Britain has an enviable Parliamentary History, but as so many things with the adjective "British" it's before all "History".
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
And the fact there are/were no Neo-Nazis in Westmister in recent years has all to do with the lack of a democratic (=representative) election system in the UK...
Jees!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy,
the second time as farce."
Or, the first time as the Soviet Union, the second time as the European Union.
Hmm. Your speech denounces the freedom of speech granted to racists, so, by that exact logic, your statement should be banned.
Yep, the world is just a big ball of irony.
As the world moves towards one global currency and instantaneous transactions, it is only natural that the world should move towards one global government. An unfortunate development for those who cherish freedom and for those who favor peace. In the end, the globalization of the worlds economy may led to a series of unresolvable conflicts, betwixt social engineers, patriots of all persuasions, and those who just want to live without having to fear the law.
When a man fears the law, either he is evil or the law is unjust.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Every racist should be able to have his opinion, and he should be able to share it with his fellow racists.
G-funk is right. First, if an opinion is dumb or unfounded, then its propponents should be encouraged to voice it, especially in writing on the Internet, where cold, methodical analysis and refutation is practical.
Granted, some opinions might make you cringe. You read that group/religion/race XYZ is slapped with attribute ABC and you don't like it. But if you shut the guy up, two interesting things happen:
It is very easy to depict a political opponents as a thought criminal. Especially when media concentration makes information control easier and easier. When you start censoring in the name of fighting hatred, you actually end up as a pawn of political censors who drape themselves in the robe of the guardians of morality. The Romans were already aware of this problem: "Who guards the guardians?"
Don't get me wrong, I don't like to read racist/hateful sites or post on the Net. But who knows what opinion will turn out to be hateful?
Example: you say Windows sucks. This means you believe a large population of engineers in Redmond have created a deficient contraption. Surely it cannot be voluntary. So these people are dumb. So you imply most Redmondians are dumbs. So this is racism against the state of Washington. Censor, please jail the man. Thanks.
So to avoid that, I think I'll let people say and write that race X stinks, religion Y is mad, country Z is revolting. I'm so opposed to censorship I'll even let them write that the Earth is flat, that Windows is stable and that English food is good!
OK, scratch the latter. Pretending English food is good is too hideous a crime. :-)
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The more you persecute racists and try to hide their speech, the faster they grow. They're like pasty white grubs, they always multiply under rocks. Outlawing their speech only makes them feel vindicated and martyred, makes them justify their paranoia and their belief that (insert racial/ethnic group) is out to get them.
The same thing happens with any other sort of evil, intolerance, and hate in the world. The more you try to ignore it, whistling past graveyards, the more it grows in silence and creeps into the hearts of people secretly. Communication is the way to get rid of ALL these hateful ideas and unite humanity in brotherhood, and the internet stands a good chance of doing so, if not for the interfering meddling of these idiot busybodies.
So let the racists say their piece, as LOUD as they can! That way we can just laugh them to scorn. That way we can talk to them, communicate with them, show them their error. But don't hide their ignorance; it will only worsen.
Of course, [/preachingtothechoir] and all. This is slashdot, after all. Anyone know of a comment board that the treaty writers read?...
-Kasreyn
P.S. I don't have much hope for preventing this, though. Anyone idiot enough to believe in a term like "hate crime" is probably incapable of grasping my argument in the first place.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The only problem here is that it's the Europeans themselves who are doing the censoring, and we've already established that Europeans are incapable of fulfilling that role. What we really need is a consortium of people from sane, responsible, adult countries to appoint the censors instead.
Accordingly, I propose a committee of a mexican, two Canadians, two Tanzanians, and two Brazilians to serve as High Censors overseeing a bureaucracy over all speech, press, broacasts, and other media of expression in all of Europe, lest a new and dangerous philosophy again overtake the continent and result in the deaths of tens of millions.
Let me clarify; the law itself is irrelevant to the logic of the post, and thus is confusing.
Post 1: "Free speech is undoubtedly important, but should we allow speech made with the intent to deny that right to others?"
Now, that quote right there is an example of speech made with the intent to deny that right (the right of free speech) to others (those who speak with the intent to deny that right to others). Thus, under the standards of that quote, the quote itself should be censored.
That's the problem with that argument. If you argue that people who oppose free speech for others should be denied free speech, then you argue, automatically, that you yourself should be denied the free speech to make the argument in the first place, since you are opposing free speech for others.
The regulations you refer to are there to give similar protections to regions with a traditional ownership of a product name that what a company would get from a trademark.
Do you also complain that Pepsi isn't allowed to call it's product Coca Cola?
Note that nothing is stopping anyone from making a cheese that taste the same as Cheddar cheese, but only from marketing it as such in cases where the designation traditionally has meant that it came from the region, and letting anyone use the brand would imply to the consumer that they are buying something they are not.
Food marking regulations are strict in most countries, and typically does include the name of the product, even in the US.