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EU Anti-Hate Laws On The Web
coupco writes "The European Union's Council of Europe passes a measure that would make hate speech on the web illegal, and subject to banning and filtering. A story on Wired News explains the How and Why."
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Who gets to decide what is considered "Hate Speech"?
Aside from the fact that this is an affront to free speech (Which I'm sure everyone else here will cover just fine), did anyone notice that they allow you to promote hatred against people based on sexual orientation or gender?
The quote nicely omits these. Now, provisions for that may be elsewhere in the amendment, but it belongs in that sentance; seperating it is poor writing.
Is the EU is telling its citizens who they can hate?
There's something very wrong here.
See what happens when things move too far to the left? Now you can't call anyone in europe a nigger/honky/kike etc etc. I wonder if you are still allowed to buy Tupac's "for my niggaz" cd.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Does this ban hating Europeans, or just hating in general?
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
The 9th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is brilliant on this topic:
Jefferson refused to put his name to the Constitution until it had his 10 Amendments. One of them, the 9th, was to prevent the Government from explicitly listing the things you're allowed to do -- then using that as a way to restrict what you *can* do.
The language in the EU's law:
The people who wrote up the current legislation in Europe (and many US politicians, for that matter) fail to understand the lesson here:
It's useless trying make laws via ad-hoc enumeration.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
"Dammit toqer, look at all those nips driving up the road, they're going to take over!" my uncle vince said to me one day as we stood outside the family fruit stand.
"You know, I hear they eat cats and dogs!"
This is but a small sample of what I heard from the men in my family. Every derogetory racial slur you could imagine. Funny thing is, despite only being 4th gen american, the older men in the family were always trying to get people to drop the idea that we were "dago wop Guinni Italians" for the cowboy white bread image they were trying to portray..
It would have worked too, if my parents wouldnt have been such fuckups.
Around 12 or so, the problems with my parents escalated to the point where I had to spend as little time as possible around them. The other white kids didn't really want to hang out with the kid from a broken family (divorced)
My first mexican friend manny and his family helped me get through a lot of stuff, even though they lived in an apartment, and dad was dead, his mom was so supportive of letting him be who he wanted, something my parents never even considered.
My second education into non-white culture was with my surrogate japanese family. When my mom kicked me out at 16, my japanese friends and their family would let me take showers at their house, feed me, give me clean clothes to wear. I gained culinary insight with sushi, and learned eating raw fish with a sake bomb could be quite tasty..
Doesn't really have a lot to do with the article does it? I read the topic was on EU adopting anti hate laws for the web, well ok here's my insight into the article.
I think everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how wrong it is. Despite all the bad opinions I learned early on, later in life I learned the truth about people for myself. I don't need parliment acting as the thought police for me.
It's human nature to question everything.. No matter how a person is brought up, eventually they'll find their own truth.
When are people ever going to learn that free speech must be absolute and sacrosanct, no matter how reprehensible the beliefs being espoused?
All viewpoints have something to offer, and none is totally correct; as humans, we are incapable of perceiving absolute Truth. That truth lies somewhere between the viewpoints, and by censoring any viewpoint -any viewpoint- we permanently cripple our ability to get closer to that Truth, whatever it may be.
Thoughts do not go away sinply because we forbid people to speak of them. The only valid way to stop hate has always been, and will always be, education, not legislation.
>incites hatred
Ignoring the free speech issues (speech Prohibition makes it more desirable like alcohol), the portion above is key:
The problem is that some speech may **incite hatred** in me, but not you. Is it an objective standard or is it subjectively determined by its results?
For example, CNN may carry a news story about the terrorists and mention their race or religion. It MAY INCITE hatred of them by ME. But if my friend Ali reads it, it wouldn't in him.
The question is who decides, and why should it be limited to those groups. Why doesn't it ban hatred against anyone? the rich, gender, Microsoft?
Who decides who should be protected and who decides what is a bad thing? It is a slippery slope to "1984" and "Animal Farm".
Free speech is the best way of debunking idiots who hate (and I hate people who hate, btw).
However, since it's not the U.S., I see subtle defenses of what amounts to censorship and attempted mind control. Hate speech is still speech and if you think censoring or punishing hate speech isn't repressive, you are dead wrong. This is a very right-wing move for Europeans who frequently love to argue that they are so much more liberal than the U.S. and are far more evolved in terms of human rights.
Apparently not.
This really isn't a troll or flamebait, but this kind of double-standard annoys the hell out of me. When we see repressive moves by the governing bodies in Europe, it's necessary "for a better society and world" whereas when it's the U.S., it's just "more typical American ignorance." Well, allow me to be the first to call bullshit on this and point out that a really liberal society would fight this kind of Big Brother-ism tooth-and-nail. Rationalize it however you want, but it's still censorship, repression and a strikingly right-wing move for a supposedly liberal part of the planet.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I advise reading the book "The Holocaust Industry" (written by a Jew), which details much of the seedier side of the Holocaust, including people who claim to have been in concentration camps - but who were later proven to have spent the war in Switzerland, of misdirection of funds intended for Holocaust victims.
One good example is that this law makes it illegal to suggest that less than 6,000,000 Jews were murdered, might it have been 5,999,999? Oops, you just broke the law.
There are many who think that the number was actually lower than 6 Million based on census information and other data at the time. Now, some would have you believe that even thinking that less than 6 million Jews might have died during WWII is disrespectful to the memory of those that died, but how much more disrespectful is it to censor the truth, to misuse funds intended for the families of the real victims, or to pretend that you suffered when you didn't?
One of the reasons that hate speech is censored in Europe is that we realised that words can be a dangerous weapon, even more than a very limited and democratically controlled censorship. In fact, it was Hitler's main skill to give vivid and charming speeches that convinced so many people to do things that are completely ridiculous.
In contrast to you Americans, we don't see free speech as the ultimate right. Instead it might be limited by the rights of other people. You are for example (in general) not allowed to insult people, because it might hurt them.
OTOH, in Europe you have the right to have a lawyer even if you are a foreigner...:-)
So to sum it up, while the US is probably more liberal, the European laws are IMHO more social.
Sebastian
The so called CoE is just a useless discussion club
with no power whatsoever. Unfortuently my country (Russia) had the misfortune of joing it. In return for being constantky shit on we had to drop death penalty (so now we cannot execute the terorists who held 1000 people hostage in Moscow). We also have to put up with conctant Checnya inspections by likes of Lord Judd.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
That's not a "real" solution, that's a basis for a solution, not a solution itself.
Sorry, I didn't realize it was my job to solve all the world's problems this week.
So teach everyone, all the time?
Essentially, yes. Make it obvious, all the time, that hate is not acceptable behavior.
I don't get it. How can you tell whether someone's been "taught" or not?
We're not talking about getting a diploma. It's simply a concept. Different != bad.
Having a principle for a solution and having an actual solution are two very different things. And that's why we see laws like this.
Ah. "We must do something, and this is something, so we must do this". Sorry, it doesn't make it right.
You want specific ideas? OK. How about producing children's programming that carries the message different isn't bad but hate is? How about public service announcements carrying the same message to adults? How about speaking out against hatred instead of ignoring it?
I may not have the best solution but that doesn't mean I can't see that outlawing hate isn't a good one.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.