Slashdot Mirror
EU Pushes to Limit Internet Speech
minamar writes "CNN is reporting that at an international conference, the EU is urging the US and other nations to ban racist and 'hate' messages from the internet. The US seems to be resisting, but is this another step away from free speech and how could an international group possibly regulate message on the internet anyway?"
Those Gay Nazi half-breed Nigger Europeans will only take my hate speech when they pry my tongue from my cold dead body.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
God, I wish I had Mod points. By far the most insightful thing I've heard all day.
Then, when Free Speech is considered a terrorist act, only terrorists will have Free Speech.
Oh, sh--.
At the core of free speech is religeon and sedition. We have to be able to practice both in this country otherwise our revolutionary war was for naught. You can't seperate hate speech from these two concepts because its all about expression. Taking your beliefs and ideas and sharing them with others. No matter what your core belief is, weather it be that God wants you to avoid alchohol, that the Government is hiding aliens, or that all black people are bad, its is all the exact same substance.
Our greatest strength has always been our belief that when you can discuss ideas the best ideas, the most reasonable, will rise to the top and be accepted while those with least merit will fade to the bottom.
France and many other countries never had to go through quite the kind of battle we did and never learned that most important lesson that the truth will out, no matter the level of control imposed upon a people. And censureship of the worst ideas inevitably harms the best ones as well.
-Ian
*sigh*
Spoken like a stereotypical Yank.
Socialism isn't evil, get that through your Reaganised skull. Bad government is bad government, regardless of their socio-economic beliefs, and bad governments make stupid laws. Does the DMCA prove that US citizens can't handle free speech? No, it merely proves that you were (and continue to be) governed by corporate shills (not that the current EU member-governments are any better: EU/DMCA, etc).
Socialism != Communism, rather Communism is the extreme form of Socialism. Take a look at your country's current economic status to see how well Corporatism (Capitalism centred around large companies) is doing for the US.
Congrats on mentioning stormfront.org and earthfirst.org in the same sentence and getting modded +5! I see that someone wasn't paying attention. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Since US corporations can take legal measures to limit speech worldwide that affect their trademarks and copyrights, and those measures are successful to some degree, other entities (governments in that case) can take legal measures to limit speech world wide that has racist content.
Note that I didn't call either kind of speech "free" speech or pass any other kind of judgement. Whether you think of either kind of speech as "free" and whether you think restrictions on either kind of speech are justified, you can easily disagree over with the next guy. But restrictions on speech can have some degree of success and enforceability, even on the Internet.
The EU won't last anyway. Why do we care what they think?
I protest! The title of this post is sensationalist and biased against Europe. The contents of the news are about a conference with the participation of European, Middle East and American delegates, what in that article justifies such a stupid title?
Shame, shame on you. This is manipulation.
Let's have a special law saying that one cannot deny the fact that American government was wrong in pushing the "natives" west and eventually putting them on tiny reservations where they live in squalor. Yeah.. That sounds good to me. While we're at it, let's make sure we stop people from denying that AIDS is an epidemic of biblical scale (perhaps not). The point is, where do you draw the line?
Censorship in any form at any level above the personal or familial level is unsustainable and wrong. In the case of the Germans and the Holocoust, if the German populace, as a whole, slowly forgets the Holocoust ever happened, that's their perrogative and who is the government to stop them?
What is your penile percentile?
Hate Hate
Hate Hate Hate
Hate Hate Hate
Hate Hate
Hate Hate
So there.
Chip H.
Yes! There should be religious tests for public office and citizenship! Finally someone who gets it. Don't believe in god? Then Bush I and John Adams and Ridglift think you shouldn't be a citizen. God bless their souls.
Oh can it you cynic! You tell me what the solution? More laws? People are basically "good"? Most large nations used to be Judeo-Christian in their main belief systems. If people have no inner sense of "ought", then why do good? Why not blow away your neighbour and take his stuff?
Ruby on Rails Screencast
What does what faith I choose to believe in have to do with it? Whether I'm a Muslim or not, that doesn't change the fact that the Koran doesn't demand that women cover their heads.
If it's of any relevance to you, I'm not a Muslim. Does that somehow prohibit me from making statements about Islam and quoting from the Koran to prove my point? Are facts now the compartmentalised property of the discrete sections of society that they apply to?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg