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Crackdown On Internet 'Hate' in Canada
Baldrson writes "CanWest is reporting that 'The federal government is preparing to introduce a sweeping round of legislation that would combat the "explosion" of hate sites on the Internet.' A priority of this legislation is more international enforcement under the Council of Europe's protocol on hate speech. The hate-speech legislation is tied to a bill to reduce trafficing in women and children."
We're Canadian. We're polite. Our definition of a 'hate site' is some 12 year old posting about the c4mp1ng fagz00rs in Counterstrike.
Interesting to see how the /. community receives this. If you can't say even unpopular things, then you have no freedom of speech. This will also eventually be used to persecute religious speach.
this is doubleplusungood.
BC
Why this "hate-speech" is tied with slave traffic?
I think the politicians are just trying to make the two problems like one, so they can pass a law to cut on free-speech, because, you know, nobody can support slave trade...
I get that impression from RTFA...maybe I shouldn't read before giving my opinion.
It pissed me right off when I saw CNN and FoxNews cover the story of about 12 people pouring French wine down the gutter but not covering the millions of people pouring through the streets in support of the French view of not invading for stupid reasons.
I'm glad hate speeches are being actively pursued. Most times it is easier to blame people than to fix the issue. That is what hate speech laws try to change.
...speech is free only as long as it is politically correct in Canada.
Some freedom.
You have to take the good with the bad, otherwise you are not free.
Heck, if you were a Nazi and thought that the Jews had an evil conspiracy to control the banks and the government, this kind of legislation wouldn't exactly make you change your mind.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Maybe the reason you've got hate speech bursting on the internet is because everywhere else, it's being squashed. Let's be realistic - some people just don't like other people/things/places. You can't make this world a happy, soft, padded place without turning us into machines. The more you cut off hate the more it will build up somewhere else - at least on the Internet you can release it in a fairly harmless way. Better than beating the snot out of someone when hate boils over.
http://gsulaw.gsu.edu/lawand/papers/su01/stewart/
What is your take on his ideas? Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
Maybe they should start here... http://boston.craigslist.org/rnr/
Cyberbite Networks - Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers & Colocati
In an era when any pissed off group cries "Hate Speech!" when someone says something they don't like, Canada is creating a serious freedom of speech situation.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The operative words here are "preparing to introduce". So far it is a declaration of intent by the minister, no such legislation has been introduced yet (as you can find out on the Canadian Parliament site.) Don't panic just yet.
Meanwhile, you can check the existing legislation on "Hate propaganda".
There is a good article explaining the issues, an overview of the applicable law, the relevant statutes and regulations of the criminal code and a recent amendment.
Also see the Internet Content-Related Liability Study on the applicability of the existing legislation to the internet.
Someone who commits a hateful violent act is expressing hateful violent thoughts in a very bad way. Someone who writes about hateful violent thoughts is expressing them in a much better way. Why in the WORLD would you want to forbid people from doing the right thing?
People have bad thoughts. People have bad ideas. No law can change that. Allowing people to express their bad thoughts to other people is called "venting" for a reason. When people can't vent and explode, things get ugly. We don't want that. Only when hate is drawn out into to the light of day can it be properly death with. This law makes it illegal to do exactly that.
Censorship is not about controlling the words; it's about controlling the thoughts behind them. Trying to control people's thoughts by controlling their ability to express them is a disastrous plan. Serial killers are an example of what happens when people who have bad thoughts can't express them to anyone. They lose the ability to identify with other people. They feel cut off and angry so they strike out in awful ways. We like to think of these people as evil but give a potential serial killer a web site where they can connect with other people who have the same types of feelings and they won't turn into a serial killer.
People's ability to speak their minds, no matter what they are thinking, is a cornerstone of a fair free society. The founders of the US understood this and put rules in place to forbid censorship right into the constitution (which unfortunately, doesn't seem to influence the behavior of the government much).
The arguments to forbid free speech are just like the arguments against violent video games and just as misguided. The people who create these laws are noticing a correlation between the expression of hateful or violent ideas and the commission of violent crimes but are forgetting the cardinal rule:
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSALITY
Repeat that 3 times so we remember. Someone who really wants to run around their school with a gun killing people is probably not going to choose the Care Bear Movie over Fight Club. Someone who wants to blow up all the people who have hurt them, is probably going to choose Quake over The Simms. People who shop at prosthetic limb stores are more likely to have lost a limb. Correlation does not imply causality.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Secondly, the article you claim offers a "good" explanation of the issues doesn't cover some of the central issues about such legislation. One of the more obvious issues is what principle is used to select which "identifiable groups" are protected and which are not protected from "hate propaganda". As it stands it smacks of a kind of inverse bill of attainder more than anything principled. If I can somehow get my favorite group protected under this umbrella but you can't get yours protected, why should your group not "hate" my group?
What when people start saying, "Kill all the lawyers."?
Seastead this.
One Canadian site, Nizkor, documents (and refutes) the claims of holocaust deniers. In documenting the claims, they might fall afoul of the act (I've not read it yet), even though that is the exact opposite of their intent.
He has not been prosecuted although others have been held without charges in Canada as "national security threats" due to their questioning the "6 million Jews" figure of the German National Socialist period.
It is arguable that the Ukranian famine resulted in the hysterical reaction of the German people -- and that therefore it is more important to the public peace to remember that famine than the subsequent deaths of Jews under National Socialism.
Seastead this.
Don't you think that's the point? They're starting with hate speech, then they'll progress to unpopular speech, and then they'll go after anyone who says something which is against the will of the government. Ultimately, they'll create a society where speech is totally free, as long as they agree with what everyone else says.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Most likely to enact hate crime laws the governments most out of step with their own people?
Quite frankly, this just looks like more of the same we've been seeing
I must thank you folks. Seems like just when I'm feeling my most curmudgeonly about our own government I get snapped right out of it by seeing just how fucked up you people keep things back in the old world.
Canadian law doesn't provide you with an unfettered right to free speech. It provides you with a law that says "as long as you're not inciting violence and hatred, you're protected, but if you do suggest those things, you're screwed."
The specific definition can be found here
It tries to strike a balance between saying you have a right to say what you want and others having the right to not have you say "kill all the Cats/Blondes/Tall People/People with Freckles".
It makes you accountable for what you say instead of merely saying "well, gee, when I said 'kill all the people with freckles' how was I supposed to know someone might? That was just freedome of speech." Anyone advocating those positions is deemed to be on the wrong side of a line.
As opposed to the US which is the land of Liberty (except when we say not) and freedom from Oppression (except when otherwise needed) and government intrusion (unless we need to). Sadly, it doesn't sound as if one can hold up the US as a free and fair government anymore; they're trying hard not to be.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.