Pirate Bay Launches Free Speech Blog

Chris Blanc writes "In their ever continuing battle to 'free the Internet', The Pirate Bay has now launched an uncensored blogging service, called Baywords. The service is intended to be a safe haven for bloggers who want to be able to write whatever they want."

Comments

first post

[timmarhy]

I'm going to post on there how pirating is actually stealing.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but hopefully they won't rate your karma, and knock you down if you either talk good about Microsoft or bad about Apple, or if you just complain about something not working on your linux machine.

Since I just said these things... I'll post as an AC (my karma is still trying to recover).

"Whatever" with limitations

[Jugalator]

You'd still at least have to comply to Swedish laws, an example of a notable one to Americans being that on the topic of hate speech.

biased enforcement

[nguy]

The trouble with those laws is that they are enforced with a strong bias.

For example, is it apparently perfectly OK for religions to tell non-followers that they are evil and are deserve to be tortured for all eternity for the way they live their lives.

But if you try to tell a follower of a major religion that they are evil and deserve to be tortured for the way they lead their lives, those "hate speech" laws are going to come down like a hammer on you.

If Sweden was really serious about "hate speech", they'd have to outlaw Islam and Catholicism as they are currently being practiced, because those religions are intrinsically in conflict with hate speech laws.

Re:biased enforcement

[EdIII]

Some may say you deserve a +Troll modifier. However, I can find no fault with your statements, even though I am sure plenty of followers of both religions would claim otherwise.

You also correctly note, "as they are currently being practiced", since it is Islamic followers that will threaten to kill you (and many actually follow through with that threat) if you tarnish their "religion of peace". It is also Catholic Priests that use their positions of power in their communities to not only directly abuse certain people, but to foster an environment of hate for certain non-believers and non-conformists. I realize that some may vehemently take exception to such statements, but when these religions state their positions as absolutes with the language they use, it cannot be seen as anything other then hurtful and filled with hate for those it aimed towards.

It is also predominantly the men of these religions that use their perverted interpretation of their faith's to abuse their fellow brothers and sisters. Just because they have been making these statements for centuries, while making up a sizable portion of their respective populations, makes it no less hateful of certain groups of people.

So if you are saying that "Hate Speech" is really just unpopular speech, then I wholeheartedly agree. For those that are against censorship, it must be treated as an absolute. Once you stop doing so, it cannot be anything but biased.

Re:biased enforcement

[EdIII]

Yeah, how dare those nasty Catholics pray for other religions! They must hate people if they pray for them.

LOL. Are you serious? To pray for someone's soul, and to hate them at the same time is not impossible. Praying does not negate the fact that they actively promulgate the views of their religion, which is that certain people are evil and will be tortured in hell for all eternity.

So yeah, I fully agree that Catholics may preach that all the "faggots" are going to Hell, they are evil, they live in Sin, but rid their commentaries of any connotations of hate by SIMPLY praying for their souls afterwards. Riiiggght.

I hope you can understand that when certain religions preach that you are a bad person, that you will be forever in pain and suffering, that it is hurtful and very easily felt as hate by such people. The fact that those same people openly "state" they are praying for you, often provides no sense of relief, but more often a sense of condescension, indifference, and intolerance.

Re:biased enforcement

[nguy]

Can you point to some actual examples of atheists being prosecuted for suggesting that Christians or Muslims be tortured?

No, I can't, because atheists generally don't suggest that other get tortured for all eternity. They don't because (1) they don't believe that anybody lives for all eternity, (2) most atheists are either religious or humanists and hence object to torture in any form, whether by divine beings or men, and (3) they know that if they speak out publicly, they risk death threats and arrest.

I suspect that your post is just irrelevant speculation.

Well, then you're living under a rock. Geert Wilders film, for example, has been condemned, literally, as "hate speech" by the UN secretary general (here), and all he did was compile a collection of quotes from the Quran and Muslim leaders.

Here are other examples:

http://www.lutononsunday.com/lutononsunday-news/displayarticle.asp?id=306589

http://www.axcessnews.com/user.php/articles/show/id/12315

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/ap-far-righters-arrested-for-anti-islam-protest

You can find many more if you look around, with free speech by students, bloggers, protesters, and others being suppressed for criticizing religions or saying things that "offend" people of one or the other religion.

Re:biased enforcement

[nguy]

A pentecostal preacher was sentenced recently in Sweden, for saying stuff about gays in a sermon.

That's nice, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Look at what Catholicism says: if you're gay, you'll burn in hell. That's doctrine. What could be more hateful than that? Yet, they have been getting away with this for centuries.

Either way, those laws are designed explicitly to protect minorities, people who are ill equipped to fight back in a propaganda war if you will.

I think these kinds of laws are wrong and hurt, rather than help, in the long run. Right now, people like the Pope and Muslim leaders go around claiming to be authorities on ethics and morality, excusing the child abuse and terrorism by their members as aberrations. But we need to have a clear public debate challenging these people's claims to moral authority.

Re:biased enforcement

[clichescreenname]

'... communists who suggest that capitalism is exploiting the workers are "pressured into silence"...'

Uh, bullshit.

Go to any university. Provide something more substantial than a bland assertion. I live in Springfield Missouri, which is right in the middle of the bible belt. About a week and a half ago, our local sheriff (Jack Merritt) made the following statement in reference to somebody on American Idol signing the national anthem:

"The way I hear Jason sing the national anthem makes you want to go out and kill a communist."

And he said this to a local newspaper reporter. Now, terrible grammar aside, this is a horrible comment for a law enforcer to make, and it could certainly strike fear into local communists.

Kinda like

[ncryptd]

Kinda like NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- except without true free speech. TPB's got to comply with Swedish (and EU) law -- so anything that can be construed as hate speech is illegal. Compare and contrast that to NearlyFreeSpeech.net, which has this "beliefs" page. They've been around since 2002, and as long as I've been using them, stayed completely true to those beliefs.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way associated with NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- I'm simply a happy customer of theirs who enjoys the free speech protections and FreeBSD cluster hosting they offer. They don't have any form of affiliate program, so I couldn't be monetarily compensated for this post even if I wanted to be.

(really) free speech

[Iamthecheese]

I, for one, support completely free speech and this is why:

While speech such as harmful memes (religious extremism, racism, etc) is inherently harmful, people who are exposed to a sufficient number of such memes and use basic logic will develope an immunity. Meanwhile it is all too easy, once a precident of declaring some speech "bad" has been set, to change one's definition of Bad speech to whatever makes one uncomfortable. In the long term, uncensored speech is the only thing that can save humanity.

My point of view is that hating $group should be completely legal, as should encouraging hatred. Free speech and reason will, in time, drown out the less reasonable voices.
Even encouraging violence should be permitted. When someone listens to the speech and commits a violent act will you indemnify them because they are not responsible, having been given a harmful meme? of course not! And since responsibility lies on the shoulders of the actor, the person who encouraged such behavior is not responsible.

I believe in people. If everyone gets to hear all sought opinions, everyone will be better off because most people are more good than evil.

As for my sig, it means distribution of child porn, not any act required for its creation.

How close are we?

[penguinbrat]

"In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil." The Chronicles of Riddick

Anymore, pirates are a hell of a lot more trustworthy than ANY given government or corporation. If I had something serious to leak, or had some crazy theories on even a half way controversial topic - I would trust those flagrant, authority mooning thugs to resist big brother more so than anyone else. The reason? Everyone has there breaking point, regardless of how bad ass you are - you still have one. It's just a matter of who has the higher breaking point as to who I would trust - not to necessarily do something for me, but more to NOT DO SOMETHING.