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German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal
An anonymous reader writes: Following a four-month trial, a German court in Hamburg has ruled that the practice of blocking advertising is perfectly legitimate. Germany-based Eyeo, the company that owns Adblock Plus, has won a case against German publishers Zeit Online and Handelsblatt. These companies operate Zeit.de, Handelsblatt.com, and Wiwo.de. Their lawsuit, filed on December 3, charged that Adblock Plus should not be allowed to block ads on their websites. While the decision is undoubtedly a big win for users today, it could also set a precedent for future lawsuits against Adblock Plus and any other tool that offers similar functions. The German court has essentially declared that users are legally allowed to control what happens on their screens and on their computers while they browse the Web.
To understand that !
And when capped internet comes then people will us that to say I need control over what comes down the pipe.
...to change the definition of "own".
If you the consumer currently control your screen today, then tomorrow you won't own the screen.
They will, and they'll advertise what they damn well please.
And you will accept this behavior with a smile on your face because you paid only $99 instead of $999 for that screen.
If the software is running on the user's computer, at their express request, to do something - at the user's express request, then I can't see how you could rule any other way.
If we were talking about an online-only service that "proxies" the web for you and removes ads, then you may have more of a case, however.
And spyware that does it against or without user's consent (replacing other's adverts with your own, eh, Lenovo?) then that's a huge other matter entirely.
But it's like ruling that if the user WANTS to look at a plain-text version of a particular webpage then that's up to them. So long as the viewer is the one choosing to change the content and knows that, why would you ever think differently.
The alternative just doesn't bear thinking about. Websites DEMANDING that nothing interferes in the process of displaying their page as they intended. Unskippable ads, etc. like on DVD's. DRM for the web, effectively. No thanks.
*People misuse the term "log-in" to a web site when they actually mean "visit the URL", but that's another rant...
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Ad companies would love to make it illegal for you to get up and go to the bathroom while commercials play. The technology is already here that will tell our televisions when we look away. Just think of the possibilities for advertisers if they could get that data.
Some things need to be said...
I don't mind ads. But when it gets to the point where the ads start rendering the web unusable what else can you do? And when you're getting charged an excessive amount of money for data on your mobile plan you kinda don't want to be paying for stuff you don't even want to see.
Pictures ad or text ad on website usually host on different servers than the content provider. If I use my old fashion telnet to get the content, I would have to make an extra effort to download these ads. What I am saying is one would argue ads are not part of the "content" from the content provider.
I've been to a few websites recently that detect AdBlock and redirect me to a page telling me to turn it off. What's really annoying is that we have WebSense at work, which blocks adverts, and then I get redirected to the switch off AdBlock page.
This is further compounded by some websites sticking up a dialog box telling me to register or "Like" them on Facebook if I want to continue browsing their content.
I suspect we'll be seeing more of this in future, meaning that I'll soon have to re-install NoScript just to browse without being nagged.
Summation 2
Serve them form your own domain. With your own cookies. Do not make them offensive in any way (Pop under, Popup, loud, require click through or interaction, ...) and most of all take responsibility when they contain malware and pay for the damage to my computer and my time.
I understand you need to make money that doesn't mean you have to treat me like dirt.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Even if we ignore the main use of Adblock Plus, which is blocking advertisements, and looking at the broader functionality of "users are legally allowed to control what happens on their screens and on their computers while they browse the Web", then it would be quite detrimental if users were force to render content on web pages. I personally don't use Adblock Plus, as I like to support the sites I visit, and most of the sites I frequent have only a moderate number of ads. However I do use stuff like Flashblock to stop things like autoplaying movies and animations. I also don't like running Flash by default as there are a lot of exploits. Not allowing users to run what they want, and being required by law to run whatever script the webpage sends at them is a recipe for disaster.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's my damned screen, and my damned internet connection.
To rule that I have some legal obligation to load and view your ads would be idiotic.
Of course, this was idiotic from the beginning and just some asshole publishers trying to entrench their ad revenue in law.
Since ad companies violate both my privacy and potentially my security, I simply do not care about your ads. Unless you paywall your site, in which case I'll ignore you, don't bloody act like I am required to see your ads.
Not my problem.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are you paying Google for Google Maps? You don't own the product, you don't even lease/rent it. Since it is a web application, they can discontinue it at their discretion.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
This is a plus for the consumer, definitely.
Personally, I install some kind of ad blocking software on every computer I build for friends and family. This is mainly because, while I might trust a particular web site I most certainly do not extend that trust to whatever 3rd party ad host is used, and there have been enough instances of ad servers hosting malware for me to block the whole lot on principle.
However, the next step from the advertisement-laden internet sites is going to be to refuse access to any browsers running ad blockers, so the ad blockers' most salient feature is going to be their ability to run in a stealth mode that gets around such restrictions.
Ad money is how many of the websites finance themselves, pay their bills. From that point of view the AdBlock hating sites only want to show you the contents ONLY if you see the advertisements.
Expect further development of Ad pushing technologies, because the websites will need to get paid or they will go out of business.
I think industry should consider the example of Netflix: for a cost of one movie one can watch dozens a movies at the convenience of their homes. Last time I have heard Netflix is not a loss making company.
And France, the UK,... Spreading racial/religious hatred is forbidden in most places in Europe.
It's easy to write your web site so you can tell if the browser is asking for the ads to be downloaded or not. If not, you can put up a message saying that this web site can't be viewed unless ad blocking is turned back off. I have a right to control what I download to my computer, but the web site also has a right to decide they don't want to send me content. Everyone's happy.
https://maps.google.com/maps?o...
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
A lot of things are forbidden in Europe and we're better off for it. One day you stupid americans will learn that civilization is defined but what we forbid and not by what we allow. The more bans, the more civilized a country is. It's as simple as that.
"dishonest *** who take money from Google to whitelist their ads"
CEOs should accept that I use an ad blocker. If I didn't have an ad blocker, I would be more aware of their ads and would probably be successful in getting some of the CEOs fired for dishonesty and incompetence.
Adblock Edge is a fork of the Adblock Plus(R) version 2.1.2 extension for blocking advertisements on the web. Adblock Edge was primarily branched off from Adblock Plus(R) 2.1.2 source code package "https://adblockplus.org/downloads/adblockplus-2.1.2-source.tgz" created by Wladimir Palant.
Adblock Edge will be discontinued in June 2015 in favor of uBlock , a general purpose blocker that not only outperforms Adblock Edge but is also available on other browsers and, of course, without "Acceptable Ads Whitelist".***
Pale Moon x64 is Firefox with adult supervision. With Pale Moon, use AdBlock Latitude.
Firefox is becoming less and less stable. It's so unstable that it often doesn't report crashes, so the crash reports aren't reliable, they show far fewer crashes than actually occurred. The underlying problem is that Mozilla Foundation needs better management. At present, Mozilla Foundation management is sometimes excellent and sometimes very unreliable.
A lot of things are forbidden in Europe and we're better off for it. One day you stupid americans will learn that civilization is defined but what we forbid and not by what we allow. The more bans, the more civilized a country is. It's as simple as that.
You're kidding, right? Irony?
In my opinion we would be better off with absolutely no limits on free speech.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
That is true to a point, until you ban so much the people who are wanting to do such things decide to take back what they believe they have a right to.
There is a happy medium, the US is too lose and Europe is too tight.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
How can it not be MY choice to decide what I DON'T want to see on my screen?!?!
I understand that content owners control stuff they create and can require me to pay to view or ban me from viewing, or even from replacing one set of ads with another before passing content to a third party, but they can't prevent me from closing my eyes or looking away so why should they think they can prevent me from removing junk from a webpage?
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Too loose? I hope you are joking. We have lost so many rights in the name of "security" and "for your own good" lately.
People are allowing fear to give up freedom at an alarming rate these days.
Germany, like most countries outside the UK and its former colonies, has a civil law system. Courts are *not* bound by "precedents" the way they are in common law countries.
That said, yes, courts are likely to judge the same way if a similar lawsuit comes along. But that's simply because it makes sense, not because of earlier decisions.
One thing I never understood is why no one's come up with an ad blocker that still requests ads in the background, but doesn't display them (as an option).
Quite literally, everyone wins in that scenario. Advertisers get to feel like they're changing the world. Web sites are funded. We don't have to deal with advertisements.
And manufacturers/service providers are less likely to deal with the wrath of people like me who go out of our way to avoid products with offensive advertising. We won't know any better.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Presumably companies and businesses that appear prominently on there DO pay Google something. And it should be obvious that it is in those businesses' best interests if users can find their businesses quickly, easily, reliably, and in a familiar way, even if it means using an older better version.
There's a lot of people here saying what is essentially, "f*ck you" to the advertisements. But I think a lot of them don't consider what it's like for the creator in this situation. A lot of them don't charge for their content and rely upon the ads, without which they could never keep going. This is especially the case for the smaller guys who run their own channels, and they could never afford to do their hobby otherwise. You have the right to control what's on your screen, yes, but they also have the right to ask you to disable it - you are reading what they spent hours putting together. It would be like if you let a coworker look at your editor configuration, they write down some of the cool tricks you used, and then they refused to let you see theirs.
Look, all I'm saying is that if you have Adblock Plus (and who doesn't? I use it myself on occasion), please consider disabling it most of the time and saving it only for the really egregious websites. A lot of people rely on that ad money, and by not letting them receive it, you are essentially breaking your end of an implicit agreement - a lot like when your neighbor borrows your lawn mower and then refuses to replace the gas he used.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Didn't really need their permission, but thanks anyway.
So says AC! Wisest of all rodents!
- X/Y -
While the decision is undoubtedly a big win for users today, it could also set a precedent for future lawsuits against Adblock Plus and any other tool that offers similar functions.
How's that? Surely it does the exact opposite.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So it's cool if I go around telling people you are a pedophile?
I wouldn't go that far. Even in the US, we have limits on free speech. However, I'd say that our limits are pretty sane. You can't spread lies about someone and expect to be able to claim "free speech" when you are sued. You can't threaten to hurt/kill people, claim "free speech", and expect to get off scot-free.
However, if you say something bad about someone ("X is a crook") and you can back it up with evidence/facts ("here's a photo of X taking a bribe"), then you can't be successfully sued for libel/slander. You can also express a wide range of political opinions so long as you stop short of advocating killing fellow citizens. (You would be fine to say "Those LIBERALS/CONSERVATIVES/DEMOCRATS/REPUBLICANS/CHRISTIANS/ATHEISTS/PASTAFARIANS [pick one or more] are ruining America. We would be better off without them." You just can't continue with "... and that's why I want to round them all up and shoot them to death.")
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
While you own the physical media, you don't own the data on the media. You only have a license to use that data and part of the license is not skipping ads, etc.
In the US maybe... excpet that TFA's lawsuite happened in Germany, EU. European country have their copyright law siding a little bit more toward end users than USA.
Among other, several country have the local DCMA-equivalent law, explicitely granting excetion for fair use. And explicitely consider "fair use" to b0rk the encryption for "technical reasons" such as needing to be able to play your own media because you buy it and want to play it and the manufacturer doesn't support your OS. (e.g.: Switzerland, although it's not *EU*, just geographically in Europe).
deCSS is considered lawful here: you bought the CD, use whatever you need to exercise your fair use rights.
There's no concept of "you're actually just renting the data and thus must follow the license in order to be able to consume it".
It'd be akin to requiring a login to use a free website, but the agreement for the login to say that you accept the ads in order to use the website.
Again, in most european countries, EULA aren't considered binding. You can't sell your soul just because there was a sentence hidden somewhere in the big pile of legalese.
The only things which *are* legally binding are the general provision covered in the law itself (warranties, etc.)
But a website owner CANNOT sue you because you violated the license you were supposed to accept and used Adbock anyway.
On the other hand, nothing forbids the owner to kick you out and ban your account either.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This afternoon I chased away a guy getting ready to put ad pamphlets in every single mailbox in my building. Real life AdBlock for the win! :)
Huh? A precedent means that there have been rulings on a subject. Clearly, there have now been rulings on the subject. There being a precedent doesn't say, without further specification, which *way* the precedent went...
If they didn't bombard me and everyone with what seems like the skyline of Las Vegas every time I open their site, I would not feel the need to use an adblock.
The web became basically unusable without an adblock lately and the content providers only have themselves to blame. If they kept it to 1 or 2 text advertisements per page, most people wouldn't even want to install an adblocker, but the content providers had to go full retard. Never go full retard.
It is just a regional court decision and precedents aren't binding in Germany. The ruling is somewhat surprising, though, because the Hamburg regional court is known for a, let's say, quite a pro-big-business attitude when it comes to technology.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
In my opinion we would be better off with absolutely no limits on free speech.
Slandering some, threatening someone, revealing people's private information like their SSN and credit card info, committing fraud, committing treason. Just a few things I can think of off the top of my head that can happen through speech that I think are valid limits on free speech. Or would you not mind if any or all of these were committed against you (minus treason since that is done against a state)?
Fuck you Zeit and Fuck you Handelsblatt for having the audacity of bringing this in front of a court in the first place.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
Perhaps the wording was bad:
it could also set a precedent for future lawsuits against Adblock Plus
"For" could be read as "in favour of," but perhaps what was meant was "in relation to."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Doesn't matter I'd use it anyway. Fuck the government!
Oh yeah, that's reasonable. I can see how the sentence could be open to that interpretation - I only saw the "in relation to" parse the first time, but I can see how both would be valid parses (but only one would actually be a true statement :p).
Amen, and forget choosing to keep the old UI as a preference. It forgets it every time. Seriously dislike the new UI it is less user friendly and less intuitive than the old one.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
So it's cool if I go around telling people you are a pedophile?
Unless you are correct, that would be fraud in the form of slander. Although speech is used to commit slander, it is not the speech that is illegal, it is the fraudulent nature of the information conveyed and the harm caused that are illegal.
Similarly, free speech doesn't allow you to threaten someone in order to coerce them into giving you all the money in the cash register. It is the theft and threats that are illegal, not the speech.
"Christianity is the root of much evil in the world" might be specious (or not), and it might be delivered in a hateful manner, but it isn't in the same category. It is a statement of purely subjective opinion and as such should be protected. Substitute any group you like for 'Christianity' and the answer is the same.
And France, the UK,... Spreading racial/religious hatred is forbidden in most places in Europe.
Well, that kind of depends on which religion doesn't it? I mean we have to be tolerant of those who hate us, even if they want to kill us, or even if they do kill us. It would be wrong to stifle their spreading of hatred throughout the world.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Yes. Those things are limits on free speech. The OP want's "absolutely no limits" on it.
Walking away from the TV is not the same as stripping out ads from the video content.
True but irrelevant. Either way the company hoping to get revenue from the ads doesn't get paid. They are effectively broadcasting and I can do whatever I want with their signal as long as I don't re-broadcast it. If I want to strip out their ads then that is my prerogative. I pay Comcast a handsome fee each month to have them send a TV signal into my house. What I do with it there is my business an no one else's. If I want to use a TiVo to skip all the ads then I will do so. Their bad business model is not my problem.
Sorry, but if you wish to access content on a commercial website, you must at least download their ads so they get paid.
I don't give a shit if they get paid or not. Not my problem. If I decide their content is worth paying for then I will pay for it. This rarely is the case but I have done it on occasion when I feel it is justified. If they decide ads are the best way to get paid that's their choice but they should have no illusion that I'm going play ball. I'm certainly not going to let a bunch of advertising companies track my every move and serve up advertising spam that I can assure you sight unseen that I have no interest in whatsoever.
The issue is what's fair. It's fair you make money for the content creators by intentionally/accidentally watching ads in exchange for viewing their content for free.
By that argument we should abolish libraries immediately because content creators don't make a dime from them. Sorry but I think it is perfectly fair. The content provider knows (or should know) the deal they are getting into. They don't get to force me to watch anything I'm not willing to watch and they certainly don't get the privilege of tracking my movements (or allowing others to do so) on the internet. If I think their content is worth paying for I will do so but *I* get to decide that, not them.
If you don't agree to that, you should simply not visit the website.
I don't agree to that and I'll visit whatever website I damn well please. They put it out there and the financial risk is theirs. By default I value my privacy more than their content.
Ad money is how many of the websites finance themselves, pay their bills.
Sounds like they should get a more clever business model then. Not my problem. Most of the websites on the internet could disappear tomorrow and my life would not be diminished one bit by their absence. I'm willing to pay for content I find valuable but I'm not willing to pay with my privacy by default with no consent from me.
http://softwaresloverspro.blog...
Unfortunately, I haven't seen the other fork, uMatrix for FireFox. While RequestPolicy (continued) is good, I don't think enough people are involved in its development which has slowed down quite significantly, since the few months after it's fork from Request Policy 0.5.x. The management of RP rules is a complete mess, and RequestPolicy doesn't give anywhere near the level of control nor information that uMatrix (or uBlock) do. uMatrix is potentially more efficient (less resources; faster) than uBlock.
As much as I hate FF for its Memory issues (refusing to release RAM when tabs and windows are closed). It certainly doesn't crash with any regularity, and FF Nightly (x64, Windows) is the browser I use 75%+ of the time.
That's like saying it's your cable box and your TV and you have every right to control what's on the screen, including stripping ads automatically (without changing channels or muting)
I DO have that right and given the technology to do so I'll exercise that right at every opportunity. They are welcome to try to invade my life to sell me stuff but that doesn't mean I have any obligation to let them do that. Their flimsy business model isn't my concern. If I value it then I will pay for it and I sometimes do. Most times I value my privacy and attention more than I value their advertisements and thus I block them. If this results in TV or other services price adjusting to compensate then so be it.
But somehow it's not okay for the vendor providing you web content to charge you money (indirectly through ads)?
It's ok for them to try but they aren't entitled to any expectation that I should have to support their flimsy business model. I can assure you that I am not interested in their advertisements without having seen them. If they want to subsidize their content via ads that probably means their content isn't especially compelling or valuable.
Are website owners creating websites for charity?
I don't care what their motivations are. Not my concern. I value my privacy, bandwidth and attention. I don't give these away for free, directly or indirectly. I'm not about to provide charity to a website operator just because he threw something up and attached some ads to it.
Do you belong to the entitlement generation?
Apparently you think it is ok for content providers to be entitled but not content consumers. Curious double standard you have there.
Actually everyone with more than 3 working brain cells understood the article pretty well.
Your parent is just an idiotic nitpicking moron.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
FTFY:
In my experience we would be far worse off with absolutely no limits on free speech.
See: the third Reich.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
"Christianity is the root of much evil in the world" might be specious (or not), and it might be delivered in a hateful manner, but it isn't in the same category. It is a statement of purely subjective opinion and as such should be protected. Substitute any group you like for 'Christianity' and the answer is the same.
As we talked about "anti hate speech" laws n Europe, you will be surprised that your example is protected
Hint: read up what hate speech is.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
we do not have to tolerate hypocritical Christians that like to pretend that they are the victims while demonstrating how un-Christ-like they really are.
If ad providers did more to keep their networks 100% free of malware, I would have less reason to block their ads.
but that doesn't fit into your bigoted attempts at playing the victim, so I guess we shouldn't expect you to admit that.
I'm working on a social media project and I do want to allow the site owner to run ads for profit if desired, but I want to protect the users and make advertising as harmless as possible. Do I need to host the ads myself if I want to enforce any protection for my users privacy and security?
I made a mistake. I didn't say that Firefox crashes when there are many windows and tabs open, such as when you are doing extensive research.
Now you are just being intentionally obtuse. My explanation might be brief, and it might not be the most stellar writing in history, but it clearly is not a limit on speech to outlaw fraud or theft or any other aggression against another person that happens to involve conveyance of information. Just because I use the written word to commit identity theft doesn't mean that I'm protected by "absolutely no limits on free speech". The same could be said about the right to keep and bear arms - just because you have a right to a weapon doesn't mean you get to shoot anyone you like. Possessing a weapon and using it to harm someone else are different things.
These are obvious distinctions between words expressing ideas and actions. Pretending that you can't comprehend such distinctions is not a cogent argument.
Replace the word 'Christian' with some other group. Try jews, homosexuals, Palestinians, women, transgendered..... you get the point. Substitute an insulting synonym and you get the point even more directly.
This is exactly the kind of language targeted by hate speech laws. Your knowledge of what "hate speech" laws consist of must be severely limited. The demarcation of hate speech vs protected speech is mostly subjective, and as such is subject to the whims of those doing the prosecuting.
People have been convicted of hate speech violations in France for calling islam "stupid" and "dangerous", or for criticizing ritual slaughter of animals, The runner up for the presidency was fined for this statement:
In England it is a hate crime to use "abusive or insulting words" in the presence of someone who might be caused "alarm or distress". Really. British hate speech laws have been used to prosecute atheists for displaying drawings that satirize christianity.
The european court of human rights explicitly says:
i.e. statements like "Christianity is the root of evil".
In anticipation of the "nuh-uh, no they don't" counter-argument, here is a direct parallel, taken directly from the European Court of Human Rights
So publishing articles that say "jews are the source of evil" rather than christians, this guy got convicted of hate speech violations and this was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights as not being protected speech. Pretty much word for word the example I gave - not protected speech.
In the end it might mean we have to actually pay for content. I put up with adds so I can get free content. Best way to cut down on the adds, block the auto flash on your web browsers and it will speed up page movement and you can choose what you want to engage in. Takes away lots of the ads.
Paul E. Bahre
Sorry, but it isn't clear what limits there should be on free speech.
You say it isn't a limit to outlaw any aggression against another person, but there's lots of things I might want to say that could count as aggression. Heck, you want to outlaw fraud, but how do you want to set the limits in libel actions? You probably want to make truth an absolute defense against libel, but where does the burden of evidence fall? If I libel you, does one of us have to prove the truth or untruth of what I write beyond a reasonable doubt, or do we go with the preponderance of the evidence? If I write something that turns out to be true but I thought was false, is that libel?
At what point does an advertisement or political speech become fraud? How do we tell?
I've probably been programming computers longer than you've been alive, and I've been observing things longer than that, and I've learned that you can't just make a short flat statement and expect it to be understood the way you want.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Okay, what exactly did he write and publish? You're leaving out all the details. If I say that jocks are the source of evil in the world, that's OK. If I start planning attacks on jocks, and inciting other people to kill them, that may well be different. You can't say that, because one person was convicted of doing one general action, that that general action is illegal.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yes, because that was hate speech. And you perhaps should quote more of the verdict. Because I'm pretty sure that the real hate speech comes a bit later, and that this "cause of all evil" is only the introduction.
The example you gave 3 posts back was not hate speech :D
No, it is not word for word the example you gave. Your example was first of all: right. And this "jews are the root of all evil" can't be upheld by any historical evidence, so minimum it is a lie.
Here you can read the whole case: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/site...{"itemid":["001-79619"]}
I suggest to try to understand what is going on instead of cherry picking random quotes with the attempt to support your standpoint.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The text is directly from the European Court of Human Rights...not mine, not some summary article, it is directly their very first example of what is not protected speech - because he was advocating that jews are the root of evil in Russia. The thing that makes it hate speech in their eyes is that he was saying it about jews. The fact that he does so in long form is not the salient point.
There is nothing cherry picked about it. It is specifically what they are targeting. They don't mince any words, they are extremely explicit about their intentions.
On their own website they say that even the most heinous speech must be protected..... unless it incites hatred against certain groups in certain regions, or it causes some people to feel threatened, or it offends certain people,
That is the entire point of the objection. They protect offensive and heinous speech.... except if they don't want to. So you can't possibly know what speech is protected until after you are prosecuted and acquitted. Saying something perfectly true about muslims might not be protected. Saying a slanderous lie about atheists might be protected. But you don't know, because there is no standard to let you know in advance.
In other words, the protections on free speech are not really protections at all. This whole thing about hate speech is just a circular argument. All speech is protected except hate speech. Hate speech is the speech that isn't protected.
As I said before: you only picked the introduction sentence of that guy. He got not punished for "The jews are the root of all Evil in russia", but for all the rest he put on top of that.
For me as an European it is pretty clear where hate speech starts and free speech ends.
If that is not the case for you, that is unfortunate.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Here is a Godwin point. Just for you.
Have a nice day.
Otherwise going to the loo during commercial breaks could be deemed illegal as well!