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EU Threatens Twitter And Facebook With Possible 'Hate Speech' Laws (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Gizmodo:
On Sunday, the European Commission warned Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and Microsoft that if the companies do not address their hate speech problems, the EU will enact legislation that will force them to do so. In May, those five companies voluntarily signed a code of conduct to fight illegal hate speech on their platforms within 24 hours... But on Sunday, the European Commission revealed that the companies were not complying with this code in a satisfactory manner.
"In practice the companies take longer and do not yet achieve this goal. They only reviewed 40 percent of the recorded cases in less than 24 hours," a Commission official told Reuters. The Commission's report found that YouTube responded to reports of harassment the fastest, and unsurprisingly, Twitter found itself in last place. "If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months," Jourova told the Financial Times on Sunday.
"In practice the companies take longer and do not yet achieve this goal. They only reviewed 40 percent of the recorded cases in less than 24 hours," a Commission official told Reuters. The Commission's report found that YouTube responded to reports of harassment the fastest, and unsurprisingly, Twitter found itself in last place. "If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months," Jourova told the Financial Times on Sunday.
Will this apply to slashdot as well?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
hate is not an opinion.
it costs closer to 3$ to put up a website than the millions or billions we end up paying now... cease fire stand down..
How is that so?
They've been the one social media platform that is most clearly silencing views they don't approve of.
I detest hate speech but censorship isn't the solution is it.
Besides I imagine filtering hate speech to be nigh on impossible with what is regarded as hate speech these days.
Sounds like the mega-companies need to step up their bribery efforts. I mean "donation" efforts.
They voluntarily signed the code of conduct.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
"Kill all white people" are ok, because fuck white people. That is perfectly acceptable statements on Twitter and are not considered racist, but everyone else demands that you bow down to their bullshit.
also:
Twitter User Replaces Word 'White' With 'Black,' Gets Banned
https://www.informationliberat...
Why not organize a hate speech removal race, with prices? Competition spurs innovation.
What I'm missing out on is their definition of hate speech. Unless you know that this could just as well be the next step towards more censorship.
Translation: "If you do not censor anti-government statement, we will censor you".
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
If these companies even tried to end "hate speech" or whatever nebulous crime where a specific group of pigs are more equal than another group of pigs, we will see the end of these platforms and companies full sail.
I personally feel that Twitter will be first. They will probably ban Donald Trump's twitter account for some pointless reason. After a day or two of silence, he'll re-emerge on a platform like Gab and not be encumbered by these stupid rules. The second Twitter fractures like this will be their death.
Looking forward to see what the future holds.
... censoring clear and obvious hate speech, which is what the EU directives cover, should be easy. Oh no, wait. They only ever report their successes giving us a distorted impression of how good their technology is. Then they want to sell it to the tax payer at inflated prices as some kind of magically prescient pre-crime.
"freedom of speech" is not the only freedom in the world. It has to be balanced against all other freedoms. These freedoms may be weighted differently in different regions of the globe, but even in the US "freedom of speech" ist not universal above everything else. Just try crying "FIRE" in a crowded theatre and then claiming freedom of speech.
In these cases the problem is *really* hate. Hate in "you f*cking b*tch! I hate everything you say and if we ever meet i will rape you and hang you on your own intestines" (withouth the * of course). Should posts like these *really* be protected with nothing the person attacked can do? EU law says otherwise, but twitter&co rather do nothing - some say because a good hate-filled "discussion" gives more page views and therefore more ad revenue.
Yup, it's just as voluntary as going to jail under a plea bargain.
I can understand outright threats but this is going to turn into some ridiculous ordeal. Censorship is alive and well. Europe is lost just as much as the Americans that they make fun of.
http://tinyurl.com/jhez5xu
In the US, something like that would probably be considered a "true threat", and that's one of the well-known and uncontroversial exceptions to the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech.
But maybe the EU protects making statements that are meant as physical threats, and perceived as such by an objective person?
In May, those five companies voluntarily signed a code of conduct to fight illegal hate speech on their platforms within 24 hours...
I think a code of conduct to fight legal hate speech should be drafted and signed also...
New Year Eve is coming again and this time Merkel doesn't want facebook breaking press silence about some migrants having good fun with local ladies in Cologne.
Paris is a Syrian ghetto now. The Champs Ãlysées are blanketed in feces. I challenge anyone to link to a recent photograph demonstrating otherwise.
Try posting and quoting from Blazing Saddles - the part where it ends with " but no Irish." And see what happens.
As a white male with a disability that makes it difficult to keep a job (companies don't follow anti-discrimination laws despite being able to do the work), I consider anyone saying white males have innate privileges for being white and male to be illegal hate speech against me. Please remove all content referencing male privileges and ban the related accounts.
Thank you for making the world a better place. If pretend something doesn't exist it'll go away.
This news story is fake news. In law there is no such thing as hate speech not even in the EU.
It is silly childish newspeak equal to hate crime as opposed to a friendly crime don't we just all love those friendly murderers and friendly burglars muggers and so on.
Hate speech is it loved or is it hated by the deaf and dumb. Harassment Internet harassment harassing somebody is not hate speech it is harassment harassment harassment!
"This posting was monitored by British intelligence and various other government quangos under the new surveillance laws in the U.K., everything we say and do is monitored. We are now a police state a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that supervises the citizens activities. Speak out do not be frightened."
Well, most Hate Crime laws attach to existing laws (typically, Assault or Racketeering laws - the above example winds up under Assault) and add additional sanctions for specific kinds of attacks, just as many legal systems will distinguish between various kinds of homicide, theft, etc. I WILL admit I haven't checked the specific laws in this article, because who has that much time when you're not a lawyer, but I think there's a useful statement to be made about Hate Crime laws in the general here.
I'm not sure what's so difficult about this.
The Censorship Police need to start with TERRORIST Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts. Openly calling for murder and bombings... Start at hate's HOME... Islam.
Curious how this example is so popular since it was invoked to justify a court ruling that banned someone from distributing These pamphlets
Do you distinguish between "hate crime" laws and "hate speech" laws? The discussion had been about the latter, but you talked only about the former.
In typical US usage, a hate crime would be something that is a crime regardless of motivation, but exacerbated by there motivation being animus against the victim based on racial, ethnic, national origin, sex, sexualized orientation, or similar factors. Hate speech usually means little more than harsh criticism than can, in some person's mind, somehow be tied to some group identity.
They say they stand for freedom, but don't. If they don't want their safe space, precious, citizens to potentially see stuff that may hurt their feelings, perhaps they should block them at their inbound connections and be done with it.
It hates freedom of speech, it hates people, everyday people being involved in politics. It has nothing but contempt for them .
The most powerful influence in the EU are still elected governments and also the people who not only get to elect a EU parliament but also get to influence EU decision making through referendums on important decisions. If anybody doubts that take a look at Brexit where a democratically elected government is in the process of leaving the EU (assuming they ever manage to clear up the slow motion train wreck they have made of Brexit and get on with it). Alt-right pundits keep calling the EU a 'tyranny' but I fail to see how that the EU is so much less democratic than the British parliament with its first past the post system where 37% of the population voted a government into power that enjoys a parliamentary majority, not to mention the UK's famous appointed aristocratic peers, very democratic that. How about the US system where the runner up can become president and the congressional elections are riddled with gerrymandering and voter suppression. I don't think the EU is a poster child for democracy but then neither are many parliaments, governments and even presidencies in Europe and the Americas.
Would it be OK, if Trump was black to run a Ponzi scheme? What about a woman running a Ponzi scheme?
The accounts revealed so far, are demonstrably fraudulent, and yet no investigation, no prosecution? False earnings numbers on Trump National Doral, to justify the Libor +1.75% rate, all you have to do is read two contradictory documents to demonstrate it, and he could be in jail for 25 years... but no, old white guy walks away with the grand prize.
You know he's paying those mortgages by skimming off investment money? That elevates fraud to the level of a ponzi scheme. You can even see that by comparing the numbers given to the investors to the revealed accounts in tax disputes. Will you FBI? No, of course you won't.
Suddenly speech is dangerous, and true speech more dangerous!
...now that the US lost the last bit of control it had over the internet free speech is going to go out the window on any site that has a presence outside of the US.
Illegal speech? What is this?
Who defines what is hate speech? Some consider all dissent as hate speech. This is madness.
we must destroy it!
And the Internet Archive is afraid of the USA?
Freedom of speech is the essential civil right, second only to freedom of thought, which when lost describes total oppression.
Without free speech you cannot:
- Say what is true.
- Say what others are thinking and do not realize they are not alone in that.
- Say what true and so expose lies and fabrications, thereby rejecting falsehoods and those who publish them.
- Expand the debate beyond what the majority say.
- Offer alternatives to the accepted and protected norm.
- Choose, for yourself, your direction and intentions.
- Ask others to join with you and oppose.
Speech is critical.
And next, after that, nearly (pr perhaps) equal, is self-defense, which is necessary to your right to life. First, to claim your right to live, then to reject in speech (ideas for you who struggle with some plain talk) those who would deny you life, and then to defend that life.
From there, to be left alone to do as you wish, insofar as you deny no one else that, is the beginning of liberty. To defend others ensures their rights and collaterally yours, preventing oppressors from merely outnumbering you.
Speech. Without this freedom, you would not be able to present your demands for this and the others. You would know it, in your heart, you would just not be able to exercise it and others, and defend any.
And balancing rights against each other is a lie. Balancing your exercise of rights is necessary, sometimes, in current civilized society, but such accommodations are properly limited and focused.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Do you think the opposite of tyranny is democracy?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
... I have a hard time with the typical US notion of free speech and no censorship.
To those of us whose parents or grandparents had to live and suffer through WW2, I is pretty much unthinkable to allow someone to deny the horrors of the concentration camps and all things associated. That is very much what the rules on hate speech are about, preventing those very things to happen again. If you propagate that kind of world view, you're going to find yourself in front of a judge, and will be punished for spreading, or trying to spread, such a mindset. [btw, from what I read from your president-elect's tweets, chances are high he'd have found himself in front of a judge too]
On the other hand, many of you USians can't stand the view of naked nipples, which for us is very simply something utterly natural. Nipplegate just couldn't happen over here, we're by far not that puritanical. Isn't refusing a picture of a naked nipple (say, a breastfeeding picture) also "censorship"? Talk about hypocrisy.
To hell with the EU in every capacity. and Fuck Facebook, Twitter, Google and anybody else that censors free speech.
I have no facebook or twitter and I no longer use Google or Youtube. All because of their invasive control policies. My personal information is my intellectual property, and nobody on earth has a right to be unoffended by my free speech. otherwise I will quickly get offended at everything they say and do, and turn about is fair play.
"freedom of speech" is not the only freedom in the world. It has to be balanced against all other freedoms.
Nope. No, it doesn't. It needs to be absolute, or it's useless. There are no freedoms that speech impinges upon. At all, ever, in any way.
but even in the US "freedom of speech" ist not universal above everything else. Just try crying "FIRE" in a crowded theatre and then claiming freedom of speech.
You're simply wrong. It is universal. It doesn't need to be "above" anything, because it's not possible to impinge on other rights with it. It is perfectly legal and acceptable to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theatre. It's free speech. You, like everyone else, misquote the SCOTUS opinion that stated it, in an dissent from the majority opinion. The full quote is "Falsely yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre and causing a riot." The operative parts are NOT that someone said there was a fire - it was that they (1) Lied about there being a fire, and (2) caused a riot. We have laws against fraud and inciting a riot for reasons, and those things can cause harm to others. Even the "falsely" part is not enough to take someone's free right to speech away, because they may be performing satire, protesting the lack of adequate fire exits available in a theatre, or simply making a joke for the crowd. All protected speech. Even if it caused a panic the intent must be proven.
In these cases the problem is *really* hate. Hate in "you f*cking b*tch! I hate everything you say and if we ever meet i will rape you and hang you on your own intestines" (withouth the * of course). Should posts like these *really* be protected with nothing the person attacked can do? EU law says otherwise, but twitter&co rather do nothing - some say because a good hate-filled "discussion" gives more page views and therefore more ad revenue.
You can always come up with extreme, indefensible statements bordering on credible threats to point to and say "this should be banned" and lots of people will agree with you. But where is the line? It's very subjective, and the line can be moved this way and that on a subjective basis without anyone really noticing. Until it affects them. And that's why the right to free speech must be absolute. Because as that line gets moved, and the censors' conscious and unconscious biases creep into the censorship decisions, soon there are simply ideas and voices and opinions that are important and relevant that will never get heard. That way leads inevitably to tyranny.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
That will send a proper message.
Remember when the left said the right would limit speech? And now its the exact opposite happening. Funny but sad.
In the US, something like that would probably be considered a "true threat", and that's one of the well-known and uncontroversial exceptions to the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech.
Sorry, but no. It has to be a "credible threat", naming a specific action, a subjective and objective intent, as well as some indication that the person actually has the means and opportunity to carry it out. The "if we ever meet" part of the statement is a clear indication that the threat is not actually a credible one. There's a good discussion of the issues over at the PopeHat.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Freedom of Speech matters more. It also is the key to fighting racism with anti-racism. The door swings both ways. Someone can post horrible racist shit to people, and then ten people can post about what a douchebag the racist is, and make him look like a shithead.
Censoring racist speech helps racism, it really does, because it hides racist attitudes in a place where it can fester and become worse. Don't confuse racism with White Supremacy, or Christian Supremacy. There are many non-white racist out there. ISIS, Al-Queda, and other terrorists are racists. They are not racists in the same way that the KKK is racist, but they are racist.
It is a little known fact that ISIS and Al-Queda have executed African Blacks and Indians, and untold numbers of Persians because they were not of the same Ethnicity as Saudi Arabs. These groups are as racist, if not worse than the KKK, or the various racist Neo-Nazi militia groups in the USA.
The hate speech laws in Germany and other parts of the EU, are empowering groups like the Golden Dawn, because people on the Secular left have been conditioned to see Racism in the Prism of White Supremacy only, and while yes that still exists, the secular left is seen as a defender of the Right wing Saudi-Arab supremacist ideology these hate groups present. I still don't think the answer to fighting hate is more hate. I don't think the White Supremacist right wing Demagogues is a way to save western civilization from destruction.
I think that the way to stop this cycle of madness we are trapped in is to expose the lunatics on both sides for the sick madmen they are. If an individual person is trying to make everyone's life miserable, that person should become the object of everyone's ire.
Disagreeing with the progressive globalist agenda in any way is hate speech and needs to be removed, otherwise RAAAYCIS MUH SOGGY KNEES ISLAMOPHOBIA!
...like Jourova.
No, it is a collective decision. I am ashamed to be European.
You're simply wrong. It is universal. I [...] We have laws against fraud and inciting a riot for reasons, and those things can cause harm to others.
And those laws limit free speech for those reasons. It's near universal but not quite, there is a balance. In the EU they put more weight to some other things so the balance is different.
Yes, various Authoritarians — from Franco in the West to Stalin in the East — made elimination of the freedom of speech their top priorities:
The proper reaction to "bad" speech is good speech.
But if you are willing to justify other nations' not having an equivalent of the First Amendment by their history, what other freedoms and liberties would you excuse them not having, uhm? Maybe, Iran is justified in its persecution of gays by some terrible homosexuality-related episode of the past — I'm sure, one or two can be named by an expert on the country's history? Or, perhaps, it is Ok for the sunny and cheerful people of Mexico to continue banning abortions — because of some exquisite evils taking place in Chichen-Itza centuries ago?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If you've caused a panic yelling "FIRE" without an intent, it might still be gross negligence or criminal negligence. A crowd in panic might be extremely deadly causing at worst dozens or hundreds of deaths, so perhaps it's about similar to telling your children to go play on rail tracks.
What's your authority to say that the threat has to be "credible"? I can't find it either in Supreme Court precedent or in the post by Ken White that you linked to.
as christopher hitches was wont to point out. the case in which oliver wendall holmes made the "fire" analogy, was decided against the person, who in this case, was distributing pamplets, which encouraged young men to resist the draft for world war 1.
by our present standard, the pampleteers were convicted and imprisoned for political speech.
no calls to violence. no calls for violent acts. no mass panic.
Resist entanglement in foreign wars, that's all they were saying.
as hitchens pointed out
'who is "good" enough to decide what is acceptable and what isn't?' who would you have decide for you what you can and cannot see?
What's your authority to say that the threat has to be "credible"? I can't find it either in Supreme Court precedent or in the post by Ken White that you linked to.
Yea, I'm probably using the wrong term, or wrong context. The prevailing idea is that the threat has to be somehow believable, is the way I read it.
Typically harassment and stalking statutes use that kind of term, to distinguish between other types of emotional outbursts of hyperbole rather than actual threats in a domestic dispute. a.k.a. the California statute defining stalking: "(a) Any person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows or harasses another person and who makes a credible threat with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her immediate family, is guilty of the crime of stalking ....".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The socialist EU un-elected commission are just a bunch of Nazis!!! It is time for a people's revolution & end the EU.
Sure, but exaggerating a threat doesn't inherently make it less credible as a threat -- only as a literal statement of intended harm. You need additional context to establish that the statement was meant mostly as hyperbole. A statement that is intended as a threat is not protected by the First Amendment (see, e.g., Elonis v. United States).
Because it's not feasible to manually review all messages, have AI filter out or over-mark suspect phrases in such countries, but include a notice similar to the following:
Notice: This message has been filtered to comply with law [law name and number] based on various words or phrases that look suspicious to our hate-speech detection software. If you feel this censorship was applied in error, click here for tips and assistance [link given].
This will help make users know how silly and annoying the laws are, and they may lose support.
It's somewhat similar to how retail shops list out the tax separate on receipts rather than just include it in the prices (which would otherwise simplify the receipt). Listing it out separate makes the fact that taxes are being applied clearer to the customer, making them less likely to keep or increase them in elections.
Table-ized A.I.
Do you think that there is only one way of implementing a democracy?
Well, right. Proving intent is required. And the statement "you f*cking b*tch! I hate everything you say and if we ever meet i will rape you and hang you on your own intestines" would probably not pass that test. It's clearly hyperbole. See for instance, USA v. Bagdasarian, which established tow tests: (1) would the statement be understood by people hearing or reading it in context as a serious expression of an intent to kill or injure? and (2) did the defendant intend that the statement be understood as a threat?
The statement in questions seems to be a stream of rage, with outlandish language "hang you up on your own intestines" which, I think, would not be physically impossible, or at least unlikely without some serious and lengthy manipulation of the intestines to create something rope-line strong enough to hold a body.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Threatening to 'tear off the GPs head and shit down his neck' is so far over the top it's silly. Threats that involve 'hanging someone by their intestines' are similar. Internet tough guy trolling.
Not remotely a 'true threat' unless the poster also knows the actual identity of the other, even then, really?
Doxing someone then threatening them with a flash mob at their employers/home is a more typical 'realistic threat'. But since it doesn't rise to direct calls for actual violence is 'protected'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not just Europe. The recent election in the US shows that disturbing xenophobia* is alive and well in the US also. I was hoping that was a thing of the past and that democracies were more mature now. Apparently not.
Europe went through an ugly war that was triggered by or justified by racism and xenophobia. After having the shit bombed out of you, your family, and country; you may have a different perspective on hate-speech versus free-speech. Experience changes opinions.
I'm not condoning such censorship, but am seriously wondering how different I'd feel after going through what Europe did, and the US election made it less hypothetical.
* Supporters of T often claim it's merely about "protecting our borders and citizens". But T could have made essentially the same statements in much less offensive ways; and rarely apologizes for the awkward phrasing that to a good many of us, sure sounds like dog-whistle-politics. If you don't really mean it, make an effort to clean it up and grow better with time. Otherwise, you earn the criticism.
Table-ized A.I.
Do you always answer a question with another question?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
it is a stone-age culture that only invented a stick and should die out
Europe still hasn't learned the most important lesson of WW2: Don't appease nations trying to threaten you into doing something.
There are no freedoms that speech impinges upon. At all, ever, in any way.
You're not only flat out wrong in theory, but you're also wrong in the interpretation of how it works in your own legal system. You are absolutely not free to say whatever you want to whoever at any time. There are many legal cases affirming the right to get people to shut you up.
Now freedom from persecution from the government should be absolute, but freedom of speech definitely and repeatedly gets balanced against freedom from harm that others experience form it, be it excessive and sustained verbal abuse, or reputational assaults.
"freedom of speech" is not the only freedom in the world. It has to be balanced against all other freedoms.
Nope. No, it doesn't. It needs to be absolute, or it's useless. There are no freedoms that speech impinges upon. At all, ever, in any way.
[...]
We have laws against [...] inciting a riot for reasons
That's already a contradiction, but what do you think about defamation, copyright, classified information, NDA, privacy, perjury and similar stuff?
It doesn't. But there IS stuff on Slashdot that qualifies, although IMHO there's not a lot. But if you browse at -1 as I always do, you'll see it.
Arguably, the moderation system here already takes care of the problem. Users who aren't logged in won't see much if any hate speech; it almost never makes it higher than +3, and if it does then it drops below that threshold pretty quickly. So they actually have to drill down to find it - it's not immediately obvious. Users who ARE logged in are unlikely to see it if they browse at +1 or higher, (again, unless they drill down), because most of it is posted by AC's whose comments start at 0. People who browse at lower than +1 soon know what to expect and can determine if they want to see that stuff or not.
Godwin time: Mein Kampf is still available for anyone to read, but it isn't unexpectedly waved in front of anyone's face - people have to seek it out. Hate speech on Slashdot is similar to that. And this kind of speech SHOULDN'T be banned; we need to maintain an ongoing awareness that those attitudes exist and are actively shaping our world. People should be able to easily avoid most of it if they so desire, but hiding it entirely and driving it totally underground is dangerous.
Spot on, in all respects.
There's sometimes a hate-speech reply at the very front of every article here, you can sometimes see it when you view an article right after it gets posted. When there are very few replies. There haven't been any recently, but there was a time (recently) when every article had one at the very beginning.
It's usually a single-line message "gay faggots" or "gay n*ggers" or about cows. "You are all cows. Cows go moo". That sort of thing.
(There hasn't been any recently, so perhaps it was either a) a paid poster during to the elections, or b) Slashdot has a better filter.
Since it's always always a first post, I suspect it's a bot. Since some of it is complete nonsense (cows? really?), I suspect it's an anchor for forum sliding.
1) The bot ensures that the post is first, and the text ensures that it gets modded down.
2) If something appears in the discussion that the owner wants to suppress, they log in and post a reply to the invisible first post.
3) We see the reply (at +2), but not the first post. The text to be suppressed is now slipped further down the page.
As a corollary to #3 above, the poster might have several accounts and post a fake argument about spelling or grammar. It all seems above-board and legit, but the interesting bits get pushed down the page, hopefully below the fold.
And finally, I read an analysis online (with links and references) that estimated that the *maximum* number of white supremacists in the US is less than 50,000, and most of those are passive. The article (which I can't find right now) notes that only 200 people showed up at a KKK national meet. It estimates that there are less than 1000 people across the US who are the stereotypical "Banshee" style member, who actively perform hate crimes against other races.
Their exploits get amplified by the media, so we see the problem as bigger than it is.
(Am I wrong? Let's have some links.)
I think most of the hate speech comes from teens and young adults looking to rile people up. I don't think there's really a lot of white supremacy activity going on in the US any more.
Note that I did *not* say that there was no predjudice or bias, only that there is no lynching, cross burning, and such. Blacks can be around anywhere in the country without fearing for their life due to the color of their skin.
Now freedom from persecution from the government should be absolute, but freedom of speech definitely and repeatedly gets balanced against freedom from harm that others experience form it, be it excessive and sustained verbal abuse, or reputational assaults.
There are no "balancing" tests in the US with regards to speech, at all. In fact the SCOTUS completely rejected the idea of any kind of balancing-type exemptions in upholding US flag burning as protected speech.
That doesn't mean you're free from consequences for things you say (just ask the Dixie Chicks). But what you're talking about are torts, based on harassment, or libel/slander or the like. You can sue anyone for anything, if you can pay for a lawyer. Doesn't mean you'll win, but Hulk Hogan certainly did. But this article is about speech codes and outlawing speech based on content in the law, making you a criminal for things you say, and that's wrong and should be rejected and loudly denounced.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I want to see two governments get into a fight over a fundamental rights issue. It'll be very entertaining.
When are we going to finally define the word "racist" as hate speech?
I mean in current parlance racist is the n-word for white people.
Does "Atheism/Catholicism / choose-your-ism is wrong/ ignorant" count as hate speech?
How about 'we need to take action against 'entity of your choice'?
What about people with demographic xyz are more likely too?
The problem with any law impinging on freedom of speech is that it will inversely be used by those in power to diminish or reduce counter opinion.
Think of all those 'hateful' anti-Obama/ anti-trump people out there?
Should freedom of speech be determined by who is in power or who runs the company?
I think advocating hate speech laws is hateful.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
yes. ... Wait, no... maybe?
This could take a while.
Just try crying "FIRE" in a crowded theatre
you DO know that metaphor was from a SCOTUS decision upholding the criminal conviction of Charles T. Schenck for distributing anti-draft leaflets, right? Schenck v. United States
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Yes, I mentioned that two-pronged test in my first comment. It doesn't help you, because a hyperbolic threat can still be understood as a true, but not literal, threat.
On the Internet, nobody can tell you're a dog, and a lot of nonverbal clues about intent also get washed away. Without more clues to hint at the relationship or intent behind the hypothetical statement here, though, a reasonable person certainly could take it as a seriously meant threat to injure or kill.
or was that just a load of snivelling bollocks you spouted???
And all those Imam's preaching about the desire of allah for the deaths of "the great satan" or whatever they're calling the USA now.
What about leaks of top secret documents of your government? That's speech too.
Or is freedom of speech not quite the absolute you claim here, because you think THIS form of speech should be fine, but aren't going to consider any you think aren't fine before making your silly claims?
Isn't that how it works in Whos line is it anyway?
So yelling "FIRE" is okay - when it is based on truth. The rest of the time?
And we're back to legislating and judging truthiness.
In the US legal system, hate speech would be (roughly) illegal speech (typically that inciting violence) that threatens a group. For example, "Kill him!" might well be illegal speech. "Kill him and all other faggots!" might be considered hate speech and get a more severe penalty.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This isn't simple. However, if you can violate the law by saying something, there has to be a line somewhere. There is a gradation between statements that are clearly threats and/or incitement and statements that are perhaps hyperbolic and hateful but definitely not credible threats or incitement. Somebody has to make the call. Similarly, the power to sue can be the power to suppress, and lots of companies have filed libel suits that are deliberately designed to be expensive and painful to defend against.
I can come up with speech that pretty much everyone will think should be illegal. As long as that's true, somebody has the ultimate responsibility of saying whether a given speech act is legal or not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Ok, well to quote the opinion:
"We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U.S. 194, 205, 206. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 439. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree."
This, combined with the fact that the ruling banned the pamphlet, i.e. restricted free speech, would seem to belie what you're saying.
Just like global warming and over population, crying "FIRE" is not a real problem in the actual world.
Also, there's a difference between protected speech and legal speech. You're saying if the government doesn't weed out the swearing it is protecting haters. What is really going on is the government/media silence of the opposition for political purposes.
Twitter has an extended well-known practice of silencing content in favor of limiting government, so I find it weird you labeled them as a "do nothing" company.
well, that had more to do with prior restraint and censorship. prohibitions on what to say.
it is perhaps, not ideal, but acceptable, to assess and penalize the consequences of speech. but I'd rather see them taken case by case, with judge and jury erring on the side of less restraint rather than more.
the EU has erred on the side of more restraint.
blasphemy laws for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
EU not really that much, though germany and austria have some fine... and ireland it looks. anyway...
This, combined with the fact that the ruling banned the pamphlet, i.e. restricted free speech, would seem to belie what you're saying.
You're quoting an opinion that was (rightly) overturned. In 1969, the Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio replaced it with the "imminent lawless action" test, one that protects a broader range of speech. This test states that the government may only limit speech that incites unlawful action sooner than the police can arrive to prevent that action.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Thanks for correcting me. I thought you were referring to Schenk. My mistake.
Wrong. In the US legal system, hate speech basically isn't a thing. That doesn't stop SJWs from trying to pretend the term has specific meaning or relevance to legal matters.
Don't be misled by the way that Prof. Tsesis treats Virginia v. Black in that Politifact article. The Supreme Court treated the act in question as a true threat. A message -- spoken, written, or through an expressive act -- cannot be proscribed on the basis of being "hate speech". To be punished by the government, the message must fall into one of the recognized exceptions to the First Amendment's protections, and hate speech is not one of those.
I don't see that we're disagreeing.
Hate speech, such as indiscriminate derogatory use of "SJW" for leftists, does have a meaning. It doesn't have any legal importance in the US, except possibly as circumstances modifying the penalty assessed for an existing illegal action..
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
First you said hate speech was illegal speech that threatens a group. Now you say that labeling people as Social Justice Warriors is hate speech. I think you proved my point that it doesn't have a useful or specific meaning.
Two different definitions. The legal definition in the US is illegal speech that threatens a group. The social definition is speech that promulgates hate towards a group. That definition is pretty fuzzy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Again, there is no "legal definition in the US" of hate speech.
Not per se, but an illegal speech act may have certain aggravating circumstances calling for a higher penalty than normal. It's reasonable to call that hate speech in a legal sense. It does have the possibility of implying that some speech is illegal in the US just because it's hateful, of course, and that's not the case.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If you think that's what "hate speech" should mean, then:
In short, don't be such a dumbass threadjacker.