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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.
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...
Define hate.
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.
what is an opinion though, is what classifies as "hate"
... 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.
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?
Good, good. Let the hate flow through you. Strike those companies down and complete your journey to the dark side.
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.
hate is not an opinion.
Hate Lives Matter!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
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.
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.
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.
They also have the most hate speech in the first place, which is probably why they've been resorting to most extreme measures to try and keep customers.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take Zuckerburg's place at my side!
Opinions I disagree with.
Hmm, thousands. I think that the Moooooooooooslims would be out then. They've only got 1.5 thousands so far. Christianity has 2 thousands, so technically we should tell them. I think we've going to have to go back to both of those religions' roots, though. Abraham's religion has been ethnic cleansing for at least 3 thousands, not to mention that weird little merger with Baal worship MikeeUSA likes. If we can consider Mooooooooslims and Christianity to be forks, then we might be in business.
Every now and then Buddhists get antsy, but they tend to set themselves on fire instead of other people.
It's too bad we don't have reliable records of Germanic paganism or really any history for African religions. I think the Inca and Aztecs and others in that area were going strong for a while but those also died out or were conquered by Christianity.
So, Abraham's religion it is. Let's write them a strongly worded letter.
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!
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.
Hate is an emotion. That everyone feels about some things or another.
Hate is even good and useful. Psalms 97:10 says "Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked." Hating slavery, poverty, injustice, are all good things.
This hate speech nonsense is just political control and has nothing to do with "hate." They'll only ban the types of "hate speech" that come from the opponents of those in power while letting their allies run wild.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Do you think the opposite of tyranny is democracy?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"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
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
And the Internet Archive is afraid of the USA?
Because they are currently in the USA and under the USA's jurisdiction. It would have been worse if they were in Europe with the "right to be forgotten", etc.
Yeah we get it. Europeans are enlightened and superior to Americans. Plus you like nipples, and Americans don't, I guess. The point is that you are just masking the problem by limiting speech, not solving it. Do you think the crazy people who deny the Holocaust will stop believing it just because you have a law against it? That is the problem with Europe in general: they pretend everything is fine but don't solve the root problems. It is better to identify the problem and come up with solutions.
Metaphors are hard.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The definition of "evil" is hard.
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.
Do you think the crazy people who deny the Holocaust will stop believing it just because you have a law against it? That is the problem with Europe in general: they pretend everything is fine but don't solve the root problems. It is better to identify the problem and come up with solutions.
You misunderstand. We're not banning the hate speech and pretend everything is fine, we actively educate our young so they know what happened and why, we show them, we make them understand that such a thing must never happen again. Everyone knows there's some nutcases that will still deny the Holocaust, but they are quite uniformly seen as misguided or sick, when not outright criminal. Unfortunately, young people also tend to be susceptible to "brainwashing" (e.g. political or religious), so education about these matters is not a totally failsafe proposition.
Populists (Le Pen in France, Wilders in the Netherlands, Trump in the US) often skirt the issues and are identified as dangerous by the educated, but fail to be understood by the less educated - as seen this weekend in Austria, where it is mostly the simple workers that voted for the (thankfully losing) far-right candidate. Note, I'm not bashing workers, simply pointing out insufficient knowledge about some things.
Here, we also try to make people understand that anyone selling simple solutions is probably full of BS, and things are probably more complex.
>To those of us whose parents or grandparents had to live and suffer through WW2
>That is very much what the rules on hate speech are about, preventing those very things to happen again.
I see you didn't learn from WW2. Hate speech didn't cause it. Hate speech caused the jews to be targeted in particular, yes, but the war itself was caused by terrible economic conditions as a result of WW1. Censorship will not prevent WW3.
Blazing Saddles, but no Irish.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
... 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.
We didn't sacrifice a million casualties and $4 trillion in treasure for your political ideals and way of life, we sacrificed them for our political ideals and way of life, and that includes unfettered freedom of speech.
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.
an extremely negative and not rationally justified attitude towards something or someone?
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
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).
What you described in terms of "educating"your youth *IS* brainwashing by any reasonable definition though. "must not happen again" is a call to action, you aren't simply educating them about what happened. The fact that in this particular case you're brainwashing them to hold what most people (including me) would say is a "good" mindset doesn't change what it fundamentally is.
So, it's an interesting question to ask yourself: why do you see it being okay to push a narrative in one case but you absolutely, positively CANNOT allow an alternate narrative to be heard?
This is what we (generally, though not always) get right in America. You are (generally) allowed to spout off any hideous nonsense you want. It's the price we willingly pay to be able to say whatever (generally) we want. Society decides whether to pay you attention or not and that's how "undesirables" get dealt with. Europe takes a completely opposite view in that they feel you should simply not be able to say certain things and make it a crime to do so.
I'll happily take the bad with the good because the cost of getting rid of the bad is freedom and that's too high a cost. Europe generally seems to feel the opposite. That's really the core issue: Europe wants to create a better society by eliminating the "bad" things through legal means while America seeks to do so through a meritocracy.
I know which I prefer.
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.
New testament.
1st Timothy 2:12 {para (as they all are, unless in Greek/Aramaic/Hebrew)}
Also:
Too lazy to look up that chapter and verse. Both would get a SJW's panties into a bunch.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Thank you.
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
Pretty sure slavery is only bad in Christianity when it's the Israelites who are the slaves. Genesis 9:20-27 MSG:
I forget where it's established that Ham and the Canaanites were black, but there you go. If you don't enslave blacks, you're against god. Don't tell me that's not what modern Christians believe because I know better. I've seen it myself.
Actually if you're serious about using Genesis as a justification for slavery (of Blacks), you should also be advised it would be equally applicable to all of the Abrahamic religions including Judaism and Islam, not just Christianity; other than just being wrong.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Do you always answer a question with another question?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
> The recent election in the US shows that disturbing xenophobia*
Well, that's certainly the narrative coming out of the Clinton News Network. Unfortunately we can't trust the reality of those claims at all. The 4th estate has become a party propaganda organ.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
what is an opinion though, is what classifies as "hate"
And my opinion is that "all Xs are terrorists/drug-dealers/criminals/rapists/inferior" is hate.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I'm sure this belief of the Mooooooslims will be exempt amirite? Leviticus 20:13 MSG:
If a man has sex with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is abhorrent. They must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.
But it'll be illegal if it's a Christian quoting it???
I think I'm getting the hang of this!
Excuse me, we had relatives that died in WW 2 and were in prison camps because they went over there to save your sorry ass.
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.
There's nothing wrong with nationalism.
The core concept of "nationalism" is that of a "nation", derived from the Latin from birth. Original nationalism was tied to the notion of an "English race", a "French race" etc. It believed in a notion of common ancestry and common culture that imposed an unrealistic ideal of uniformity on the people of the country. Nationalism means ignoring regional identities, bulldozing cultural landmarks that don't fit the chosen national myth and denying diversity of religion and language.
Most people don't think that's what they're talking about when they talk about nationalism, but the more they become invested in the notion of a "nation", the more these intolerant attitudes tend to slip in.
The contemporary nationalism truest to the original concept is the USA's "white nationalism" that wants a uniquely "white" race, but not one that speaks French or Spanish, one that speaks English, because white Cajun and white Mexican are not "proper" white. White nationalists are also sticking to the script over religion, and while they're not making much of a fuss over Mormons, that's only because they have other targets at present. Ban Muslims from the country and the white nationalists will start to turn on them. And the white nationalists don't see themselves as racist, just like previous nationalists: they're not against anyone, they just think everyone has their "right place".
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Yeah we get it. Europeans are enlightened and superior to Americans. Plus you like nipples, and Americans don't, I guess.
You have the causality wrong. We're enlightened and superior BECAUSE we like nipples. Those two are not independent. :-)
Hate speech isn't about hating, it's about preaching hate. And it's not about preaching hate against things or against concepts, but against people.
There is a fuzzy line between the two, of course. Sometimes you can preach hate against people even when your words are against a concept. For example "X-ism is a religion of evil" has the clear implication that X-ists are evil -- hate speech. But "Y-ism is based on the words of a paranoid schizophrenic who heard voices and thought he was speaking to a god" only implies that Y-ists are misguided. They may find it offensive, but you can't call it hate speech.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The recent election in the US shows that disturbing xenophobia* is alive and well in the US also
The recent election in the US show that the left's tactic of calling the opposition disturbing xenophobes (also: racist sexist isalamophobic transphobic and whatever else) doesn't work. But keep trying that same approach, so that Trump gets re-elected.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Advisory taken (with glee), and thanks for the link. I wasn't aware that Hamitic was a classification. I'll need to read in more detail later. I was using a common argument in Christian Identity. According to Christian Identity, god is angry with the USA because, among other reasons, of the 13th Amendment. (Not sure where their god was during the War of Northern Aggression, oh well.)
I believe that usage of Genesis comes from 18th and 19th century pro-slavery Christian ideas.
I also realized that since the SPLC is a known biased librulist leftist globalist Zionist whateverist organization, we can conclude from the SPLC's classification of Christian Identity has a hate group that it is, in fact, not a hate group and representative of Christian beliefs.
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
An interesting take on it, when I was stationed in Germany, living in barracks that still had Wehrmacht eagles and swastikas over the doorways, there was considerable effort put into trivializing that whole period of history by the Germans I met. It seemed to me to be a type of denial then and still today. Perhaps if Germany had really come to grips with what happened, the Germans wouldn't have the Immigrant crisis they have today, there is a line between acceptance and self-flagellation.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Unless "those evil media people" sound-edited T's statements or I somehow missed the "real" context after checking multiple sources, I have to take what T actually says as his own words.
Table-ized A.I.
It's still all dumb. Don't bother evaluating someone's ideas for truth, just label it an -ism, denounce it, and move on. We must end ismism, because the ismists are killing our ability to think.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It's still all dumb. Don't bother evaluating someone's ideas for truth, just label it an -ism, denounce it, and move on. We must end ismism, because the ismists are killing our ability to think.
That's the "political correctness gone mad" approach -- just claim they're being unreasonable.
There's nothing in most hate speech legislation that stops you discussing facts -- just the stuff that stops you smearing powerless minorities with ideas like "they're all rapists" or "they're all terrorists", ideas that misinform and risk spreading and causing hate. So it's alright to discuss the age of a certain prophet's favourite wife (as documented in the religion's own holy text), but it's really not alright to call followers of his religion "pedo-worshippers" or anything, because that is a statement designed to cause others to hate.
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Tone policing is an interesting form of thought control in that regard. People aren't rational. They make emotional decisions, and then they rationalize them. If you want to change someone's mind, you need to do so via emotion, not reason. Shock them out of the complacency of their current mode of thought. Humor is effective. So are pictures of dead Syrian kids or whatever. Stopping "hate speech" is basically outlawing rhetoric emotionally powerful enough to change a mind. So sure they'll go after someone mocking "pedo-worshipper" muslims, but probably never anyone mocking Christians for worshiping a zombie or whatever.
If one side gets emotional pleading, and the other side is stuck with boring facts and reason, the emotional side will win every time. In the large scale and long term that is.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.
Doesn't work where? Us "blue" people are offended by his statements and offended by people who give him a pass on them whether you want us to be or not. YOUR half of the nation may think it's fine, but my half doesn't, and we are not happy about it. The Culture War has intensified, for good or bad.
Table-ized A.I.
Crying "racist" doesn't work in presidential elections, for a start. But it's broader: people have simply learned not to care about such name-calling. Sure, you have a few years of age-range that have been conditioned by the schools to be hyper-sensitive to every microagression, and the mere thought of being called a racist is enough to send them fleeing to their safe spaces, but really that's a slim percentage of the US at this point.
I agree the culture war has become larger - I'm not sure it has intensified, however; I think instead it has finally reached the mainstream. It has changed from Twitter hate mobs to election issues. I'm cautiously optimistic about America keeping it's spirit of "nobody fucking cares whether you were offended".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
You seem to be of the belief that IF we all grow up being jerks to each other, calling each other slant-eyes, spicks, crackers, coons, etc. then we'll all grow thick skins and tolerate jerkihood.
I'm going to resist criticizing that perspective because culture is ultimately subjective: science and math do not give us a definitive answer to what is "good". At its very best, it can only tell us the trade-offs. You are NOT going to find an equation proving you are right; your nerd skills will fail you here.
Regardless, a culture is a culture and such statements are offensive in "blue" areas for good or bad just like nudity is highly offensive in the Bible Belt. Yes, I can go and lecture the Bible Belt and tell them their book is likely a fairy tale and that they are "doing it wrong". But it won't work. They are what they are, logic or not.
Compromise to co-exist, or split up. You are NOT going to "fix" the other culture.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Don't bother, I'm already or of that corner. Whistleblowers serve society more often than not. Secrets are a necessary part of modern society, but exposing abuse and crimes may not be popular. Protecting whistleblowers may not even be an all or nothing thing. But I support them, and pardoning them more often than not.
None of our current crop of well known whistleblowers earns anything but my support. My government should not be secure from oversight be it organizational, legislative, or vigilante.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Just be very sceptical of anything in religious texts, especially Old Testament texts, lots of oral history recorded into writing after centuries, translated by person of questionable scholarship, with probable political agendas, into numerous archaic languages. We can't even be sure we know what some terms meant back then; for example "Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves," implies that the word slave is more nuanced than our present meaning, to us a slave is an owned person who doesn't even own his own life.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If people learned not to care about name-calling, why did Trump say offensive things and apparently benefit from them? You seem to only be concerned about name-calling when you don't like the people being called names.
Trump and Pence also seem to be hypersensitive to microaggressions, and are demanding safe spaces in the theater.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Where do you propose I learn things that don't happen where I or a close friend can see them?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're oversimplifying. Hate speech helped Hitler get into power, and Hitler wanted war. For several years, he was busy repudiating the Versailles treaty provisions he didn't like, without war. There's no reason it had to end in war, except that the Nazis got into power (partly due to hate speech) and wanted war.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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.
Trump benefited from his public display of "not giving a fuck about political correctness", not any specific thing he said (given he flip-flopped on most issues). Trump himself certainly has a thin skin, which should make the next 4 years entertaining.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
So sure they'll go after someone mocking "pedo-worshipper" muslims, but probably never anyone mocking Christians for worshiping a zombie or whatever.
"Zombie Jesus" is purile taunting, and there's really no call for it, but it doesn't create the same feeling of pure revulsion as associating someone with child abuse, so let's not start on the "poor marginalised Christians" angle. People are being dicks to Christians, but it's not in the same league as islamophobia.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
And Christians have been dicks to people, but it's not in the same league as jihadis.
Ignore the particular insult. The point is any reasonable reading of history, of what muslims believe, of how they behave once they have achieved a certain population density and it's obvious one should never allow Islam to take root in your nation. You're just dooming your kids or your grandkids to civil war. But no amount of calmly pointing to similar historical situations like Lebanon, showing someone Pew Research polls about what muslims believe, obvious common sense will get your average brain-dead person to wake up and say "hey, stop letting muslims immigrate to the west." You need to scream about goatfucking rapefugees if you want to get anyone's attention.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others)
Casteism
And Christians have been dicks to people, but it's not in the same league as jihadis.
Ignore the particular insult. The point is any reasonable reading of history, <snip>
History tells us of a "Holy" Roman Empire that waged wars within its own borders, a Pope who invented the Crusades and triggered mass murder simply to keep the unruly knights busy looting and pillaging other people's countries. History tells us of pogroms of Jews across Christendom; the murder, exile and forced conversion of Muslims after the Spanish Reconquista; colonialism and further forced conversion in all corners of the world; the slave trade; white supremacists wrapped in warped versions of Christian iconography; Christian churches siding with fascists for fear of secular politics. Hell, there was allegedly even one Christian printer in Africa that sabotaged a safe sex campaign by stapling condoms to a magazine/leaflet, and thereby actually risked causing the spread of AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, simply because of their ideological objection to their client's campaign.
When you claim to point out clear and obvious "truths" about Islam, you end up simply lying about Christianity. That's why people keep objecting to your statements. It's not political correctness, it's factual correctness.
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No, you're just making false equivalences. Regardless, today it's the jihadis coming for your ass. When they come to where you are you will say "but I defended you on the internet! I shat on my own people who care about me in favor of you!" and they will say "you are very stupid!" and then they will saw off your head.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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
Regardless, today it's the jihadis...
You were the one who started talking about history. You can't fob off my arguments about history just by telling me that history is unimportant when your argument was based on history just two messages up.
And in what world am I "shitting" on you? I'm having a debate -- words. These cause you no harm, and you are free to disagree with them. Why make it personal?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
My point about history is that looking at the history of Islamic expansion is important. Christian history is irrelevant...I'm not making a moral argument about which is "better," just about the behavior of muslims as they expand into a new area. When they are few in number they say "we are a religion of peace." When they are more they say "we should live by our own laws in our own communities" (see the push for Sharia courts in the UK and France). This inevitably brings them into conflict with the host government, because the UK government can't say "well, okay, you can throw gays off roofs, but only your gays, not our gays." Then they're being "oppressed" and they go full jihad (see Lebanon).
The correct answer is "don't let them into your communities." Your answer is to shit on Christians.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.