I dunno, this whole idea of "hate speech" or even "hate" being something prohibited feels like a sleight of hand. I'm sure it's been said before many times, but it's so easy to subvert and weaponise this against a society - including those it was meant to protect.
Is it not my right to not like something? Or even to hate it? If it is not, then we're policing thought crime through the only visible evidence - what is said. Whatever this is a cure for, it's worse than the disease. The cynic in me suspects it not intended as a cure though. It's intended to control.
Even that's a slippery slope. If I was to say publicly "death to all agile practitioners", it's up to interpretation whether I'm serious or not. I deserve the benefit of the doubt, which is traditionally how it's been handled. Perhaps if I was successful in inciting violence, I could be held accountable for my success. That would make a lot more sense.
I'd say that it depends on how threatened the targets feel - I'd guess that "agile practitioners" as a group wouldn't take it seriously as a threat, but instead as a joke.
However, if there's often rallies and protests against "agile practitioners" and cases of violence against them, then it should count as "hate speech".
In some ways, I see this as similar to "assault" laws where it depends on the specifics of the situation and whether the target is in fear of their safety. e.g. someone holding a knife and backing away from the victim would not be assault, but holding a knife and advancing towards them in a threatening manner most likely would be assault.
Is that not a rather pernicious idea? That I may or may not be punished based on how the recipient of my speech "feels"?
Why can't the rallies be permitted while policing the violence if and when it erupts? Banning the rallies themselves preemptively sounds like a great tool for an authoritarian dictator.
> Is that not a rather pernicious idea? That I may or may not be punished based on how the recipient of my speech "feels"?
I'd consider this more the issue of "consequences". If you think that your speech should be entirely consequence-free, then I completely disagree with you (c.f. shouting "fire" in a crowded cinema). It's not like there's typically any confusion around what "hate speech" sounds like.
> Why can't the rallies be permitted while policing the violence if and when it erupts?
That would be one way to deal with issues, but I'd liken it to a doctor that only treats symptoms and never pre-emptive medication (e.g. medication to lower high blood pressure, but not providing exercise/diet advice that could prevent it). There's also the issue of allowing the extremely dangerous types that motivate crowds to go and commit violence whilst never involving themselves - that would seem like a recipe for disaster.
In the US this example derives from Justice Holmes dicta in Schenck v. US:
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. ... 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."
The background of this case is that Charles Schenck and others were distributing leaflets urging the resistance to the military draft during WW1. The Supreme Court upheld this conviction. This case was later overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio which set a new standard, imminent lawless action, as a limit on free speech.
So strictly speaking what you said is protected. You can absolutely have a play where a character shouts "fire" during the course of the script with a full theater watching. If someone knowingly shouted "fire" with the intent of causing a panic then that can venture into unprotected speech.
Hate speech, in the US, is not a thing that exists in the legal landscape. This has been tested in the courts numerous times, e.g. Snyder v. Phelps, Virginia v. Black, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, etc. It's important to note that in the US hate crime laws are a thing and while speech is quite nearly unlimited, actions are not.
The issue I see with those advocating for hate speech laws is that their time horizon for its use is too short. All governments throughout history have gone through phases from formation to internal civil strife to revolutions and ultimately the death of the government itself. While hate speech laws can limit hateful rhetoric in the short term - from the perspective of supporters - the long term application of these laws can take on a completely different goal as societies evolve over time. I would rather suffer hateful rhetoric with some limits at the extremes - imminent lawless action - than entrust the government with such a power over long time spans.
The theatre thing ought to be contingent on harm being done as a result of yelling "fire". This is a natural consequence and there isn't a law against the speech itself because none is needed.
Otherwise it's the same as the "consequences" of disappearing because you criticised the government.
> The theatre thing ought to be contingent on harm being done as a result of yelling "fire". This is a natural consequence and there isn't a law against the speech itself because none is needed.
I don't follow you - what law would be used to prosecute someone that maliciously yelled "fire" in a crowded cinema? As I understand it, the injuries sustained by people would not be attributable directly to the person yelling, but would just be indirect.
Similarly, a person inciting violence amongst a crowd wouldn't be directly responsible for the violence, but would be indirectly responsible. There's a clear need for a law to prevent that kind of harmful behaviour.
There are plenty of situations where the meaning of something depends entirely on what is in the mind of the recipient. If I approach someone in a bar and say "Hi, that outfit looks very nice on you!" If the recipient is into me, then I'm flirting. If the recipient is not into me, then I'm being creepy. One needs awareness of how likely it is for their words to be interpreted one way or the other, and act accordingly.
Precedent are already happening. Islamists in the UK spout the most ridiculous stuff on the internet and continue to do so. Meanwhile people saying "go home" are behind bars. I expect this to happen with those new laws as well. Hard rules and seemingly random application of them when it suits someone in power.
A bus driver in Ireland was arrested and convicted for telling a Gambian "You should go back to where you came from". However this was later overturned on appeal:
Always felt that the EU on this point should be a bit like USA and have lax laws on a federal/union level while allowing its member states to have whatever hate speech laws they want.
While I support the idea the issue is that hate speech laws are usually only used in "majority against the minority", despite the minority being even more vulgar and racist than the natives.
> hate speech laws are usually only used in "majority against the minority"
Indeed, history is full of examples of speech laws being used by those in power to silence those not in power, from war protestors (WW1 to Vietnam) to civil rights protestors. The U.S. courts didn't start out with the current expansive interpretation of free speech. Initially they tried various ways of stopping only the "bad speech" while permitting the "good speech. Over decades of trial and error, the U.S. courts saw how it always ended in abuse of the powerless by the powerful and eventually realized the only long-term solution is expansive free speech rights for all.
Personally, I think the U.S. legal system eventually managed to get free speech rights into a very good balance. While I find the first amendment protected speech of some of my fellow Americans to be reprehensible and disgusting, I'll defend their right to speak because the alternative of granting the government the power to punish words instead of actions is far scarier.
The USA jailed a student for 45 days for worrying an op-ed suggesting that the situation with Gaza was plausibly genocide. The president of the USA punished a bunch of law firms for defending clients.
It doesn't have free speech laws, it has a collective delusion.
> The USA jailed a student for 45 days for worrying an op-ed suggesting that the situation with Gaza was plausibly genocide.
... by abusing the fact that the student in question is not a citizen, thereby working around that whole pesky First Amendment thing.
If anything, this goes to show what would happen to everyone if they could do that. And the obvious takeaway from it is that First Amendment should apply in full to immigrants, including obvious retaliation through unrelated immigration regulations.
the student is a permanent resident and paying taxes just as citizens.
if the first amendment doesnt apply to permanent residents, then all other laws shouldnt apply either, meaning foreigners should be exempt of all taxes?
While I agree the current US administration is exercising the executive branch's discretionary power in novel and aggressive ways I certainly don't approve of, the student examples I'm aware of involve leveraging existing immigration laws where the student is on a conditional visa which can be revoked on subjective grounds which amount to little more than 'being undesirable'.
The relevant immigration laws aren't new and haven't changed. The only difference is they are now being enforced in cases where they previously weren't. While some of these have clearly been examples of selective enforcement based on the student's behavior including speech, the administration is resorting to non-speech immigration laws because they can't punish the student's speech directly. In fact, there were many more students protesting alongside those deported who the administration has been unable to touch because they are citizens or legal residents. Despite the regrettable outcome for these students, this is evidence the first amendment is not only strong but remains an almost untouchable 'third rail' in both U.S. law and U.S. politics.
The issues around various Washington law and lobbying firms which I know of aren't speech related, they're just a new tactic in typical partisan warfare. That warfare itself isn't new. Every time the administration changes parties the fortunes of 'the other side's' law and lobbying firms change through losing discretionary contracts, clearances and approvals. We normally just don't hear about it. This is especially true when Congress is controlled by the same party as the White House (which tends to happen every 8 to 12 years and last for two years).
So, I agree with you in strongly disapproving of these new tactics and aggressive partisan gamesmanship, especially because now that the Republicans have introduced these new tactics, history shows the Democrats will use them in retaliation when they regain power. My point was specific. The US courts have done a good job balancing the interpretation of the first amendment (although it took over a hundred years of correcting early bad rulings), which I still believe is true. However, I didn't say that about other areas of U.S. law which still need improvement. Notably selective enforcement and executive branch discretionary authority. The silver lining to the current dark cloud is now that the current admin has 'weaponized' these discretionary powers it's already triggered a large number of legal challenges, so the courts will have the opportunity to tighten interpretations of current laws. In cases where current laws don't address these issues, it will be up to future Congresses to create or amend laws. Personally, I think both of these areas could benefit from new legislation - especially selective enforcement. Current U.S. law has some restrictions on selective enforcement but it's limited to certain domains. I'm in favor of making enforcement of most laws and regulations a 'use it or lose it' proposition for government. If they chose to not enforce it before, they can't suddenly start to enforce it now. Obviously, that's a pretty radical approach and would have a lot of interesting consequences but I think it would be net positive. For one, it would almost certainly result in unenforced laws being effectively repealed (and we have a lot of those, especially on the state level). But I think the most valuable aspect would be forcing administrators and courts to decide which laws we actually need and to more precisely define policies for enforcing them instead of relying on ad hoc subjective judgements of bureaucrats and politicians.
Back on the OP topic of 'hate speech' laws in the EU, the current shit show in the U.S. should be a huge wake up call to EU citizens that it's a very bad idea to grant government the power to punish speech instead of just actions. I believe representative democracy is the best political system but worry not enough people understand that in a democracy, when choosing how much power to give to the government, it's crucial to realize people you don't like will sometimes be in power and they'll abuse the power you granted government back when people you liked were in control. What's happening now in the U.S. is a hard reminder of this eternal truth. I believe Trump's actions will lead to all U.S. presidents having less discretionary power in the future - and that's a good thing.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but my main concern is that once you have certain laws you can never be sure how they'll be used in the future—see perhaps current situation in 2025.
You have to take into account the fact that laws could be used by the "wrong" people in the "wrong" way.
The thing is that the current US government is just ignoring laws and even judicial rulings. So looking at all of this mess I have exactly the opposite feeling: it's fine to have some reasonable laws restricting the excesses of free speech, because when the shit hits the fan the laws don't really matter anyway.
What exactly "reasonable laws" and "excesses of free speech" are is not an easy topic in itself and lots of reasonable trade-offs here, but I would start with threats of violence. This includes not just "I will punch you in the face" which is already illegal in the US, but also general statements encouraging violence which are typically not. For example "Hitler did nothing wrong, we need to clear the lands of Jews", "the NYT building should be bombed with all the journalists still in it", (Ann Coulter on several occasions), or celebrating the deaths of gay people (Rush Limbaugh). "Haha, only serious"? There is a very direct and straight line between all of this and Trump, and I don't think we would have had Trump today if it wasn't from four decades of non-stop high-aggression vitriol stuff from people like Coulter, Limbaugh, etc. etc.
If you want to have a free "marketplace of ideas" then you need to have some sort of baseline. This baseline doesn't need to be very high, but I would say that "I encourage your murder and everyone like you" is below it.
>but also general statements encouraging violence which are typically not. For example "Hitler did nothing wrong, we need to clear the lands of Jews",
What about the common refrain of "punch a nazi"? Does that get a pass because they're Bad People™? Even something like "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" could arguably be construed as the violence.
The alternative is autocracy entrenched by censorship… but…
We seem to be facing a situation where autocrats, with the help of technology, are now very good at hacking free speech by either using targeted manipulation or just DOSing the public square. The latter is Bannon’s “flood the zone with shit” and Putin’s “firehose of falsehood.” It’s a variant of the Gish gallop at scale.
I am deeply concerned about the existence of any kind of free society in the future. Maybe that’s what drives humans into space finally: to escape the corrupt decadent technofeudal autocrats on Earth.
That's a good question .. Ireland moved forward with a Hate Crime Bill (proposed law for debate) in 2021 (IIRC) which has been through the house and passed into Irish law as of October 2024:
It appears, by my very brief skimming, to cover issues raised in the article here but is seen as light on the Hate Speech aspects ...
Hate crime legislation came into effect at the end of December last year but controversially omitted references to hate speech, defined as public incitements to violence of hatred against a group or member of a group based on certain characteristics.
So .. Nuremberg style rallies (speech alone) are currently fine in Ireland but criminal in the EU?
With mosque burning, synagogue grafitti, shop front smashing in the {X} neighbourhood, etc. criminal acts in both IE and the (non IE) EU.
(Public INCITEMENTS to violence) of (HATRED against a group)
Capitalized the primary nouns in each phrase. Basically inciting people into hatred of a particular group, with violent connotations such as burning places of worship, etc.
Does that make sense in English grammar? In American English, "incitements of hatred" works, "incitements to violence" works, but they can't both apply to that noun and you're left with "violence of hatred".
It matters, too, because my suspicion is they want to punish hatred as though it were violence.
I would think that not following EU law is a violation of IE law, given they must have passed domestic legislation incorporating the various EU treaties as IE law.
The article says "conducts of condoning, denial, and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust." The "gross trivialization" thing might cover "This was all settled 80 years ago after Germany surrendered and there were trials and executions for war crimes at Nuremberg."
And it seems increasingly clear that Ireland has become the main target in the disinformation war, and the main place where racist sentiments are being stoked. Absolutely tragic given Ireland's history of solidarity and anti colonialism
You can say this sort of stuff about almost anything. I don't see how doing "the little stuff" (relatively) like this takes away from doing "the big stuff". It's not like "the EU" is a single person who only has 24/hours a day to spend.
EU is financing rearmament and Ukraine deal, poaching scientists from the US, common economic and agricultural policies seem to be working. On the diplomacy front, hard to tell but they are showing a united and focused front against Trump. It is discussing some kind of closer cooperation with the UK. So in short, doesn't seem to be failing terribly at lots of things.
Do you think the EU is so bandwidth-limited it cannot do other things while discussing hate speech laws with Ireland?
Political failures compared to what other large bureaucracy? It is miles ahead, IMHO, US federal government or UN. Hard to compare to China.
Crimea is complex, but I can't really see what the EU could have done to prevent Brexit, while keeping itself whole. UK was so desperate to leave, they ended up crashing out.
I personally think the EU gets the blame for a whole load of things that are not really in their remit, while not getting the credit for other things it does well. Like hate speech laws, or the other things I listed.
Despite losing a relatively large economy in the block, the results of Brexit were so embarrassingly disastrous for the UK, that even the far right parties in the mainland, that had the common talking point of leaving the EU, had to switch their rhetoric to "reform" the EU (which is weakening it from the inside). Leaving the EU became sort of unpopular.
Upon reading this the next day, I realize it could use a concrete example:
"We should pass a law to strip all legal rights from, and enslave, everyone who is of [pick some minority group]. Neither I, nor most people, belong to that minority, so most of us will benefit from this slave labor."
That's a logical argument. Thankfully, most people today would find it morally repugnant and unacceptable.
Under EU law, are there protections for freedom of speech in the context of religious speech?
If a soap-box preacher preaches out loud "adulterers should be stoned to death" or a Nazi holds out a banner saying "death to blacks and jews", is that protected? Even in trump's america, that is protected and we value that dearly. How does hate speech work in Europe, do they really forbid people from speaking their minds entirely?
The distinction in the US as I understand it is that those speakers did not make specific or elaborate plans to incite violence, they mere shared or tried to spread their unpopular beliefs, and that is protected and their right. But if the preacher said "let us stone those prostitutes to death" or the Nazi said "Let us kill the blacks and jews in our city" that is a threat of violence, a very serious felony.
I am just trying to understand the distinction here, because if those people are not free to simply share their views without inciting or threatening specific acts of violence, then I would deem Europe a dangerous place to visit for anyone that aspires towards original and critical thinking.
> I would deem Europe a dangerous place to visit for anyone that aspires towards original and critical thinking.
Only if your "original and critical thinking" is racism, homophobia, and similar.
You could argue that banning this comes with more downsides than upsides. Fair enough. But to call this "original and critical thinking" is very odd to put it mildly.
In the EU, freedom of expression has explicit limits on hate speech and holocaust denial, mainly because dignity and equality supersedes the "freedom" of speech.
The general idea behind EU's freedom of speech is that its totally acceptable for expressing controversial ideas or questioning norms, like a religious leader could do.
Calling for harm or hate (like some religious leader do) is not acceptable.
> do they really forbid people from speaking their minds entirely?
"Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"
The problem is, people should be free to question even that belief that dignity and equality supersede freedom of speech. Who defines what is dignity and equality? If people can't express unpopular views (without making specific threats) that question what dignity and equality mean, then how do you know the current definition of those concepts is valid according to the people? It boils down to the EU essentially stating "certain concepts are beyond debate, they cannot be questioned".
> "Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"
You're right, but the point is not whether such persons are in their right mind, evil, horrible,etc... society can view them as such just fine. The point is, should the state be imprisoning such people simply for stating their views. For example in the US, I'm sure you've seen videos of people being explicitly racist in public, they don't get arrested but they do lose their jobs and livelihoods.
the concept of hate-speech gives the state the right to police speech that is merely unpopular, with no immediate harm to anyone. What if Europe slides to the far-right, and Nazis become a protected group and criticizing them is now considered hate-speech? That has dire implications. You can see this happening in the US right now, but at least we can still be critical of MAGA, the concept of making that hate-speech does not exist, so we still have a fighting chance, they can't pass laws that will allow them to spread false information without others criticizing it by redefining legal definitions of such terms (which they can do).
> the concept of hate-speech gives the state the right to police speech that is merely unpopular
Not true. Legislators write the laws, courts interpret them. Basic civics. Laws are not written as "we can police any speech", and courts don't interpret them as such.
I understand all that, I was making the slippery-slope argument, it isn't a fallacy in this case. What groups are considered equal and worthy of protected dignity has gone from "just straight white property owning men" to the myriad of groups we have today. This is a constantly evolving definition. Whoever is in power gets to define that. In times of peace, it is easy to assume things will remain as they are. Look at us here in America, the majority were deceived (or just didn't show up to vote) and now those in power who can change such definitions are horrible evil people. The same can happen in Europe if you don't learn from us. It wasn't that long ago fascists almost took over all of europe and caused the greatest war in the history of our species! Free speech is the only real defense against that. It's either that or violence and war.
You said what you said. And your clarification here is just fear-mongering: "complete free speech absolutism or fascism, war, and holocaust". Okay, fine, whatever. I'm in favour of the Jews being gassed then, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fair enough. Don't know what to tell you other than those things happened and are in the process of happening here in the US. No mongering, just observations based on reality.
Yes, they should be free to question it, but I think that the US view on freedom of speech makes dumber people because they don't need to think about the consequences of their speech.
They usually say whatever they want, usually surrounded with a "it's my right" without thinking about the whole process.
Once they said whatever they said, what's next? What's the purpose of their message?
Is it to express your anger in life and that you think that the source is some random ethnicity or community or do you want to improve everyone's quality of life?
With the recent shift towards extreme individualism, the philosophy behind the essence of freedom of speech has disappeared. Some are now focusing towards improving one individual's quality of life at the expense of the others.
In Europe, they FAFO the extense of free speech and that led to WWII. They said never again because they understood the consequences of full freedom of speech.
Even in the US, nobody has a full freedom of speech. How would a parent react if their kid would say "fuck off" to an elementary school teacher?
Even in the US freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. quite the opposite. I'm sure in Nazi times in europe, being critical of the Nazis wasn't allowed speech. Both then and now in the US, nazis prosper because we didn't use free speech to fend them off enough, we were complacent. You can see trump trying to retaliate by firing people, banning journalists, cancelling contracts, etc.. for anyone critical of his administration. speech is how fascists gain power, but opposing speech across europe (look at UK and France) is also how they just recently fended of right-wing fascists.
In a democracy, the government gets its power from the people. if it can silence the people in certain contexts, then in those contexts the people lost their power. When politicians with bad intent take power, they'll use this crack in the system to tear it apart.
That's where I think you're wrong, they won't use a restriction on speech to arrest someone, they will do anything because there won't be consequences.
The current US administration is trying to officially get rid of habeas corpus, even though the government has already arrested people without due process.
Even when freedom of speech is fully enshrined into law, anyone with bad intent won't care.
> people should be free to question even that belief that dignity and equality supersede freedom of speech. Who defines what is dignity and equality?
I define what dignity is, and I think you should have none. And I actively incite others to remove your dignity.
If this was real, I am not really sure if you would think I should exercise my free speech to your standards, especially if you thought that harm to you was tangible.
It's all fun and games until we are enacting a Kristallnacht.
You're right, if tangible harm is involved, or a specific threat is made, free-speech can't be used as a defense. There is no debate there. But I'm sure you'd agree hating Nazis shouldn't be a crime right? The fact of the matter is hatred or belief in harm is not a bad thing in anyone's mind so long as it is directed at something you consider evil. you're supposed to hate evil.
The reason the US isn't like EU in this regard is that hating tyranny is the cause of its founding. Being able to hate the british's oppressive rule was crucial, being able to organize a rebellion around that hatred is how the US exists. And in current times, being able to hate MAGA and neo-fascism is important.
However, hatred and conspiracy to harm people are different things. Inciting specific harm against anyone is illegal both in the EU and the US today. "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowd" and all.
Let's get a bit more practical, why can't Muslims living in Europe consider anything critical of their prophet is hate-speech? Or laws opposing revenge killings and their treatment of women is hate-speech and religious bigotry? I can assure you to them it feels severely harmful, their passionate response is from a place of hurt and pain. I don't see why any of that is not banned under hate speech laws.
The crucial point here is that the people have a contract with their government such that the government is allowed certain powers. The question here is "can the government police speech that doesn't involve potential and specific harm?". In the US, Islamic imams can preach sermons on Sharia law in promotion of revenge killings and other imams or even other religious leaders can criticize that sermon and preach in its opposition. From what I understand, in the EU, they can't preach that and no one can really criticize them, but their followers still hold that belief with no opportunity to observe the topic debated.
disappointing as it appears the EU is doing the opposite of what it was founded for, which was to end european wars. i dont think people understand how the recolonization of ireland is landing with the actual irish, an indigenous population with over a millennium of history and a distinct culture and identity facing erasure by EU anti-sovereign policies.
dismissals from the
administrative classes only inflame it. we are anticipating similar speech laws in canada to prevent resistance to a commitment by the new PM to double the national population within 14 years (5% annual immigration compounding).
the message from the EU and the networks behind these policies elsewhere reduces to, "resistance is hate, citizen" and they're trying to move fast enough to get ahead of the growing sentiment for a just war of defence they know they are starting with their erasure of national cultures.
i wouldnt underestimate the impact of these laws and the efforts behind them or the reaction that has been building.
the reaction to them. If the Irish govenrnment enforced loitering and vagracy laws instead of making up new hate speech laws or accepting them from the EU, they wouldn't have an integration problem. the homes and hotels in ireland being filled with people from EMEA nations are being filled by new colonists.
the cause of the hate speech is not actually race based, but behavioral. all that standing around and loitering in public is anti-economic activity, where not only is it unproductive, but nobody wants to invest in anything (property improvements, homes, businesses) where these men gather to loiter. it destroys economic value in the towns and broader society when people no longer want to invest in local economies because of mass anti-economic activity. the flight from US cities like SF is a useful control example.
enforce loiting and vagrancy laws instead of inventing "hate speech" laws, and the underlying integration problems vanish almost instantly.
> doing the opposite of what it was founded for, which was to end european wars
The European Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, to make it harder for members to have the independent industrial capacity to mobilise against each other. Particularly France and Germany, whose grievances began with the Franco Prussian war of 1870 and rumbled on through two world wars.
It became the EU federal superstate we have today because politicians can’t resist a power grab. The EU was created in 1993, so the entity you refer to was not created to end European wars. Because the “member states” (it will never refer to countries) had already been NATO members for decades at that point, guaranteeing each others safety and making invasions like the previous ones unimaginable and infeasible. In fact, with it’s obsession of absorbing more territory and people, gaining power, and lukewarm attitude towards NATO, I think it’s more likely to start a war than prevent one.
interesing view, my memory of the launch of the euro currency, schengen area and the coordniation of policy in brussels was sold as a peace plan to prevent future wars.
where I think they are about to cause war is the EU's (and now UK's) attacks on farmers and cynical mass immigration together are creating the conditions for popular revolt in several countries. hate speech laws are to prevent people from organizing popular resistance to these policies.
that we have the tech to make hate speech laws unenforcable means the EU will have shown its undeniable malice toward europeans while demonstrating its own weakness. it would be forfeiting moral authority during an attempt to destroy these national cultures with draconian speech laws, and I would bet against it surviving the popular counterpunch. this counterpunch scenario is the war I would foresee being a likely result.
>>The state has also been told that it must implement legislation against the denial, condoning of and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust.
Such heavy-handed, draconian laws give ammo to Holocaust deniers.
Tangentially, one would expect Irish laws to deal more with their own atrocities, such as British occupation, their near-eradication of Gaelic, or denial of England's role in the Irish potato famine.
As someone who is Irish and learned all about colonialism in my history class on the centuries of British rule in Ireland, I would never lightly make a comparison to the holocaust like that.
Gaelic was the majority language in Ireland until the 19th century. Now only 4% speak it daily. They have real problems with their own culture being erased. Given this dire state, one would think that would be their priority, but it doesn't rate so much as a mention.
Pretty important too since now all you have to do to silence someone in Europe is argue it's hate speech.
There was a time the lab leak covid theory was hate speech, people were calling people racists for mentioning it. Sometimes simply stating statistics can get construed as hate speech.
I'm sure there's other good examples, but at the end of the day it just creates a bar for those trying to silence a topic to reach.
The rest of the world just watched you jail someone for writing an op-ed. Free speech is dead in the US and those who screamed the loudest about it the past decade turned out to be absolutely full of shit and shouldn’t ever be listened to moving forward.
I live on the opposite side of the world from the US. I’m not American. No freedom of speech in my country.
I think you got the facts mixed up. The person who wrote the op ed was not an American citizen and they were not jailed, they were ordered to return to their home country. They were on a student visa which is conditional and it is a privilege, not a right. They raised some flags and the student visa was revoked.
Yes, I agree. That hateful rhetoric against free speech threatens my first amendment rights by inciting government suppression of free speech. My rights are being attacked and feel unsafe.
You still have the right to say you think this law is bad. You can even say you think this law is bad because you think it should be legal to stand in the public square and yell that Hitler did nothing wrong. But you can't stand in the public square and yell that Hitler did nothing wrong.
I think you should own your full opinion. What is the thing you want to say that is currently illegal to say because of hate speech law?
> What is the thing you want to say that is currently illegal to say because of hate speech law?
There is nothing I want to say that a hate speech law would make illegal. And I find that framing to be disingenuous as it seems to imply only those who wish to shout hateful things should want to defend free speech. Do you also think only those who are minorities should want to defend civil rights?
So you want it to be legal to stand in a public square in Germany and yell that Hitler did nothing wrong, but you don't personally want to do that.
Why don't you want to? Could that reason also be true for all the other things that are legal under the law? What does it say about the people who do want to do those things?
> So you want it to be legal to stand in a public square in Germany and yell that Hitler did nothing wrong
Yes.
> but you don't personally want to do that.
No.
> Why don't you want to?
Because I think Hitler was a dictator who committed genocide, which is the most terribly wrong there is.
> What does it say about the people who do want to do those things?
That I strongly disagree with those people? That those people are likely mentally ill, lunatics or malevolently evil?
I'm not following your reasoning here. It's like you're trying to box me into some contradictory position which just isn't there. You seem to find it unimaginable I could sincerely, passionately, and even, seethingly despise the words and sentiment behind "Hitler did nothing wrong" with every fiber of my being, yet not want to give government bureaucrats the absolute power to subjectively decide which free speech to punish. Those are not contradictory positions. In fact, they are the most consistent positions on free speech and here's why...
Hitler was only able to commit genocide because he seized the power to censor free speech first. Free speech is always the first right tyrants must suppress. That's literally why they made free speech the "First Amendment", all the other rights can be undermined without it. If the U.S. didn't have absolute free speech guarantees enshrined in our constitution and culture, if we had a "hate speech" law like the EU, I have no doubt Trump would already have hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizen students who protested Gaza in jail right now charged under that "hate speech" law. To paraphrase your question to me, here's a question for you: "So you want it be legal for Trump to put Gaza protestors in jail for hate speech?"
It's naive to believe people you agree with will always be the only ones in power. Someday someone with views you despise will be in power. Because power always attracts tyrants. Government is THE ultimate centralized power. Government has a monopoly on legally deploying lethal force against citizens. While I deeply despise what a few of my fellow citizens use their free speech rights to say, I also understand the best response to hate speech is exercising my free speech rights to protest against what they said. To point out how wrong, stupid and dangerous their words are. Taking everyone's free speech rights away based on what a few lunatics say is the most dangerous response to hate speech. I'm willing to tolerate the despicable, evil speech of a handful of lunatics because tolerating that is the price of protecting free speech for everyone.
While some well-intentioned people claim "Oh no! I only want to stop the bad speech, not reasonable protest", that's been proven impossible. The U.S. courts tried to find a way to code those good intentions into law and precedent in a way that would not also allow a racist police chief, anti-gay mayor, anti-trans governor or warmonger president to imprison someone they disagree with based on their speech. Our best legal minds tried many different approaches and compromises for over a hundred years - and failed. As awful as tolerating the speech of lunatics is, it is the least bad solution guaranteed to protect free speech from abuse by the worst few out of thousands of good police chiefs, mayors, governors and presidents. Because, eventually, a bad person will get themselves in power and bad people in power always find a way to claim protest speech against them is "hate speech." That's the day when the rest of us will all need the right to march in the streets chanting words the new government has suddenly decreed are now "hate speech." Rights are lost an inch at a time and it always starts with the most reprehensible, least sympathetic people, spouting the most offensive things - because no right-thinking, morally good person will defend the awful shit they're saying. The problem is too many right-thinking, morally good people confuse strongly rejecting "what was said" from tenaciously defending "the right to say it". I'm not willing to risk losing free speech forever to silence a few lunatics today.
I call this the "good things are good and bad things are bad" fallacy (rather, it's the rejection of that statement which is the fallacy). Good restrictions on speech are good. Bad restrictions on speech are bad. You are advancing the idea that either all restrictions on speech are good, or all restrictions on speech are bad, which is untrue.
The guy who stands in the public square handing out fliers purporting to explain why the Jews deserve to be gassed should be punished for his speech (proportionately of course). The guy who hands out fliers that Hitler was an evil madman should not be punished. One is good, and one is bad. Punishing good is bad, and punishing bad (proportionately) is good.
It's naive to believe bad governments follow the law. They just do what they want to and shoot you if you don't. Avoiding things bad governments could do, during times of not-bad governments, doesn't stop bad governments from doing them later anyway. In Weimar Germany, you could say that Jews did or didn't belong in gas chambers, as you pleased. Yet in Nazi Germany, you could only say that Jews did belong in gas chambers, because saying the opposite could get you put in one yourself. No free speech law in Weimar Germany could have stopped Hitler from putting people in gas chambers for saying things he didn't like. Especially because Hitler was willing to break into people's homes and assassinate them and burn down buildings to get his way.
If Hitler had been killed or locked up based on his speech, it's possible Nazi Germany would never have happened. I'm not suggesting that I know for sure that it would've right to execute Hitler in 1930 based on what people knew in 1930 (since Nazi Germany hadn't happened yet), but it's utterly crazy to not make any attempt to see if you can balance that fact against everything else. 70 million lives is quite a lot.
If rights are lost an inch at a time, that's great. That means after every inch we pause and get to decide whether this is the correct number of inches, or if it should be more or fewer.
I think perhaps you default to trusting your local police, courts and judges to enforce a "hate speech" law clearly and consistently far more than I do, or at least enough to think they'll make a difference beyond merely having a law on the books as a form cultural virtue signaling. Based on my experiences, perhaps I distrust the competence of local and state police and courts too much. I sincerely doubt they have the skills to consistently interpret a hate speech law with enough nuance that it does much good (and, please, "Hitler did nothing wrong" isn't an instructive example. Where such laws fail is when things get a little more challenging like deciding if "Gaza is Genocide" or "Trans-Women Are Not Females" qualify as jailable hate speech). I fear that any such law, after the first dozen court cases and appeals, will boil down to a list of "23 Words and Phrases You Can't Say" or, in the other extreme, remain so broadly vague no one is quite sure what might get them arrested, leading to lots of local abuse and endless court cases which fund lawyer's golf club memberships for decades. While the 'broadly vague' option might actually trip up the occasional mini-tyrant who isn't quite careful enough, it'll also effectively silence many other speakers who merely fear the uncertainty and choose to self-censor (as has already been shown to occur under well-intentioned but misguided campus "speech codes" https://www.thefire.org/).
So that's what I trust less than I think you do. On the other hand, what I think I trust more than you do, is my fellow citizens. I was raised in a raucous, fractious, combative, Darwinian marketplace of ideas where everyone is assumed to be completely full of shit unless they can conclusively prove otherwise (and sometimes not even then) and no one gets any respect unless they earn it (which is also only... maybe). Do you remember the movie "Fight Club"? I grew up in a culture that's "Speech Club." The first rule of Speech Club is you don't go whining to Daddy government because someone said something wrong, naughty or mean. You stand up and hit them back with twice as much speech. You eviscerate their stupid arguments with facts and expose what a fucking moron they are in front of everyone. You don't silence them under threat of imprisonment. You beg them to please never stop being so fucking stupid because it's pure comedy gold and mama needs those sweet TikTok clicks. And that's where the trust comes in. While I disagree with my fellow citizens about many things and suspect maybe up to 10%-15% of them are idiots, I've also learned that, on average, most of the rest of them are pretty good at sorting better ideas from worse ideas and spotting nuggets of truth amidst a sea of bullshit. Sure, sometimes they get fooled or swayed by emotion for a minute but, when things get real, eventually they tend to be pretty decent people who don't want to do wrong by others or side with evil. That sense of trust in the underlying good faith and common sense of my average, aggregate fellow citizen is why I feel no need to silence bad, evil, hateful, wrong ideas. Those who strongly feel society must decide which words are too dangerous, too unsafe for "average citizens" to even hear for fear it will corrupt their weak minds, don't think much of their fellow citizens (and must think themselves well above average to assume the role of arbiter of ideas). That feels uncomfortably elitest. Acting afraid of bad ideas is also granting a lot of power to those words and ideas, instead of dismissing them as more random bullshit or just laughing at them when needed.
Finally, if certain ideas are so clearly wrong that speaking them out loud must be stopped by legal force, aren't they also clearly wrong enough for the average person to tell they are wrong? Why can you so easily determine they are wrong yet fear others can't? Logically, it seems the answer must be you know you are smarter than most other people. Or, perhaps you feel you are only average, and thus support allowing those with greater intellectual capacity than you to determine for you which ideas are "hate speech". If so, how will you feel when your intellectual superiors decide an idea is "hate speech" when you are quite sure it's merely controversial? Or, if choosing our collective arbiters of truth by IQ score is too problematic perhaps the only fair way is majority vote? I suspect this is why anyone arguing for "hate speech" laws uses "Hitler/Nazis" as an example, instead of something, you know, hard. The problem becomes clearer with something like "Trans-Women Are Not Female." That's definitely controversial but, depending on exact wording, more than a third of the population feel that's a valid topic reasonable people should be able to at least discuss BUT another (approximate) third are certain it's "hate speech" (note: personally, I have no strong opinion on this one at the moment). In other countries, the percentages swing to over 50% and, depending on which country, it can swing to a majority either way. How do we decide if it should be hate speech in tough, rapidly evolving situations? Should we make it legal or illegal country by country? Or should we ignore it because it's not a slam dunk like Hitler/Nazis? (Sorry trans-friends!) From definitions to enforcement to lack of meaningful impact to unintentional consequences to abuse of power, when I look at the idea of "hate speech" laws, I see nothing but good intentions in concept but thorny problems when put into practice across broad populations and over time.
All that said, you've articulated your points very well. I think I understand your point of view and the foundational assumptions behind it. I doubt we're going to suddenly find common ground, although not for lack of trying! We simply interpret the world through different assumptions based on different experiences and arrive at different conclusions. And further discussion probably won't be productive in changing either of our viewpoints. Fortunately, it's clear we both ultimately want to same thing, a fair and sustainable civil society with equal justice for all. Our differences are in what we choose to prioritize as the best way to achieve that goal. Hopefully, I've conveyed my viewpoint, reasoning and foundational assumptions well enough for you to at least see why I think about this the way I do (despite, obviously, not agreeing with all my assumptions). Not everyone who supports strong free speech rights is a closet Nazi sympathizer (I'm still hurt you went there... such a cheap shot! :-). For my part, I never thought your support for hate speech laws was unprincipled or less than well-intentioned. My goal wasn't to change your mind, just to plant a suspicion there might be a well-grounded position against hate speech laws which, although wrong in your view, is at least sincere, self-consistent and principled. I hope for both our sake that, as the future unfolds, hate speech laws are abused less than I fear and strong first amendment speech protections protect democracy better than you fear.
> The problem becomes clearer with something like "Trans-Women Are Not Female." That's definitely controversial but, depending on exact wording, more than a third of the population feel that's a valid topic reasonable people should be able to at least discuss BUT another (approximate) third are certain it's "hate speech" (note: personally, I have no strong opinion on this one at the moment). In other countries, the percentages swing to over 50% and, depending on which country, it can swing to a majority either way. How do we decide if it should be hate speech in tough, rapidly evolving situations?
This is an interesting example because one of the two necessary conditions of "trans woman" is being male. The other being referring to oneself as a woman.
That is: a "trans woman" is, by definition, a male who self-identifies as a woman.
So if the statement "trans woman are not female" becomes unsayable hate speech then it stops "trans woman" from even being defined.
This is well out of the realm of preventing "hate speech" and firmly into 1984-style censorship territory where stating plain facts is banned.
> You are advancing the idea that either all restrictions on speech are good, or all restrictions on speech are bad
Thanks for the detailed response. First, let me reiterate that I don't believe all restrictions on speech are bad. Far from it. In the parallel response I linked above, I said the U.S. set of laws and precedents balancing first amendment free speech have struck a good balance. Not all speech is protected. There are clear and significant exceptions to the first amendment. For example, incitement to imminent lawless action, defamation, libel and several others. Over many decades the courts have evolved a series of detailed multi-prong tests to determine exactly which speech may be legitimately suppressed by the government. I've read a lot of these rulings and concurrences and together they form an impressively rigorous standard which is clear and can be enforced consistently. Something which, as far as I know, doesn't exist in other countries - at least not yet.
Also, it's important to remember the first amendment only limits which speech the government can punish criminally. Civil liability is a different matter entirely as Alex Jones learned when his lunatic ravings cost him well over a billion dollars. Civil liability can also result in injunctive relief and jail time. This is a substantial deterrent and corrective to stop the kinds of speech we both find offensive and harmful - a legal deterrent I fully support.
> It's naive to believe bad governments follow the law. They just do what they want to and shoot you if you don't.
Bad leaders sometimes choose to break the law and issue illegal orders. Bad staff members and military officers sometimes follow illegal orders. But, as Donald Trump found out on January 4th 2021, a lot of people won't follow illegal orders - even loyal members of his inside circle like Vice-President Mike Pence. Richard Nixon learned the same when his trusted cabinet members and generals refused his illegal orders and he was forced to resign the presidency. The U.S. is somewhat unique in that our politicians and military swear an oath of loyalty not to the president or the country but to uphold the U.S. Constitution - the document that spells out all the things the government can never legally do its citizens. Does that oath always work? Of course not. Some people are as bad as the bad leaders they choose to follow but if you're a tyrant having enough people you're sure will follow clearly illegal or immoral orders has long been a huge problem. Beyond the horrific moral failure of many Germans during WWII, history holds a surprising number of encouraging examples of people choosing their own good moral judgement over immoral orders, from tank divisions in Tienanmen Square refusing to fire to Soviet officers who didn't launch nukes on turned out to be an errant order. Even the past year has seen examples including elite special forces ordered by the President to take over the Korean parliament building from unarmed student protesters and Assad's soldiers choosing not to fire on civilians as they marched on Damascus. Perhaps I'm an optimist but I think there's reasonable evidence, decade by decade, the average global moral climate is slowly improving. Henchmen and jackbooted thugs who can reliably be counted on to perpetrate atrocities against innocents on the orders of tyrants are getting a bit harder to find, especially in Westernized democracies where average education levels and standards of living are reasonable. Of course, in the U.S. every member of the military and police is trained they'll be held criminally accountable for violating their oath to uphold the constitution "against all aggressors", which explicitly includes those in power should they turn against the rule of law, so it's harder to recruit reliable henchmen to shoot at peaceful protestors. Also, there are far more civilian firearms than there are civilians - so, here, the protestors can shoot back and courts won't convict legitimately defending yourself against unlawful lethal force - even by police. I was taught in elementary school "the right to bear arms" is the second amendment because it's the amendment citizens are supposed to use if the government ever tries to take the first amendment away. ;-) Hence, my confidence that, at least in the U.S., it's safer to rely on speaking against evil when it seizes government power than relying on government power through hate speech laws to force evil to speak in less offensive coded euphemisms. And, it's entirely possible, the worst thing to do in response to evil, hateful lunatics shouting evil, hateful lunacy is training them to sound a little less evil and hateful. Certainly forcing evil to adopt more palatable sound bites when in public will help pearl-clutchers feel society has dealt with the problem but it's just pushing the evil into the shadows where it can fester and grow.
> If Hitler had been... locked up based on his speech
As you said, historical hypotheticals aren't exactly productive. If Wiemar Germany had a strong "hate speech" law it wouldn't have stopped Hitler speaking publicly, it would only have made him tone it down enough to skirt any such law by using using euphemisms and other coded signaling. Maybe toning down some of Hitler's most inflammatory rhetoric would have stopped his rise to power but that seems unlikely. Germany's current strong hate speech laws haven't managed to entirely stop neo-nazi skinheads from organizing and even marching and, in some cases, seems to create martyrs and heroes out of losers which only energizes their fringe supporters. I guess it's possible toning down Hitler's worst speech when he was starting out might have stopped his rise however I'm skeptical toning down what he says before he's in power makes much difference. I'm more hopeful that a strong cultural tradition of revering free speech that would have allowed the Jews, gypsies, gays and other undesirables to safely march in Berlin every day while Hitler was in power would have made much more of a difference. The problem is, if the hate speech law doesn't stop Hitler before he's in power, once in power, he certainly would have weaponized that "hate speech" law to jail Jewish protestors. Hitler might have found police corrupt enough to jail peaceful protestors protected under a free speech constitutional right and judges awful enough to convict them. Even if he found military troops immoral enough to fire on unarmed peaceful protestors, Hitler being forced to do that so publicly would also change things substantially. A good example of this is how the civil rights protestors marching in 1960s Alabama didn't change the minds of most Americans in Southern states, it was the photos and film of police illegally using attack dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protestors exercising their constitutionally protected free speech that changed everything. Historically, Gandhi had it right, constitutionally protected free speech doesn't usually stop tyrants directly, it's the injustice of what the tyrants have to do to silence legally protected speech that exposes the tyrant as a criminal. Regardless, sadly, Wiemar Germany didn't have hate speech laws or a strong tradition of constitutional free speech protest against the government so such hypotheticals remain unknowable.
Those are the points I wanted to respond to: 1. My support of free speech is far from absolute or unlimited and 2. That "Bad governments will do bad things" cuts both ways, if they'll ignore strong constitutional protection for free speech, they'll certainly abuse hate speech laws to silence dissent. In fact, twisting the definition of "hate speech" may be the single BEST way to subvert constitutional protections for free speech, and 3. The dilemma of "A. Kill Hitler in the crib, or B. Use hate speech laws to force him to sound less hateful in 1931, or C. Use first amendment-like free speech protection to protest march in Berlin every day of 1935 (and force Hitler to illegally shoot unarmed peaceful protestors at noon in front of the Reichstag)" is unknowable and undecidable moral philosopher porn that, in any case, cuts both ways - if it cuts at all.
> they'll certainly abuse hate speech laws to silence dissent
and my main point is that they'll do that whether or not the laws exist. If the laws don't exist, they'll create them, then abuse them. So we should not let this argument stop us from having good laws. Right now, American citizens are getting detained for having anti-Trump social media posts on their phone. They don't need any law to do that - they can just do it. Can you explain how the lack of a hate speech law prevented this thing from happening, even though it did happen?
> it was the photos and film of police illegally using attack dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protestors exercising their constitutionally protected free speech that changed everything
No? It was them getting beaten to a pulp in the American Civil War. If their minds were changed by the police response to the protests, why did the war still happen?
> (and force Hitler to illegally shoot unarmed peaceful protestors at noon in front of the Reichstag)
Did Hitler not illegally murder unarmed peaceful protestors? I'd be surprised if that was never something he did. Were the 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims armed; were they not unpeaceful? Would they have been spared if they protested?
> I think perhaps you default to trusting your local police, courts and judges to enforce a "hate speech" law clearly and consistently far more than I do,
Not more than any other law. Right now in Berlin, it's illegal to oppose the Palestinian genocide, because the police see it as antisemitism, and antisemitism is illegal. But that's a problem with every law.
> On the other hand, what I think I trust more than you do, is my fellow citizens. I was raised in a raucous, fractious, combative, Darwinian marketplace of ideas
And we see what that leads to. We did the experiment - we got the results. Doesn't work as described. Leads to tyranny. Time to try something else. Please don't try to gaslight me how it works when we can clearly see it not working like that, plain as day.
> Finally, if certain ideas are so clearly wrong that speaking them out loud must be stopped by legal force, aren't they also clearly wrong enough for the average person to tell they are wrong?
I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer given one paragraph ago.
> All that said, you've articulated your points very well. I think I understand your point of view and....
Good concluding paragraph. Very polite. Probably not quite fitting the usual online conversation format. You're supposed to call me Hitler or something.
> Good concluding paragraph. Very polite. Probably not quite fitting the usual online conversation format. You're supposed to call me Hitler or something.
Sorry to disappoint you! :-) As I indicated in my concluding paragraph, we're not going to change each other's viewpoint, so I'm going to choose not to address your points one by one, and just say some are based on either incorrect or incomplete assumptions and others aren't persuasive from my perspective.
I will add a historical point of fact to clarify one thing. The American civil war and the American civil rights protests are two different events a hundred years apart. The first was in the 1860s and the second in (roughly) the 1960s. The civil war settled the matter of slavery being legal (although there were other issues as well). Unfortunately, losing the civil war didn't change racial prejudice in the Southern states. Blacks there were no longer slaves but they were treated as second-class citizens and subject to grossly unjust non-protection under the law. This injustice persisted because Southern state governors, city mayors and police chiefs colluded to maintain the pretense of enforcing the laws equally while tacitly permitting gross discrimination and mob violence by racist whites against blacks. The civil rights protestors of the 1960s changed this when Martin Luther King adopted the peaceful protest strategies Gandhi used in India against British colonial rule. The violent police over-response against peaceful protestors exercising constitutionally protected free speech was obviously illegal. That undeniable evidence of Southern police and local governments behaving criminally against the constitution, not only as an aberration but systemically, forced both Southerners and the rest of the country to accept this ugly reality existed and make a choice how to deal with it. The horrific photos and films of illegal police violence against peaceful protestors changed public awareness and sentiment nationwide, providing the political support the President needed to send federal troops to Southern states to force desegregation. This was the civil rights protestor's plan, to use their protected speech rights to force the local governments to expose themselves publicly as tyrants. In conjunction with the media using their free speech rights to distribute the photographic evidence, the plan worked (the recent emergence of national live television broadcasts was also a key enabler). These ugly events led to some of our most important laws and legal precedents around free speech and elevated first amendment rights to a place of nearly sacred reverence among U.S. citizens. It's a dramatic historical episode well worth studying to understand American's intense support of free speech rights and deep distrust of government power. I offer this final historical note only as clarification of what happened and when re: "civil war" vs "civil rights protests" (which I think is uncontroversial). It's not intended to counter anything you wrote or to be argumentation.
Thanks for the interesting discussion. Per my prior conclusion, I'll be moving on now...
It pushes them torward defending their "truth" in multiple courts of law where it falls apart for lack of evidence.
David Irving had a great opportunity to make his case .. he failed several times over:
The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence".
Hardly generic "great ammo", just very specific ammo for those that want to rail against courts and law in addition to picking fault with recorded history.
At one point, Russia decided to enact anti-extremist legislation similar to your enlightened European hate speech laws. It criminalized hateful speech directed at "identifiable social groups".
Then we found out that "identifiable social groups" include the corrupt police and members of parliament.
Once you open the door to criminalizing ideas, even vile ones, you risk that power being misused later in ways no one intended. Defending the principle of free speech isn’t the same as defending the content of the speech. It’s about protecting the framework that allows us to challenge bad ideas rather than bury them.
And once you open the door of vile ideas being treated as valid information, you risk them becoming the norm.
"Your knowledge is as valid as my ignorance" is a scocietal disease every country is facing right now to varying degrees of severity because bad ideas spread fast.
The thought that bad ideas can be challenged fairly in an open marketplace is a utopia. Most people are not interested in truth. They would rather touch themselves.
Vile ideas are not automatically accepted as 'valid information'. You're assuming that society can't handle challenging ideas while ignoring the possibility that free speech is what allows for those ideas to be openly criticized, debated, and disproven. A robust system of free speech is what actually ensures bad ideas are not given a free pass but are subject to critique and debate
Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas". Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results.
You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, but in reality bad ideas very often smother the discussion when people adopt a stance of "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge".
By the way, you applied a suspicious change of rhetorical focus when the original terminology was "vile ideas" and you switched that to "challenging ideas". I'll consider that an accidental slip instead of malice.
> Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas".
A century ago, mainstream society openly embraced racial hierarchies as scientific fact. Three centuries ago, slavery was not only legal, but morally justified by churches and universities. In 17th-century New England, people were executed for witchcraft based on superstition and mass hysteria. Well into the 20th century, eugenics was considered respectable science across Europe and North America. So I don't think these current times are any worse than they were before in terms of bad ideas existing in the mainstream, at least from a historical perspective. In fact, I'd probably argue it's better.
> Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results.
This is true of any society. The key difference is that they are easier to challenge in a place with strong free speech protections. Bad ideas will always exist, but it's better to test them out in the open rather than let them fester in dark.
> You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, ...
You're right, I am. I believe in a marketplace of ideas because it's better than any alternative that involves gatekeeping truth. The notion that "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge" is a cultural problem, not a legal one. I trust free speech over any system that relies on a sanctioned arbiter of truth. And I think that protection of people from bad ideas often backfires (see European history and the Catholic Church, McCarthyism, Nazi propaganda, Soviet censorship, etc.)
> I trust free speech over any system that relies on a sanctioned arbiter of truth. And I think that protection of people from bad ideas often backfires (see European history and the Catholic Church, McCarthyism, Nazi propaganda, Soviet censorship, etc.)
I choose to believe that a democratically elected government with proper functioning institutions can regulate speech properly instead.
Absolute freedom is not possible nor desirable to live in a society. And cultural problems should be addressed with regulations. If it was cultural norm to engage in revenge killings, I would very much expect government to step in and stop that, not to take a wishy-washy stance "eh, it is a cultural problem" and handwave it away.
I see unshackled free speech as much more dangerous than that of a democracy being overzealous in speech, as the first can absolutely undermine democracy if enough imbeciles decide to believe in.... erm... "challenging" ideas (and I use those quotes very sarcastically).
A proper democracy being overzealous can be fixed by the democratic process.
> A proper democracy being overzealous can be fixed by the democratic process.
The democratic process can only work if citizens are fully informed on the issues, which is precisely what censorship prevents. It allows complete excision of some viewpoints from political discourse and even actual voting (if parties can be banned on the basis that their platforms contain such and such). Imagine for a moment what happens that your democratic society decides that advocating against hate speech laws is itself hate speech.
> The democratic process can only work if citizens are fully informed on the issues, which is precisely what censorship prevents.
Ah yes, if only citizens could speak that the Holocaust didn't happens and could call black people monkeys, then they would ve fully informed to do Democracy.
> Imagine for a moment what happens that your democratic society decides that advocating against hate speech laws is itself hate speech.
This is some outlandish claim, that would need some serious argument to support how it might come to pass.
A proper democracy with functioning institutions has a lot of checks and balances to avoid outlandish bullshit to become law.
> I choose to believe that a democratically elected government with proper functioning institutions can regulate speech properly instead.
Abuse of free speech has almost always been justified by those very "proper institutions" that you place so much faith in. I'd say you're being a wee bit optimistic about them. One embarrassing example that comes to mind was during the Troubles [1]
> I see unshackled free speech as much more dangerous than that of a democracy being overzealous in speech, as the first can absolutely undermine democracy if enough imbeciles decide to believe in.... erm... "challenging" ideas (and I use those quotes very sarcastically).
> A proper democracy being overzealous can be fixed by the democratic process.
You assume a “proper” democracy won’t go too far, and if it does, democracy will fix it. Yet, speech is what allows people to challenge, protest, and critique. So regulating that speech undermines the very tools needed for democratic correction. Also, free speech is often what prevents overstepping in the first place.
> If it was cultural norm to engage in revenge killings, I would very much expect government to step in and stop that, not to take a wishy-washy stance "eh, it is a cultural problem" and handwave it away.
Indeed, so would I! But there is a difference between violent actions and bad ideas, and there can be laws for violent actions without needing to suppress discussion about them. We don’t need to outlaw speech in order to outlaw violence. Ultimately, I think robust free speech doesn’t undermine democracy but protects it, even if um "challenging ideas" (I'm smirking) are uncomfortable to hear
By your standard, every single country that is not the US is authoritarian, because no other country is extremist in their interpretation of what freedom of speech means.
I want people to have freedom to criticize the government and question those in power. I don't want people to have the freedom to say that blacks or jews are subhuman, because the results of that freedom are not good.
Yes, because it is the topic of this thread. It's about Ireland implementing the EU directives on hate speech, such as Holocaust denial.
> and yet even with that freedom to say racist things, so many non-whites are trying to move INTO the United States
We are taking about Ireland and the EU.
I have no idea why people want to move to the US. More power to them, not my problem.
> Your limits on free speech are a slippery slope. Yes most of the world is authoritarian. I experienced it during the pandemic in a so called First World country.
Ah... I see the problem now. You are one of those people.
I won't reply to you any further. Feel free to have the last word. This conversation will never get anywhere.
Having done this discussion on HN a few times, there seems to be a dogmatic difference, correlated to being American.
Some people favour freedom of speech above all else, and reject the notion it should be curbed for fuzzy concepts such as societal benefit.
Some people think freedom of speech should work for the society. We limit it anyway - threats of violence are always out. So might as well push this boundary a bit.
I found it useless to debate the merits of these points because, as I say, it seems to be dogmatic. You believe either one or the other.
Personally I'm in the second camp. And frankly more so since Trump and his "free speech absolutists" won. Musk seems to be censoring Twitter all over, support for Israel is boundless but speak up for Palestine and ICE detains you... If "absolute free speech" is curbed by whatever the government likes, then what's the point?
Twitter is a private platform, though, so it's not government censorship. Musk can censor all he likes there, but there are still multiple alternative avenues for communicating those viewpoints. When government censors something, it applies universally, so this isn't comparable.
> peak up for Palestine and ICE detains you
... if you're not a citizen. This is an example of why the 1st Amendment in US doesn't go far enough, because it doesn't fully protect free speech rights of certain groups (at least as this administration interprets it; the courts are still working through the challenges, so we'll see). I find it very strange that you're using this example as an argument that there should be fewer free speech protections - do you want FBI to start detaining citizens as well when they criticize Israel? Because that's exactly what would happen if 1A would be gone tomorrow somehow.
> Musk seems to be censoring Twitter all over, support for Israel is boundless but speak up for Palestine and ICE detains you... If "absolute free speech" is curbed by whatever the government likes, then what's the point?
The existence of imperfections isn’t a reason to abandon the principle. Things take time to work thru the courts and such.
> The government has repeatedly pointed to existing legislation that criminalises the incitement to hatred and hate speech, under the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. In 2017, the Irish Courts Service said just five people were convicted under the law.
Are the implying Ireland needs to boost up those conviction numbers? With only 5 convicted, someone is clearly not doing their job.
I am getting a faint whiff of a conviction quota. Comrades Stalin and Yezhov would be proud
> By the autumn of 1937, the pressure to achieve arrests was so great that the NKVD interrogators began picking out names from the telephone directory or preselecting married men with children who, as every agent knew, were the quickest to confess
Can't they just pick out some random names from Facebook and convict them, I am sure they are guilty of something /s
John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty"[1] offered one of the most comprehensive defences of free speech (that is as relevant today as it was then).
You do raise a good point re: tradeoffs in a healthy society. Mill anticipated this objection and addressed it directly. He didn't advocate for free speech without consequences but developed a harm principle specifically to establish what limits are acceptable. Acceptable limits on thought and speech should be based on demonstrable harm, rather than alleged offence, discomfort, or the current popular opinion or cultural disapproval.
He recognises the need to set some limits, yet also the dangers of who gets to set them. Historically, those with power to restrict speech have restricted truth as falsehood. The bar for restrictions should be very high, not because free speech should be absolute, but because the dangers of overzealous restrictions far outweigh the cost of permitting speech we might personally find objectionable. Even completely false opinions might have their value as they force defenders of truth to better articulate their position or reasoning, and prevents beliefs from becoming prejudiced, or platitudes.
I thought I'd share since it's relevant and there may be some younger readers here that might not have come across his work. I really recommend reading it, even if it's an LLM summary as an introduction (as seems to be the trend nowadays)
> the dangers of overzealous restrictions far outweigh the cost of permitting speech
I don't think restricting things such Holocaust denial, or declaring whole ethnicities as subhuman to fan the fires of racial or ethnical hatred is really being overzealous in restricting speech. Which is essentially what people are objecting to here.
> Thus, the concern is less the speech itself than the tyranny begotten from regulating the speech.
Absolute freedom devolves into tyranny super fast. If a democratically elected government cannot regulate how society operates on a base level, my only resourcento you retaining your right to be a dickhead is me retaining my right to have you swallow my fist in retribution.
I really don't want to live in such a society. Better to have some regulated basic civility.
> feedback loops maintaining the regulation at that "goldilocks" point of balance.
That is why a democracy with well functioning institutions is important. Power is fractured so that there are many checks and balances.
It's important that we have the right to criticize the government, and to keep those in power in check.
We don't need to ensure every dickhead can deny the Holocaust, or call black people monkeys, or claim that 5G technology is a conspiracy to kill those that take vaccines to ensure we have proper rights to speech in that 'goldilocks" zone.
Do EU nations consider themselves sovereign or not? Cause it seems like if the EU can punish them for exercising sovereignty, they are beholden to the whims of outsiders.
There's absolute sovereignty, and then there's the speech of your own citizens within your own borders.
But in reality yea, the EU is essentially at the articles of confederation stage of the US. The EU has been flexing its muscles with what laws they can enforce on their members, and I'd expect the eventual EU army to be the turning point where people start to realize the EU election is likely more important, or at least equally important, as their local elections.
Granted the GP expressed themself vaguely, but there's a large gulf between "absolute" sovereignty, and meddling in internal affairs to such a degree that even what speech is permitted to citizens is out of the hands of the local government, and by extension, the local population.
I wonder if the Irish would have still decided to join the EU, if they had known the EU would then write their speech laws.
Ireland was a miserable place for most of the 20th Century.
It's debatable to what extent the realization of the EU contributed to the Good Friday Agreement, and the Celtic Tiger, but in the minds of most Irish, the correlation is meaningful.
So I will hazard a guess that few Irish regret joining the EU.
When Ireland joined, it was called the "European Economic Community". Presumably they did not expect those "economics" to include speech laws. They might resent being forced to abdicate sovereignty for economic development, by what to all appearances was a bait & switch.
Regardless, even if this is the clear result of a vote, and not some creative interpretation of law, Ireland has 14 MEPs, Germany has 96, and the whole EU has 720. Ireland can be dragged into anything even if their MEPs are in unanimous opposition. And given Irish resistance to changing their laws in this direction, clearly they don't all agree, which is why the EU must threaten them into compliance.
Is it not my right to not like something? Or even to hate it? If it is not, then we're policing thought crime through the only visible evidence - what is said. Whatever this is a cure for, it's worse than the disease. The cynic in me suspects it not intended as a cure though. It's intended to control.