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A comment on Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article. Parent comment

Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by latch on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:55PM (#17538653)
I know this isn't related to hate speech, it was done to protect someone's family, but in much of the world, various forms of speech are regulated (by judges or elected officials).

To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more just society without any virulent side effect. This is not a slippery slope.

I think it's good to be vigilant about these things and scrutinize judges and officials though.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by mr_spothawk on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:29AM (#17538783)
> To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more just society without any virulent side effect.

no serious person would suggest that this is a situation which requires limits on speech. you're using it as a platform for suggesting that it is, which I think is insane.

> This is not a slippery slope.

this is the very definition of a slippery slope.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by Nasrudith on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:15AM (#17538735)
Personally I am highly suspicious of the 'for the subject's family' motivation as it seems very selectively applied and often comes up only when 'their people' are at risk from their own wrongdoing.

I'm of the view that it should be for everybody or nobody and not to discretion because their discretion always leads to selfish behavior that holds the people who most need to be held accountable to be the least so.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by grasshopperpurp on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:32AM (#17541525)
Especially when the DoJ says that fleeing domestic and gang violence are not grounds for asylum, it's ridiculous to consider the lives of a corrupt cop and his family above society, which this decision does.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by Aloha on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:40AM (#17538816)
In politics, there is an adage I like, never give yourself more power than you want your opponent to have.

Free speech is one of those things that fits into this category, regulating speech that makes people uncomfortable does have a very provable slippery slope effect.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...

We've experimented with aggressively limiting free speech before, and it went very very bad, very fast, I'd rather not try the experiment again.

Another point I'd like to make, is that I'd rather know what peoples 'real' views are, so I can either avoid them or help change their mind, pushing objectionable opinion underground, does not stop people from holding those opinions, it just hides them where it cannot been seen, and actioned upon.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AllegedAlec on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:48AM (#17539699)
> regulating speech that makes people uncomfortable does have a very provable slippery slope effect.

Yeah, I can tell you hate speech laws don't work well, since any group with an agenda can push for those laws to be used against the common good, or even injudicious application of it, such as we see in the GB, where a woman has been sentenced to community service for quoting song lyrics, or the moronic laws of my country that make the denial of the Holocaust illegal.

However, I'd argue that from a moral standpoint, these laws are even more reprehensible. Language (and thought) are how we test ideas, and when you start to limit that because they're the wrong kind of language or ideas, you limit not only our capability to discuss ideas, but also our ability to talk about these ideas, but also our ability to test them, and therefore, if it is really such a repugnant idea, find out the arguments for why it is so.

There are other reasons why I believe that hate speech is a toxic idea. For example: hate speech is a term used by the small-minded to shut down anything they don't agree with. Serious discussion on any contentious subject is immediately rendered moot by the new Godwin that is calling something hate speech.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:12AM (#17538917)
It’s the slipperiest slope of all. Thousands of people have been arrested for causing offence in the UK after they introduced their absurd laws. Police have recently been threatening to arrest people for mocking them online. In the US we’re very lucky to have the first amendment to protect our speech no matter who deems it hateful or offensive.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:44AM (#17539233)
There are middle grounds that also work well, like what Canada has.

It's got entrenched constitutional protections for freedom of expression which courts are willing to use to invalidate laws, but the same constitution explicitly allows certain limits on that freedom.

The balance isn't perfect, especially not as applied to most Canadian defamation laws (Quebec is a bit friendlier to defendants here). But it's pretty good and way better than the UK's lack of any restraint on Parliament's surveillance state tendencies.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:25AM (#17539392)
Canada is a terrible example, they have compelled speech in their laws. Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada. The right to free speech is intrinsically the right to be offensive, for the very simple reason that any statement at all could be taken as offensive by somebody. As soon as you criminalise being offensive, any speech becomes fair game for government censorship. It is the very definition of a slippery slope.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by ekiru on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:53AM (#17541727)
> Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada.

Please cite the text of a law which actually says this or any case where someone has been convicted for this under a law which does not explicitly say it.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by matthewmacleod on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:39AM (#17539445)
I find that definition is typically only used by people who are more interested in “offence” than “freedom of speech”.

We should obviously all have the freedoms to be offensive, because like you say, offence is essentially arbitrary. But we draw limits on that freedom all the time - for safety, libel, or public order reasons, for example. The real argument should be about where that line is drawn, and not those silly straw men about “they are going to arrest me for calling a man a man”

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:49AM (#17539483)
It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.

There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US. Any restrictions on speech are restrictions on other crimes. You can’t incite violence for example. If your straw man of what free speech means we’re true, then a gang leader could freely sit behind a desk and direct others to commit crime on his behalf all day because all he’s doing is speaking, right?...

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:09AM (#17539781)
There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US.

That's not true: see "seven dirty words".

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:21AM (#17539830)
The Supreme Court ruling on that case held that broadcasting content into people’s homes is materially different to public speech.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:52AM (#17539946)
So if the UK courts rule that posting on Twitter/FB is materially different then it's all fine?
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @06:29AM (#17540142)
If twitter stopped operating on the internet, and started terrestrially broadcasting their content into people’s homes then you might have a point.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by dragonwriter on Monday July 16, 2018 @09:09AM (#17540988)
> It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.

Except it's literally not; that was a deliberate misrepresentation popularized by people like Jordan Peterson. [0]

> There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US

Incorrect, see literally the entire field of obscenity law.

[0] http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-no-its-not-about-crimi...

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:43PM (#17542677)
If an employer* in NYC or Seattle tolerates one employee persistently and intentionally referring to another employee by the wrong pronoun, it violates their local discrimination laws just as much as in Quebec, with enforceable penalties to boot.

No, it's not criminal in either place, if it's not coupled with more. Another poster replied with a link debunking this myth as applied to Canada.

And yes, laws aimed at preventing a hostile work environment, even speech-based ones, have been held to be constitutional in the US.

For a US federal example, repeatedly targeting someone with racial slurs within a workplace* will also get you into punishable trouble.

*Yes, I know certain employers, like 2-person companies, are excluded from these laws. Doesn't change the general point.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by anticensor on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:29AM (#17539625)
>Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun

Like, calling your superior tu?

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by matthewmacleod on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:35AM (#17539429)
1. No they haven’t

2. There are limitations of free speech in every country, including the US. It’s a matter of where the line is drawn.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:45AM (#17539466)
1. Yes they have.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5715727/Police-threa...

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/201...

2. The restrictions on speech in the US mostly relate to other crimes, like inciting violence. You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive (like they do in the UK every day).

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:07AM (#17539775)
Section 127 prohibits "sending by public communication network an offensive / indecent / obscene / menacing message / matter". It's unspecified in that article how many were arrested specifically for offensive messages (as opposed, say, to menacing ones).
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:16AM (#17539800)
Menacing like... mocking the police? Threatening behaviour is already a crime in the UK. Section 127 ONLY serves to criminalize any behaviour deemed offensive by the state.
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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by dragonwriter on Monday July 16, 2018 @08:58AM (#17540922)
> You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive

You clearly are unfamiliar with the entire domain of obscenity law not in the US, which is exactly about defining what is so offensive as to be outside the scope of First Amendment protection.

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