Again, Europe is many different legal systems, and blasphemy laws are not everywhere. I don't like that limitation to freedom of speech anymore than you, but all countries, including the US have limitations such as libel, slander, pornography, obscenity, etc.

>Freedom of speech is as protected in the EU as it is in the US, possibly more.

The EU is a legal entity. Europe is the continent/area. The EU does not protect freedom of speech more than the U.S.

The EU is not a country and does not have its own laws. Things like this copyright directive will get turned into 28 distict member state level laws. Directives only set the common denominator for these laws.

Also, the EHCR is an organization of the Council of Europe which is entirely unrelated to the EU. This is a weaker association of states including Turkey and Russia.

>The EU is not a country and does not have its own laws. Things like this copyright directive will get turned into 28 distict member state level laws. Directives only set the common denominator for these laws.

So the EU could have a directive that guarantees freedom of speech across the board? Seems like your just arguing semantics.

Not just semantics. The state level laws resulting from directives are different from each other, sometimes substantially so.

Also, the EU cannot regulate everything. I think that a directive about free speech is not possible. However, there is the Charta of Human Rights that is signed by all member states of the EU that guarantees freedom of speech. Again, this construct has the wrinkle that this charter demands the individual states to uphold these rights. It institutes the European Court of Justice as the highest court in matters concerning this charta.

Libel and slander aren't illegal, they're civil matters.

As is copyright law.

Compulsory licensing schemes are enforced according to criminal procedure.

This and the "insult the president" sound both like cases of the offender being an asshole.

I mean, there is a difference between criticizing an idea - or a person - and being purposefully insulting about it. Surely there is a way to draw a line in between that preserves free and civilized discourse.

How do you draw the line when it comes to satire for instance? Should you not be allowed to ridicule rulers just because they might find it insulting? Insulting the powerful has always been part of normal democratic discourse.

Civility and tone policing is the refuge of the privileged scoundrel. It's akin to the literacy tests that prevented black people from voting in the US, which used to be legal in the US that

> This and the "insult the president" sound both like cases of the offender being an asshole.

I fully agree. I think we should start jailing all the people who called Trump an idiot or a racist. That's no way to talk about the President!

Or the Thai king or Turkmenbashi:)

It is not the job of the government to preserve "civilised discourse". It is a government, not the moderator of an Internet forum.

I must be able to say whatever I want, and you must be able to ignore me or openly disagree.

And yet with this primitive outlook we are stuck with fake news horse shit spewing all over the internet. We need a more robust approach to improve discourse.

It absolutely is the job of the government to regulate interactions between its citizens. That's literally why people let them exist. We're arguing here about extent of that regulation.

No sane government will prevent you from generally moving around. But try to run around the town naked, and see how long it'll take before you get in trouble. Being naked is a form of expression too - one that's almost universally frowned upon when not confined to private spaces in presence of adults only.

(Also, no reasonable government is tone-policing discourse in general. Some governments choose to demand respectful behavior towards the institution of government, including in particular towards officials while holding office. That's a far cry from being oppressive or constraining the marketplace of ideas.)

This argument suffers from both the "no sane government" and the "no reasonable government" fallacies.