There is a clear (and working) distinction between free speech of type A and of type B in other countries. In Germany, just as an example, you are free to express your OPINION (type A), but not to express false facts (type B). If you express false facts, knowingly, and those false facts have damaging effects you are fully liable for compensation.

Simple example: if a person wrongly claims, that some local artisan's business is insolvent, and the artisan can prove that a potential customer withdrew an order for that reason, the person who spread the fake news has to pay for the artisan's loss. Entirely.

Talking someone into commiting a crime is never treated as free speech, either.

So, this is the legal construct in Germany:

- you are free to have any opinion you like ("Meinungsfreiheit") and

- you are free to express those opinions to the public ("Redefreiheit")

Free speech, here, is limited to opinion. There is no such thing as "i am free to lie, blame, insult, taunt, threaten, defame, verbally harass, berate, incite etc..." with the excuse of free speech.

In Germany, if you say: "The president of the United States suffers from narcissistic personality disorder", AND you cannot prove this as a fact, and the POTUS goes after you for that statement, you will have to compensate for the damages of that claim (this will become very expensive, if the POTUS can prove that he lost reelections because of that statement). If you say: "To my conviction (in my opinion/I believe), the president of the United States suffers from narcissistic personality disorder", this would be completely legal in Germany.

And yes, the distinction matters!

This reminds me of an actual Soviet joke:

"Pres. Reagan: Mr. Brezhnev, in the USA we have free speech- anybody can say in public: President Reagan is a fool!"

"Secretary Brezhnev: Pres. Reagan, in the USSR, we also have free speech- anybody can say in public: President Reagan is a fool!"

But that is not how it works universally in Europe. In France for example, you can be condemned for stating objective facts under hate speech laws. For example one journalist was condemned for saying that minorities were over-represented in jail, because they were over-represented in crime. The judge stated that although that was factually true, it would also have a discriminatory impact on the minorities, & the journalist was thus condemned.

I did not talk for Europe, just Germany. And I do not approve the suppression of facts. Sorry for France.

(Would be interesting to know the details of that lawcase. I investigated some of those incidents in Germany and in most cases they turned out to be quite different from the initial aggregations that I read in public).

I believe what the parent comment refers to is the condemnation of Eric Zemmour in 2011. The details are a bit different though substantially in the same spirit. Zemmour argued on TV that (a) the majority of drug dealers are either black or arab and therefore that (b) racial profiling by the police was justified. The court rejected the accusation of racial defamation for claiming (a) but argued that since (b) was discriminatory under French law, condoning racial profiling publicly was advocating for discrimination and he was sentenced for that. One of first results on google if you want to dig more:

https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/eric-zemmour-condamne-pour-pr...

(I do not speak french, so I am referring only to your post)

The logical relation between (a) and (b) is the important detail here.

If the majority of drug dealers are either black or arab, this does not logically conclude, that the majority of blacks and arabs are drug dealers!

The only logical reasoning for racial profiling would be, if there was a significantly higher probability to catch a drug dealer if you randomly pick someone from that group.

The math:

Let's assume a population consisting of 20 percent group A and 80 percent group B. 0,1 percent of the population is drug dealers. 60 percent of the drug dealers belong to group A, 40 percent belong to group B. Group A therefore makes the majority of drug dealers.

With the majority of drug dealers in group A and only 20 percent share of the population, there is a six times higher probability that a random pick of group A will be a positive hit. In absolute numbers: the chance to make a positive random hit in group A is 0,3 percent, in group B it is 0,05 percent.

But: the likelihood to make a negative hit in group A is 99,7 percent (99,95 percent in group B), so even with a six times higher probability for a positive hit, the overall change for a positive hit - on a random basis - in both groups is still extremely small.

The small chance to catch a drug dealer on a random pick out of a population (not regarding race) does not qualify for an effective police procedure – to begin with. The small difference in probability of 0,25 percent between the groups does not qualify for racial profiling either. Any other visible attribute of a person that correlates with drug dealing with a higher value than 0,25 percent (clothing, cars, peer groups, haircut, jewelry, behaviour, slang, provenance and and and) is a better qualifier for random picks than racial profiling.

So, back to the case:

- France has good reasons, to forbid racial profiling under its law. It IS discriminatory, because you cannot define 99,7 percent of a group by 0,3 percent of that group.

- (b) does not conlude from (a), as it does not significantly rise the success rate, but at the same time feeds prejudices and harasses innocent people.

- Insisting on (b) clearly shows the will to ignore data and a will to feed prejudices and having innocent people harassed, so government decides to stop this behaviour.

Did they really sentence him for (b), or was he rather obliged not to repeat that statement?

I agree with your math, but I disagree with your conclusions. The difference may look small but it compounds very quickly. If you make 1000 controls of individuals from population B, the likelihood that you never make a bust is 61%. If you make 1000 controls of population A, the likelihood you never make a bust is only 5%. If you are a policeman, clearly you are going to opt for population A if you want to make a bust.

In this case he was sentenced to a suspended fine of €1,000 and to damages of €9,000 to various pressure groups.

I agree with your position on the moral implications of racial profiling and I am not advocating it. But whether one supports racial profiling or not, merely discussing the merits should not constitute an offense, I think this is clearly violating free speech. And if we cannot disagree publicly with existing laws, why do we even bother having a parliament to change those laws?

[...]If you are a policeman, clearly you are going to opt for population A if you want to make a bust.[...]

Whether I have to make 1000 controls for a 39 percent chance to catch one dealer, or 1000 controls for a 95 percent chance to catch one dealer – both are incredibly ineffective. This is exactly the problem.

If I am only capable of random controls with low chances, I have to control very, very many people to make a hit (and each control of an innocent person is something, that should be avoided if possible, because it is a form of harassment). Now by going from one low probability to a somewhat less lower probability by ignoring the group of the lower probability and putting all the burden of unjustified control to the other group you create a huge sense of frustration, stress, injustice and anger. For good reason! You make a 60:40 relation to a 100:0 relation with this approach. The problem is not with the dealers, but with the false positives. 600 innocent people of group A have to be harassed for one true positive, but 0 innocent people of group B get harassed and 0 people of group B get busted, because they are not even controlled anymore (as hits are less likely). And now, by making hits only in group A, the ratio of convicted drug dealers gets pushed even more into the direction of group A, allegedly confirming the efficiency of racial profiling. It is utterly wrong. Morally and mathematically. It is a pseudologic abuse of science to discriminate a group of people. And the desire for discrimination arises from hate. That is, why racial profiling is forbidden in modern democracies and it is not a matter of free speech, in my eyes.

If you wish for a more efficient handling of your police with drug dealers, you really do not want them to perform random controls (whether racially biased or not)!

Correct, but in reality, the police doesn't go do some random control in the streets of some randomly selected rural area. They will target locations where they are likely to find drug dealers, target behaviors that are likely to be drug dealers, etc. So the numbers aren't those from your theoretical example.

Though in reality, I mostly hear about racial profiling in France in the context of looking for illegal immigrants where the odds are even more skewed against a population than your example.

The moral argument is orthogonal from the efficiency argument, and I totally agree with the frustration generated by misguided checks (and am reminded of those every time I take a plane).

[...]But whether one supports racial profiling or not, merely discussing the merits should not constitute an offense,[...]

This is such a double-edged sword. In the first impulse, I would say, of course you can discuss the merits of racial profiling (as we did in this thread) and it should not constitute an offense. But you can wrap anything in a "discussion". We could also "discuss" the merits of eliminating religious minorities in concentration camps and I think this should constitute an offense. Free speech, all to often, is taken as an excuse.

I have no idea how such a differentiation can be put into law in a fair way for everyone.

For me personally, I have very clear criteria. Most importantly, I distinguish between discussion and discourse, in the sense, that discussion is just talking and discourse is a rational, sane exchange of arguments, following common sense and logic. I enjoyed very much the discourse with you about the merits of racial profiling, because it was not driven by prejudice, whinery or political agenda, we sticked to the facts, came to (not so much) contrary conclusions and this is absolutely fine.

In the case of Eric Zemmour I do not like the semantic aggregation in the community:

- he demanded something unconstitutional (racial profiling).

- in his attempt to justify the demanded unconstitutional measurement, he quoted a fact, but failed to prove the causality between the fact and the demand (he did not even try. He mistook the fact as the causality - a common mistake).

- he gets sentenced for demanding something unconstitutional.

- His followers publish their aggregation in the form: although the fact was true, he was sentenced, therefore it is not possible to say the truth in France.

This is not what happened.

His case is not about "telling the truth gets you punished". His case is: "should our society accept, for the ideal of free speech, that someone demands unconstitutional measurements, like racial profiling or putting minorities in concentration camps". I absolutey agree, that this last question is debatable!! I have no final answer for myself! But this is not, how the causa Zemmour was laid on the table in this thread.

You can also lie by stating cherry picked facts. Kathy Zhu lost her beauty queen title because she had written "Did you know the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks? Fix problems within your own community first before blaming others." I don't think I need to explain what's wrong with this statement, especially to the HN audience. I'd definitely support companies taking a stance against such statements, but it also shouldn't be a crime IMHO.

On a purely technical note, it's factual to say a group is over-represented in prison, because there are records to back this up. However unless you know the entirety of crimes committed, you can't say that a group is over-represented in crime.

It may be that certain groups are pursued more vigorously, less likely to mount a strong defence (therefore more likely to be convicted), or just more narrowly focused on.

On top of that, German (and I think European, code law) practice has a weighted view of human rights. If two rights come into conflict, one must prevail. For example, if somebody promotes the idea that people should start a "holy war" or go against groups of people, then nobody will be like "Oh yeah, that's their freedom of speech right there". No, this kind of behavior will be considered as violating the primary human right to life and human dignity.

In the US, false statements are also not covered by the first amandment.

The difference is that in Germany, "AlphaGeekZulu is an asshole", while clearly a statement of opinion, will allow you to go after me. Some restrictons to Meinungsfreiheit are right there in the constitution - protecting personal honor or protection the children.

"In the US, false statements are also not covered by the first amandment."[...]

So you are talking to the wrong person. You should reply to user "rlonn" who does not believe that there are (or should be) types A and B in free speech.

[...]"AlphaGeekZulu is an asshole", while clearly a statement of opinion, will allow you to go after me.[...]

Yes - diatribe exception. In that case, unfortunately, it is also not enough to transform it into "In my opinion, AlphaGeekZulu is an asshole". Granted, it is so much more complicated than free hate speech ;-)

> In the US, false statements are also not covered by the first am[e]ndment.

This is incorrect. (Its inverse is also incorrect.) There isn't a legal consensus on false statements.

This is untrue. False statements are protected, wven yours.

That does not change the fact that people have the natural right of freedom of speech.

That is your personal OPINION, not a fact!

There is no such thing as a "natural right of freedom of speech". If one sovereign in the history of mankind decides to allow unrestricted freedom of speech in its constitution, it is just that: an episode in the history of legal systems established by humans. It can turn out as a bad idea, or a milestone for better societies. We will see. In no way is it a "natural right". Not even would it be a natural right, if it was mentioned in the bible as one of the 10 commandments from god (disregarding the FACT, that there are some serious restrictions of freedom of speech in that: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour").

> There is no such thing as a "natural right of freedom of speech".

In fact, there is no such thing as a natural right at all. Rights are derived from value systems, and the choice of value system is mostly based on aesthetics. There is no way to say whether the Western Christianity-based value system is "better" than, say, the Confucian value system, because the word "better" cannot be defined from first principles (without invoking a particular value system).

Yes, it can be done, but lots of people don't like that because it invariably concludes that some societies are better than others and the best ones are the western capitalist democracies.

The most obvious first principle is that a better value system should keep you alive. Being alive is foundational.

From that you can derive other principles, like value systems should result in the production of food, clean water, protection against wild animals and invaders, disease, etc.

From that you can derive yet more principles, like the value of efficient resource allocation, stable governance and so on.

And judged by basic things like "is this set of cultural values good at keeping people alive and healthy" you can quickly conclude that some are better than others, objectively so.

To deny this is to argue that wishing to be alive rather than dead is merely an aesthetic preference - an absurd starting point, lacking any intellectual merit.

[...]The most obvious first principle is that a better value system should keep you alive. Being alive is foundational.[...]

Is it?

There are plenty of people that sacrify their lives for all sorts of principles. There exist quite some value systems that explicitely do not hold "being alive" for their foundational first principle!

What about immortality, if it becomes a medical reality one day? A better value system by definition, just because we are staying alive for longer?

I won't go into your derived principles, because it is not even possible to reach mutual consent about your axiomatic first principle.

Very very few people sacrifice their own life for any kind of principle unless forced to. That's why those who do are often lionised!

But anyway, do you have a better first principle? If you don't care about staying alive why get out of bed at all, why not just starve to death? It's more work for sure.

Your fallacy is assuming that if the first principle is not protection of life, it must be its opposite, extreme disregard of life. There are potentially infinite choices of first principles.

Furthermore, you present no argument for your particular first principle beyond aesthetics (aka "I prefer this one"). You build on the implicit assumption that human life is valuable (and apparently more so than other forms of life) for which you don't provide justification. Well, you do argue that it keeps people alive. But again, that's a circular argument. "My value system is the best one because it fulfills the goals of my value system."

It's a first principle - by definition it's unjustified logically. If it were to be justified, it wouldn't be a first principle, something else would!

I'd think the merits of being alive would be unarguable but this is HN after all :)

It is not my opinion. It is a fact that the United States recognizes freedom of speech as a natural right.

The possibility that the US shares your opinion that something is a "natural right" does not change the fact that it is just an opinion.

You're perfectly entitled to feel that certain rights should be universal and inalienable. It's also clear that nobody agrees on what those rights are, and that they get violated all the time.

But also:

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

It is my understanding that, currently, the following speech is of "type B, disallowed" in the US:

* Shouting fire in a crowded theatre

* False advertisement

* Medical or legal advice (allowed, heavily regulated by the Government)

* Advocacy of force or criminal activity

And I assume, many others that I do not know of.

Unless you are arguing that there is no such thing as free speech in the US, then it must be that you can have "free speech" while still having some limitations.

The shouting fire in a crowded theater example for precedent was overturned. Stop using it.

I did not know. Still, the other cases apply.

Some other ones:

* threats of violence

* blackmail

These may be entirely verbal, and yet are considered serious crimes.

There is a cardinal difference in the US between speech related to public interest, such as anything that has to do with politics, religion, military actions, and speech that's only about private matters, such as whether or not your neighbor has a perverted sexuality. The second category is not nearly as protected as people usually think it is.

"Don't you see that labeling or discriminating between "free speech of type A, allowed" and "free speech of type B, disallowed" defeats the whole notion of "free"?"

Yeah, why are you allowed to play tennis but you aren't allowed to kill people? Why can you say John's a good person but you can't say he molests children? Why can you shout "fore" on a golf course but not "fire" in a movie theatre?

There's always a limit. Choosing to stop your for-profit web service from enabling bigotry and murder seems a pretty low bar here. Let me know when it's being used to prevent the discussion of ideas such as Marxism or veganism or solar power or whatever which might upset the current power structure.

>Let me know when it's being used to prevent the discussion of ideas such as Marxism or veganism or solar power or whatever which might upset the current power structure.

Discussion of all of those topics has taken place on cripplechan which MITMflare just terminated business with.