In India, the governments are known to use sedition and other laws pretty liberally to silence free speech.
I'd rather that this "serious flaw" remain, than the US too become the same as any other nation, where posting a joke on the PM can lead to jailtime.
But intentionally inciteful hate speech against racial/religious minorities can (and occasionally does) lead to fines or jailtime.
> On 15 April Merkel announced in a press conference that the German government had approved Böhmermann's criminal prosecution, but would abolish the respective paragraph 103 of the German penal code before 2018. Intense criticism followed the Chancellor's decision, with speculation that she decided to allow the prosecution in order to protect Germany's refugee deal with Turkey.[3] The case was dropped in October 2016.[4]
https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/206-you-can-s...
https://www.dw.com/en/is-it-illegal-to-call-someone-a-nazi/a...
We already know the answer: they will claim that attacks on them are racially motivated (regardless of the truth) and shut them down. Plenty of examples of that sort of thing going on today outside of politics.
Though if the target is a politician, I'd expect them to prefer to err on the side of allowing it.
We see outrage here when a site like 8chan is rightfully lambasted for sparking various terroristic attacks. But not when a woman is arrested for laughing at a politician. Or when a black man is killed for acting or saying the wrong thing to a police officer. Or the local government deciding not to step in and display an episode of a TV series showing a gay couple which is textbook viewpoint discrimination.
These freedoms only go in one direction and I only wish those who were ardent fighters of freedom of speech would be consistent in what and who they fight for.
I don’t consider being against that a flaw.
Reference: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/08/should-the-north-carolina-gu...
Apartheid, DDR, Nazi Germany, and slaver states all used variations of public safety to restrict free speech as part of their systems of oppression, and none invoked anything close to "hate speech".
Wait, let's not think about hypotheticals. Let's think about actual restrictions of rights and how they've played out. Who gets arrested for racist speech in the UK? Nigel Farage? UKIP members? Nah. Some college student who, as admin of an organization, said white people shouldn't come to her minority events.[1]
Well, that's a bummer. But surely Germany knows how to handle hate speech right? Well, unless you offend a friendly head of state; then my dear, it's a legal process for you! [2]
Man, you know what's awesome? Ensuring that the state doesn't take religious sides. For that, we shall ban all religious symbols in schools, as France did. Surely this will not affect members of a minority religion, right? Certainly Muslim schoolgirls won't be suspended over headscarves. [3]
If you give the state the power to deny rights, they will deny them to the people it's easiest to deny them from.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar_Mustafa_race_row
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_F...
I guess I should not be surprised by the cherry picking that follows, where you appear to find one discontinued investigation among the 66000 recorded that year[1] a compelling story on how hate crime legislation is only used to persecute minorities.
It is depressing how you use examples of prejudice by state representatives as a basis for arguing against the protection of those being persecuted.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
I started out convinced I’m right. You haven’t changed my mind, but I need to look up some info to have a firmer grasp of consequences.
Informally, hate speech laws are a tool that can be wielded by whoever is in power. Either that power is trustworthy enough, or it isn’t. You haven’t given me reason to believe it is, but you’ve made me seriously question why I think it isn’t.
Re: Nazis—again, it’s a tool for whoever has power. If hate speech had been a concept in the 30s, I can’t imagine Nazis not prosecuting dissenters for hate speech against them.
Just look at this very article:
> we draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design
Freedom, like the song says, isn't free. But the cost isn't the wars we fight, the cost is the potential for that freedom to be used for nefarious ends.
I'll take hate speech. Slurs. Insults. Incitements to violence.
If it means that I cannot be arrested for voicing my displeasure of the government when my government steps out of line.
That's not how libel law works in the US, or indeed, in the UK. It applies to specific statements of fact about specific people, and does not cover opinions. For libel law to apply, you'd need specific false statements of fact about specific named people that led to damages to those named people, eg, "John Smith has done X, Y, and Z deplorable acts, and someone should kill him", which someone then read and proceeded to kill John Smith. In this case, of course, the conduct would violate a ton of much more serious laws (that is squarely in one of the exceptions to the first amendment, for obvious reasons!), and to the extent that the above conduct did not happen (and as far as I know, it did not) libel law is simply one more of the many laws that don't apply.
Not all things which are against the law are evil. Not all evil things are against the law. Just because you really think something is evil does not mean that if you look hard enough you can find a relevant law.
Consider Zodiac killer's letters or Breivik's manifesto. If copycat killers arise saying they were inspired by reading their letters/manifestos in San Francisco Chronicle/BBC respectively, should these media outlets be closed and/or deplatformed?
This seems to be no different than wanting to ban/close car manufacturers for 2016 Nice truck attack in France, leaving 87 dead.
Those are civil issues, not criminal.
Everything you just said is essentially untrue when it comes to government censorship of speech in the US. Hate speech is certainly protected by the first amendment, with only a few narrow exceptions. Personally addressed, face-to-face insults, if deemed likely to start an imminent fight is not constitutionally protected.
(This is sometimes called the "fighting words" exception, and it's much narrower than you might think. The law is quite clear that just because the words might yield a violent reaction, they're still protected. Cantwell v. Connecticut involved anti-Catholic "hate speech", as we'd now term it, expressed in public in a neighbourhood that was 90% Catholic, enraged many listeners, and almost started some violence. Still protected.)
> You can still have freedom of speech while implementing moderation to make sure that hate speech, bigotry and fake news don't spread
Only if done, as here, by private organisations. Regulating bigotry on message boards is the precise thing type of things that the first amendment prevents.
There is no hate speech exception in the constitution. Hate speech is generally an example of what is most protected.