No. It’s apples and oranges.

Companies should be free to regulate hate speech on their platforms. The government should not regulate speech in the public domain.

The actions of private companies on private property (virtual or otherwise) are an entirely different domain than government intervention.

Even if you remove the censorship angle, it can be argued that moderating hate speech is simply good business sense. People buying Forza and paying for it don’t want to see this. If it becomes an issue, they lose customers.

>Companies should be free to regulate hate speech on their platforms. The government should not regulate speech in the public domain.

While I agree, please direct me to where I can speak "in the public domain" online.

In the US, ISPs were a common carrier from 2015 through 2017, when the Republicans revoked that: while they might not let you say anything you want on the servers they own, they couldn't terminate your contract for you saying legal things on the servers you own.

Perhaps that regulatory regime will return. Maybe even next year. Not under a Republican-led FCC, of course.

>While I agree, please direct me to where I can speak "in the public domain" online.

Same place as with pre-online TV and radio I suppose.

Free speech doesn't guarantee you an audience at the time and place of your choosing.

Take public buildings like a Courthouse or City hall, sure you have Free Speech rights, but good luck interrupting a court hearing to get your message out (without being held in contempt by the Judge (the government) and thrown in jail). Or try getting your message out at mid-night when the building is closed.

Then as others have said, what is stopping you from registering your own domain and posting your message there? If the government infringing your rights in that regard?

Do you not believe that people can stand on a public street corner and express their ideas freely, where many people will likely see and hear them? Your examples are edge cases (court rooms at midnight) that seem designed to suggest that no such places exists. They do exist, and I am asking where is there online version. Are you suggesting that the only way to exchange free speech online is for each passerby to create their own website and respond on their respective websites? I've seen people claim voter suppression for fewer hurdles. Or are you suggesting that it is the responsibility of a private entity to create and maintain a public square?

Where is the online public square? That's the point I am trying to make. And as others have pointed out, if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.

>Do you not believe that people can stand on a public street corner and express their ideas freely, where many people will likely see and hear them?

The Government can restrict you on the street corner too. Take Covid, states/counties/cities/municipalities across the country are enacting curfews, so violate the curfew and they will arrest your chilling your speech...assuming you consider that an edge case as well, then just read the case law from the good old "soap box" days, which deal exactly with people setting up their soap boxes on the corner to talk to the public and yes the government can regulate that speech to a certain extent.

>Are you suggesting that the only way to exchange free speech online is for each passerby to create their own website and respond on their respective websites?

Do you have a website? Can I freely post on your website without your consent?

>Where is the online public square?

The web is the public square, you want to set up your own soap box (website) do it, but you have no right to take over someone else's soap box (website), and if they do give you some rights to stand on their soap box they certainly can place restrictions.

>if you think having domain name and hosting is a public square, then you are ignoring all of the precedents of those things being removed by private entities.

You are ignoring self hosting from private servers.

The online "public square" is the internet itself. If you want to say something in public, simply create a web site and publish it. My understanding is that anything you say on your own web site will be protected via the same laws as public speech.

Companies aren't the only entities allowed to publish content on the World Wide Web, you know. You're free to build whatever discussion platforms you like, or you could just, y'know, publish a website.

> Companies aren't the only entities allowed to publish content on the World Wide Web

Actually, the only entities with any capacity of publishing content on the WWW are a few tier 1 ISPs.

If you push that rope you will discover that your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers, and their ISP, and their ISP's ISP.

If the end-state of that evolution is every entity being completely free to decide what gets published on their private platform, that's a huge problem.

> If you push that rope you will discover that your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers

Fair enough.

My original parent comment asked where you can speak freely online, which for the purposes of my argument I'm equating to US law regarding free speech. (This may not be the angle you're coming from.)

Most hosts will allow you to publish things that fit that description. To take the examples given in this thread: if you want to publish an image of the Confederate flag, or publish something and not have Twitter or Facebook placing ropes around your content, publishing your own website is going to solve that problem for you.

Now, you're not wrong, there are limits to that, but I'm struggling to find out how those limits apply to this conversation in any realistic way.

The US laws about free speech are greatly liberal (if extended to protect non-citizens). Even something more restrictive like outlawing hate-speech is still a complete no-issue.

But privatizing those laws on the hands of a few companies only work as long as (besides other constraints) there isn't a mob pushing those few companies around. So, I'm completely in favor of letting MS police their platform, but the universal ones ought to be declared public services and there should be guarantees of universalization there.

1 - Not only ISPs, as for example an app store on a locked phone is universal to that phone's userbase.

> your capacity to publish anything you want is restricted by the policy of whoever hosts your servers, and their ISP, and their ISP's ISP.

this is obvious and anyone still unironically pushing the "just make your own" narrative is aware of it but has no other comeback

Hi, it's me, unironically pushing the "just make your own" narrative.

I posted a comment similar to this, but let me just lay cards on the table: if you want to publish child abuse images, or sell controlled substances, you're probably going to have a hard time finding hosting for that. Same if you want to publish content that violates US copyright law, which I agree with less but still applies.

The original question was "where can I speak 'in the public domain' online," and I'm fairly sure my answer holds.

Unless you were just trying to make some juvenile "any limits placed on my conduct online are invalid because Internet" argument, which I mean good luck with.

While true if you run something small that goes unnoticed, we still have gatekeepers once you get to a certain size. Good luck taking payments if Mastercard blacklists you.

I will definitely agree that payment processing is subject to limitations I don't agree with. Many adult-oriented websites have found it difficult to find payment processors, even when their businesses comply with the relevant laws.

But if we're answering my original parent comment of "where can I speak freely online," we're probably not discussing payment processing.

But then I control it and can deny the free speech of others. That's not what I'm asking for.

Sure. If I own a website or a newspaper or the patch of ground in front of my house, I get to decide what information goes there.

Are you arguing that there should be some legal provision that says anyone can publish anything on your website, or newspaper, or ground, and you don't get a say in it? That seems unreasonable.

I am arguing for a space online that is publicly owned, maintained by the government, easily accessible by your average person, with the same very few restrictions on free speech that exist in the real world.

I think that would be an interesting thing to have, and the implementation of it would have to solve a lot of issues (equal access to technology, etc) that need solving badly.

I'm also glad we finally got to the actual thing you want to see change.

Curious though: what would having this space solve?

>what would having this space solve?

Is this a trick question? It guarantees that any marginalized people has access to communicate easily and freely to the general public, and it cannot be denied by anyone.

No tricks, but I disagree with you here.

A government-run, publicly owned online communication platform has several problems that prevent it from being the utopia you expect.

1. What value does it actually provide that Twitter and Reddit and Tumblr (and even Facebook) don't provide? I've learned more about marginalized communities both locally and globally on Twitter than I have anywhere else. Seems that they have a pretty decent platform today.

2. It's existence doesn't mean those platforms go away, so it by itself doesn't stop Facebook from doing the ridiculous things it's doing today. Folks may choose to patronize those private platforms over using the thing you describe.

3. Economically disadvantaged folks won't have access to it without a separate set of programs to ensure every household is connected to the Internet at a reasonable speed, and that they have the tech required to access it. (COVID-19 has laid bare the economic disparity even in my relatively affluent school district.)

4. Are we talking "run by the US"? If so: globally, marginalized people may not be able to communicate there due to policies from our government (which we can over time theoretically control) or their governments (which we cannot.) If not: who runs it then?

5. I think you'll find that the US government routinely denies people speech. Police violently responding to peaceful protests around the country is just one example. The US would definitely have to control for speech that violates US law, such as SESTA/FOSTA.

6. This is all ignoring the fact that people are people, and even the best examples of online communities have examples of folks being rejected by the dominant voices in the community irrespective of the rules.

I think a public-owned online space is fascinating, but I don't think it'd be a magic bullet to solving these problems.

Easy. Set up your own web site and put whatever you want to say on it.

If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.

There are always ways to bypass corporate control of speech. You may have to completely forgo the benefits provided by the corporate web sites, but nothing is stopping you from making your own platform.

I think there's a deeper underlying issue here, and that is that some people don't actually want a place online where people can speak freely without restrictions. They will claim that the internet is already "free enough", and will cite "workarounds" similar to yours, but when pushed, will admit that having a place online, very accessible to the average person, with effectively very few restrictions on speech, is a bad idea. Are you someone who believes this?

People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources.

What you are asking for is to force other people to set up platforms for people to speak, which is a very different thing.

Freedom of speech has always applied to the former, but never the latter.

>People can speak freely without restrictions using their own resources.

The average person cannot. "Just host your content on Tor" (as it was eventually suggested elsewhere) is not a solution to there being lack of an accessible online public space, when faced with private entities who will deny you hosting and domain names.

But I would like you to answer the question posed in the post you replied to (yes I know it wasn't originally addressed to you). Are you someone who believes that a place like that shouldn't exist because of the content you believe that would be posted?

To straightforwardly answer your question: you can always take that kind of stuff to 4chan.

But I don't think it's accurate to say that most people think these places shouldn't exist. The reality is simply that most people don't want anything to do with it. What you're witnessing is 99% of people collectively saying "not in my backyard", which leaves very little backyard for deeply unpopular views. I think that's an important distinction, even if the results are similar.

For what it's worth, I think a place for unrestricted speech should exist. I am honestly disappointed when I see calls for blanket bans, but I also understand why private platforms don't exactly aspire to bear this weight. These people and their views still exist, and ideally we as a society should confront it.

This is only "easy" if you are a sysadmin by profession or hobby. That excludes the vast majority of people, 99% perhaps.

> If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.

That's a bit like "if the police beats you up in public, you're still free to speak your mind in your basement" though.

Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating. A hosting company can have terms of service just like any other business and the only real restrictions are legally-protected classes, and even that has context.

Think of it like going to a coffee shop: they can’t kick you out for being Catholic or male but they can ask you to leave if you are harassing other people, not following public health codes, etc.

> Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating.

As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.

> Think of it like going to a coffee shop

I believe that example would be more accurate if we all lived in company towns, where no public space exists and your presence, and speech, is merely tolerated under normal circumstances, but you have no right to either being there nor speaking your mind, and can be removed at any moment, should anyone "in charge" have an issue with your behavior. That also has the angle that you lose a lot more than just your ability to speak: you lose your home and need to find a new place that will take you in, need to tell everybody you know and do business with about your new address etc, like when Google shuts down your Gmail account.

> > Except that it’s not a public space and the harm is far less than a beating.

> As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.

Again, a private company choosing not to use their resources to support your speech is not a gag. You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.

Your Gmail comparison is similarly invalid: beyond the extreme rarity of that, when you choose to accept Google’s terms for getting free email service you are, well, accepting their terms. People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.

> You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.

Right, again, there aren't thousands of other options. If you want to host your site, you need a domain. That limits yourself to a hand full of registrars. And you need somebody to transmit traffic, if you hold any kind of controversial opinion, you need DDOS-protection. That leaves you with another hand full of corporations. Otherwise you're offline, as in, unable to speak.

> People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.

How do you handle email on your domain when the registrar decides to drop your domain? And why shouldn't it, it's a private company, it can do whatever the hell it pleases.

There are thousands of hosting options: don’t forget that many companies offer hosting under various customer domains as well as your own.

If you want your own domain you can check any company on this list:

https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualif...

Similarly, network capacity and servers are available from many companies around the world.

If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”. That happens to groups like ISIL, but even that’s not completely successful, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone reading this has “international takedown” as a realistic threat.

> If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”.

Ah, the good old "only criminals have something to hide" aka "all speech that is good is free, if your speech is suppressed, it's probably evil, and evil speech should be suppressed, because it's evil". That's really not a sensible approach imho.

You can create your own website and and host it yourself.

And yet we've seen hosts, domain registrars, and other service providers restrict certain ideas on their platforms.

How practical is it in reality to be your own ISP, domain registrar, certificate authority, hosting service, web dev agency, and community moderator all in one?

Not very.

But it's what the Constitution provides. It guarantees you the right to express your thoughts using your own resources. It does not force others to do it or make it easier for you.

The Constitution assumes a public space exists, otherwise if it was all private, there would be no point to any of the Bill of Rights, since private entities would/could override all of them. The internet is a land controlled entirely by private entities.

Thats the downside of the modern web largely Boeing created in the US, its highly commercialized.

tor, ipfs

Start your own blog.

The internet isnt just SV companies. There's nothing stopping you from creating your own platform that espouses your ideals.

I think his point is that at the end of the day, you're going to be dependent on someone. With a self hosted blog you're dependent on at least an ISP and registrar, both of which are private entities.

These are good points.

It sounds like a big part of the problem is that we don't have a truly "public" internet, if the backbone of the internet is a bunch of private entities.

We need a truly decentralized internet that doesn't suck like tor currently does.

Your ISP is a utility. Twitter is not. Your ISP cannot block you from hosting your own blog on your own servers. Even if your ISP did, there are places which will allow you to host whatever you want. Alex Jones is still online for example. WikiLeaks is still online.

This argument is always about people complaining that they don't get to participate on the big platforms. But if there was so much demand for people shouting about racist loser shit online there would be a big platform for it. It's their responsibility to build it, not Twitter's

>people shouting about racist loser shit

This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions.

Why not just lead by saying you don't think a government maintained platform for free speech should exist because you don't want to hear what people who want it would have to say?

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716909

I don’t have any problem with a government provided free speech platform. It would be an interesting experiment. But how are you going to get Congress to fund something that will host racists and pornographers?

The Republicans will allow the racists, and the Democrats will allow the pornographers. Done and done.

For example there is Parler, an alternative to Twitter. While it is not a state company, it promotes free speech. They claim "Our content is moderated based off the FCC and the Supreme court of the United States which enables free expression without violence and a lack of censorship.".

That's the claim, at least. The reality is quite different.

https://www.iflscience.com/technology/free-speech-social-net...

> "When you disagree with someone, posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED," the first rule states, which is just a fantastic start to any list of rules. A club that has to spell that out (presumably after multiple people broke that rule) is clearly one that needs to be joined. "Your username cannot be CumDumpster," the rules continue, adding that pornography isn't allowed. Sorry, Ted.

Twitter permits all of those things. Some "free speech platform".

I did not know about the implicit rules. I do not use Parler yet. However the problem with trolls is a hard one to solve on any platform, especially on the platform that wants to promote free speech.

If they turn out to be a right wing version of Twitter it would be a shame. We need a platform that could accommodate both left and right wing people so that they can exchange thoughts with each other.

Are trolls a problem to solve at all if your goal is to promote free speech? Trolling is one of the most commonly censored forms of speech. It seems like trolls are a core feature, not a bug, in that scenario.

If you actually want to solve the problem of trolls, I think the first step would be to put away the "free speech" platitudes, sit down and figure out what kinds of speech you actually support and what kinds of speech you want to curtail and why.

Yes, trolls are a problem when one wants to promote free speech. It means you cannot censor them, but you should find a mechanism to discourage such destructive behaviour. Maybe a similar system that exists in real life and real personal relations. Maybe some form of hierachy. Unfortunately I do not know. However, I would look into establishing a meritocratic system or a representative system (much like the political system), where like-minded groups promote their representatives that have greater reach. And the anti social behaviour is punished at the social level and not by central purging.

Regarding your comment about ditching free speech and allowing only what I think is good. It would imply that I know what is good. I do not have such perfect knowledge and I do not believe anyone else has.

To the surprise of no one who isn’t a hopeless naif, Parler has turned out to ban and censor far more than Twitter ever did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23684512

Well, but did they really ban more accounts than Twitter? I highly doubt it, just for the reason that Twitter is older and has more users overall. But if there are any stats that you can point us to, I can be convinced.

Going off raw numbers is a silly strawman.

Parler claims to be a free speech platform, but their new content policies are stricter - no offensive usernames, no porn, etc.

I think that's a dodge. It implies that there is something inherently different between government power and other forms of power. And yes, there are subtle differences, like use of force, but at the end of the day, power is power. To be clear, I don't think Microsoft has done anything wrong here, but I don't think free market economics is the right angle to take.

Imagine if it were Facebook or Twitter instead of just a video game. You could apply the same logic to say that Facebook is just a private company, and what they allow on their platform doesn't qualify as a curb on free speech. But those two companies effectively form an oligopoly on on-line discussion, and what they allow on their platforms has a huge effect on the country as a whole. Because their policies end up dictating what people are and aren't allowed to say on the internet, their moderation strategies should absolutely be held to a higher standard.

None of this applies to Turn 10, because a racing game is not intended as a platform for discussion, but that's a nuance that needs to be considered. The blanket statement, "private companies should do whatever is good for their business" does not capture that.

There is something inherently different between "the government is sending you to prison for doing that" and "a private entity will prevent you from using their service for doing that", yes, even if that service is Facebook or Twitter.

> The actions of private companies on private property (virtual or otherwise) are an entirely different domain than government intervention.

And yet, private businesses are subject to certain restrictions. For example, it is illegal to refuse service based on one's race or sex. I am not sure if companies are allowed to discriminate based on one's political views.

Like when the Colorado baker refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor?

Based on this comment, it appears you have a poor understanding of what qualifies as a protected class and what they are protected from. You might want to brush up on that.

Umm let's see what the SCOTUS said [1] : ... a State decision in an adjudication “in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself” is a factor violates the "State’s obligation of religious neutrality" under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution...The Commission compared Phillips' religious beliefs to defense of slavery or the Holocaust. Kennedy found such comparisons "inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law"...

So first of all, SCOTUS "avoided ruling broadly on the intersection of anti-discrimination laws and rights to free exercise"[2]. Second of all, you chose to bring this example up and comment on my understanding without having done your due diligence and understanding the issue properly. Oh the irony!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

Sure, it might not violate the law. The problem with private companies trying to enforce political opinions and controlling speech on their platform is that it is pretty much the definition of McCathyism. With people losing their job over liking a tweet. I remember when the left was looking at the McCarthy period as a dark page of american history. I am appalled how quickly this went 180 degrees.

I think you might be viewing the situation at too low a resolution. Do you not see any salient differences between a Senator running an inquisition to root out political adversaries, and a social platform forbidding people from threatening other users?

McCarthyism wasn’t so much about the senator, it was about the media and hollywood not hiring anyone they thought had leftist opinions to not give them a platform and spread their toxic ideas. I think it is like for like what is happening now.

Legal status of so called 'private companies', and their 'private property' is granted to them by the State. This distinction is meaningless, and another delusion of legal positivism, with the great tradition of making corporations people and babies not.

Besides this presumes something as in "hate speech" exists, let alone that some confederate flag is such speech. It's a not so subtle attempt at creating idea of "words as violence" and promoting arbitrary law enforcement and anarcho tyranny.

all around fake endeavour

I wouldn’t want people to celebrate slavery in my garden, so I can understand why Microsoft wouldn’t want people to do it in theirs.

But there is a big difference between you and Microsoft. Microsoft is a business serving public, and hence subject to different regulations. For example, Microsoft cannot refuse to serve to women or brown people. You can choose to forbid entry to them in your private garden.

Sex and race are protected classes, using a particular image is not a protected class. I'd be quite surprised if there is any country in the world where you can't discriminate against someone using the confederate flag or some other iconography. And honestly I don't think there should be.

In this specific comment, I am not discussing what are the dimensions along which discrimination is permitted vs the ones where it is not. I am simply pointing out to moksly (GP) that what individual people are allowed to do in their gardens is very different than what private businesses are allowed to do in the US.

But your example is a strawman, there is no difference between Microsoft and me as far as preventing people from putting a slavery celebration picture on their virtual cars.

Companies have been filtering which words you’re allowed to use as your username, in chats, as your e-mail address. Filtering what kind of pictures you’re allowed to put on your cars is no different than that.

To me, that'd be a good outcome for the confederate flag. It is a hate symbol and exists almost exclusively to project hatred towards black people.

I don't think this is accurate. There are, or perhaps until recently were, a large number of people in the South who flew that flag out of a sense of regional pride and cohesion, and who had absolutely no problem with black people. Of course, that's not enough to forgive flying it - as a Jew I wouldn't be happy about a German person flying a Swastika, even if the only meaning it had for them was a benign pride in German accomplishments.

Still, though, it's important to recognize the wholesome impulse to celebrate the South, as it is a distinct region with its own valuable culture. A few years back there was an attempt to replace the Stars and Bars with a new "Southern Pride" flag [1]. Predictably, it's bland garbage.

[1] http://thesouth.us/

The problem is that this history is rooted in racism: the Confederacy was founded to preserve the institution of slavery (people who claim otherwise need to read the states’ own declarations) and the Army of Northern Virginia battle flag most commonly displayed has a long history from the Jim Crow era of being used to intimidate free Black people.

Just as someone proud of being German has a wide variety of symbols they can use other than a swastika, someone proud of their Southern ancestry could pick almost anything else to express that. Choosing a symbol which racists have proudly used to intimidate others for a century in a half immediately calls motives into question and even if someone somehow managed to avoid learning the history until now the only polite response is “I had no idea. I’ll use something else!”

So the problem is you are conflating southern pride (pride in the culture) with the confederacy. Many people in the south used to view the confederate flag as representative of southern pride (iced tea on a porch while complaining about the heat).

If people want to display pride in the south without supporting the Confederacy, they can do so without using the most iconic symbol of the Confederacy. Nobody has to wonder if you’re not entirely honest when you say your southern pride isn’t secretly about race if you use, say, a Georgia peach or a tobacco barn.

There are definitely people who have been bamboozled into recognizing it as a symbol of abstract southern pride - but the connection remains. Regional pride can be a valuable thing. But "Southern Pride" should not just exist among white southerners. It should include the whole south, and using a symbol of the enslavement of black people doesn't exactly bring black southerners along for the ride of southern pride.

> To me, that'd be a good outcome for the confederate flag.

Where does it end?

Like most European countries today? This slope doesn’t seem particularly slippy

You mean countries where you can be arrested for a tweet that offends someone? Yeah, no thanks.

Somehow I feel like this is a milder version of "an armed society is a polite society".

Everyone has a gun? Rational people are theoretically less likely to try and piss people off, because they know everyone is carrying.

It's super-easy to sue people for hate speech? Rational people are theoretically much more likely to consider their words, because they know everyone can get their ass fined and possibly imprisoned.

(The obvious problems are of course that not everyone is a perfect rational being with no emotions or extenuating circumstances, and that there are people who will immediately start trying to game any system for profit - goading someone into doing something that gives you an excuse to punish them for Bad Behavior, whether via the gun in your pocket or the State's justice, is an old, old tactic.)

>It's super-easy to sue people for hate speech? Rational people are theoretically much more likely to consider their words, because they know everyone can get their ass fined and possibly imprisoned.

Hate speech isn't well-defined though. It seems to just be a du jour list of things that upset people too much. What about a picture of a famous slave ship?

Because that’s not already the case in the US? Ask a Muslim friend to post a joke about blowing up JFK and see how long it is until their door is broken down

Come on. Threatening to blow up an airport is not in the same ballpark as hurting someone's feelings.

Hate speech is not "hurting someone's feelings".

Which European nations have rules against mere "hurting someone's feelings"?

There are a number of examples of speech laws in the western world that have banned insults. From 1994-2014 the UK had a ban on speech that was "insulting"

The UK's Communications Act 2003 section 127 also says:

> (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he-

> (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

> (b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

> (2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he-

> (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,

> (b) causes such a message to be sent; or

> (c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.

From Wikipedia on the act:

> On 19 December 2012, to strike a balance between freedom of speech and criminality, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued interim guidelines, clarifying when social messaging is eligible for criminal prosecution under UK law. Only communications that are credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking (such as aggressive Internet trolling) which specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone (such as those protecting the identity of a victim of a sexual offence) will be prosecuted.

Then why was this guy[0] sued by the Scottish Government for a joke, offensive as it may be? Prosecution specifically labeled intent to cause offense as the crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan

He was fined for training a dog to make the Nazi salute to the phrase "Do you wanna gas the Jews?".

I'm 100% fine with slipping that far down the slope.

Do you realise what comedy is? This guy was a comedian who had performed on stage, so he certainly fits the bill. Think of all the current celebs who have said far worse on stage.

I'm British, here, almost all good humour is targeting/focusing around some group in some way (e.g. Monty Python, Fawlty Towers). We call it black comedy because it's horrible out of context.

So, are you in favour of getting rid of comedy?

If your comedy act leaves an audience member trained to do Nazi salutes, yes, I oppose it.

Then you are not in favour of free speech, and logically should believe that mainstream comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, Jack Whitehall, Jimmy Carr, etc.. should all be deplatformed and their lives destroyed, just like this man's. They've all said terrible, mean, things to formulate jokes.

Or does your rule only apply when the little guy does something offensive?

> Then you are not in favour of free speech

Correct. I'm in favor of certain restrictions on speech; I think Germany's bans on Nazi slogans and symbols are a good model.

I draw a distinction between "I trained a dog to make Nazi salutes" and comedy routines, yes. It appears the UK does as well.

How can you be against free speech when all other freedoms stem from free speech? This is why I don't like what Germany and the UK are doing - any country without true free speech (barring death threats or incitement to violence, etc..) is not really free.

Also, the UK has free speech, just not on online platforms and I'd like to see that distinction ended.

> How can you be against free speech when all other freedoms stem from free speech?

I don't agree with that bare assertion.

I subscribe to the belief that unlimited tolerance leaves societies open to malicious actors. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

See, I do agree on paradox of tolerance, I just think we differ on the best way of resolving that paradox. Freedom of speech != freedom from social consequences. I'm not suggesting racists should get a free pass, just that advocating for it to not get you fined/locked up by the government. WDYT?

Edit: On my "derived from free speech" remark - I believe that's the case because freedom of speech is how we keep the government in check. The minute they can decide Nazi imagery is unacceptable, they have legal standing to do the exact same to whichever political party or marginalised group they dislike. Too dangerous imo.

> interim guidelines

Implying they already expect to reevaluate this decision?

While this statement sounds reasonable at face value, these kind of important distinctions really need to be codified in law, not left up to prosecutorial discretion. Vague speech laws plus a great degree of prosecutorial discretion is exactly how a lot of brutal regimes oppress dissenters while justifying their actions.

> Vague speech laws plus a great degree of prosecutorial discretion is exactly how a lot of brutal regimes oppress dissenters while justifying their actions.

Sure, but it's also how a lot of non-brutal regimes keep laws from growing out of control with silly edge cases.

If you are harassing someone, law enforcement doesn't have to consult the legislated list of 23,784 actions that constitute harassment. That seems reasonable.

Harassment laws are common in the US and don't have to enumerate a large list of different actions that constitute harassment.

The clarification that you just quoted above from the Director of Public Prosecutions is only one sentence in length but it would entirely change the meaning of the law, if a clarification like that were actually in it.

US harassment laws are not a list of 23,784 actions that constitute harassment either. Here's an example of one state's law. It is clear and specific, something all laws should be: https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harassment/

English law combines acts, statutes, statutory instruments, but also case law. The law is built to adjust to a changing society.

You might be interested in this programme (from 2013, so there have been some changes since then) that explains how it works: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sn9cf

This is also the case in the 49 US states that base their legal system on English Common law.

I doubt you can make a joke about blowing an airport on any country regardless of your religion and don't expect a visit of the police. It's a very clear exception to freedom of speech.

99% of panic stories about people being arrested for Twitter is this type of stuff

Or you know teaching your dog to raise it paw when you say a phrase, but that is the same as blowing up an airport right?

> This slope doesn’t seem particularly slippy

Then maybe you are not looking hard enough and are unaware of the realities in Europe? Some examples:

1. UK libel regime failing abuse victims: https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=075...

2. Search for "Notes from the Field: EU Defamation Laws and Journalism", where the International Press Institute (IPI) "takes a closer look at the application of defamation law in EU countries, seeking to illustrate the practical consequences of these laws upon both individual journalists and the free flow of information necessary for democratic governance."

Is that a good enough reason to not start at all? (Even in general, not necessarily in this context)

This question is applicable to all laws and impossible to objectively answer. It has no real value.

Why do you assume it continues?

Germany doesn't seem to have significant difficulty banning Nazi symbols and propaganda without accidentally banning, say, depictions of unicorns.

Slippery slopes have varying levels of steepness.

I believe the parent poster is referring to the extremely recent reforms going on in Germany, which are above and beyond their historic control of Nazi symbols:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-ha...

I don't have an opinion on this as it's way too fresh to have observed the effects of it and render a judgment; just here to provide context.

That sounds like they're just setting up a mandatory reporter scenario, akin to how certain private entities are obligated to report child abuse in the USA.

The confederate flag maybe?

We get to pick each time. "Well, we banned the confederate flag, better prevent white people from listening to rap" isn't the sort of thing that happens. Each adjustment to social norms is an independent choice that our society gets to make.

At a point which is beyond the confederate flag. There may well be a slippery slope somewhere along this road, but it's not here.

Gun advocates resist common sense reforms with the same logic, but lots of military weapons (minigun, flamethrower, rocket launcher, etc) are already either banned or highly regulated and have been for years without anyone's rights having been trampled.

I agree with regards to private companies banning racist symbols, but the top comment was talking about anti hate-speech _laws_, which seem like a departure from my understanding of the first amendment. If a law against displaying the Confederate battle flag can be justified without a change to the constitution, then it really does become a slippery slope when determining what other unpopular expressions the first amendment fails to protect.

What do you think of the counterargument about statues? A few years ago, the idea that removing Confederate statues might lead to removing statues of founding fathers was considered an absurd slippery slope argument; a few days ago, the New York Times published an opinion piece arguing that statues of George Washington should be torn down. How can we be confident that this isn't a step down that same slope?

The NYT opinion page is hardly a barometer of broad public consensus— see the recent scandal of the Tom Cotton "send in the military" piece.

I'm not sure I follow. Opinion polls at the time showed that a significant majority of the public wanted the military sent in.

Most of the coverage I saw was people horrified at the constitutional implications of the military being turned on US citizens, on US soil, by order of the president.

I mean, there just aren't any constitutional implications - it happened in 1992 with no lasting repercussions.

There are constitutional implications to the use of the Insurrection Act against largely peaceful demonstrations, like the ones in DC at the time it was invoked.

The First Amendment does not protect riots, but it does protect protests outside the White House.

source?

Statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and even Lincoln have already been attacked by the mob. Mount Rushmore is now a symbol of white supremacy. The Emancipation Memorial, paid for by former slaves, is also considered racist now. Boston is going to remove it. The slippery slope has turned into a slide with no end in sight.

https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/boston-art-commissio...

From your own link:

> But Blacks weren’t part of the design process, and the memorial’s central visual takeaway — a Black man kneeling before his white savior — has had people cringing for years.

They paid for it, but didn't get to have input on how it'd look. Seems like the precise sort of thing folks are upset about.

Rushmore was a treaty violation from the very beginning, and Native Americans occupied it as far back as 1971 in protest.

Reminds me of when Trump a while ago (before the recent George Floyd stuff) was commenting on statues being torn down, and commented something like, "next they'll go for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, where does it end?" John Oliver did a bit on it answering "Somewhere. It ends somewhere," implying that he was an idiot, that it was a stupid comment, and everybody laughed. Now we're here and it has actually happened in reality. It's even gone further. Roosevelt. Lincoln?? We even have prominent BLM figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism and must be erased.

Since then I've come to see the answer "it ends somewhere" as completely void of any value or meaning, and mostly just a justification for mindless erasure. It's not a smart zinger, it's empty.

FWIW the founding fathers did not want to be idolized and probably would not like the idea of Rushmore. I'm not sure I see why its outrageous to think that people want to remove statues honoring pieces of history they think ought not be honored. On the face of it, nothing is owed to the past and society does evolve. I don't feel particularly strong on preserving or removing imagery of George Washington from public art. But the gut wrenching feeling of those who feel its spitting on their heritage, well, they're gonna have to learn to cope with the awareness that a country is defined by its people, not its history. For ages 18 and under, whites are no longer the majority in the US (or very very close last time I checked). The aspects of heritage that the country chooses to celebrate are going to change over time.

This is the gist of democracy. You don't get bonus points for historical relevance. You may not agree with the angry mobs of protestors, but the same change is happening in formal government, albeit slower.

History is important because it lets us see ourselves in the arc of time and be more cognizant of how and why we arrived at the present moment. When we idolize figures who we believe did good things, we project a guide line from the past into the future for ourselves to follow. When we erase history, we lose this guidance and direction. It's no mistake that the mob is responsible for the destruction, because a lack of guidance leads to mob-like behavior. Just as fatherless children are more likely to find guidance from their peers and in the streets, with a statistically worse fate as a result.

You could say then that these specific idols are not good idols because of the realities of their actions in the past. But there are other perspectives [0] that should be considered before taking that as a foregone conclusion - a conclusion mostly adopted from peers and not study.

[0] https://bit.ly/2NN8Wbv

> When we erase history, we lose this guidance and direction.

The AHA has specifically put out a statement[0] about monuments. The prime quote:

> To remove a monument, or to change the name of a school or street, is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history.

Thucydides, arguably the very first historian ever, criticized statues and monuments as poor representations of history. It is important to understand the difference between history and historical memory. Monuments are not pedagogy tools. Actual professional historians do not see them as relevant for teaching us about the people they represent.

[0] https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/ah...

Historians are record-keepers of history, they are not arbiters of ethics, spirituality, and guidance. Statues of people are not meant to teach us about those people per se, but rather hold to us an example of exceptional attributes of those people that should be considered timeless so that we can follow them into the future. The determination of relevance in this context is not something that should be ceded to historians in any capacity other than to simply confirm or reject that the specific attribute that we appreciate in a figure is based on a historical accuracy. Did Lincoln free the slaves? Yes. Did Washington help lead a revolution? Yes. These are easy questions. The distinction between history and historical memory is not lost; based on an accurate history, we can highlight good attributes use them to reinforce timeless principles that we'd like to continue to carry through time.

> History is important because it lets us see ourselves in the arc of time and be more cognizant of how and why we arrived at the present moment.

I think that framing minimizes the extent to which we can and do choose how we portray history in order to choose how we see ourselves.

Choice is certainly a factor and I don't think it needs to be minimized. If we choose well and isolate and elevate symbols of positive and productive principles, we create better guidance for ourselves and for future generations.

Part of doing this well is being able to isolate properly, identifying what made historical figures exceptional, and being able to forgive sins which are considered sinful now, but were common behavior in the past. If you can't do that, you can't preserve people as symbols of principles at all, because the morality of the moment is not guaranteed to be held forever.

That's great. And the growing shift of culture suggests that slave owners are not emblematic of people who did good things, so we should remove them from the public display. The intent is not to erase history, it is to signal changing values.

My response to that is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23717398

So the statues belong in museums and history textbooks, not the public square:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/19/destroying...

It feels tired to still be repeating this when so many others have said it, but Germany is capable of learning about Hitler and Nazism without the monuments glorifying it; Americans can learn about Robert E. Lee without the whitewashed monuments everywhere. And anyway, there was none of this clutching of pearls about history-erasure when the Saddam Hussein statue was toppled in Baghdad in 2003.

I think you're still taking as a foregone conclusion that (all of) the statues represent bad men with evil ideas, and that's what I'm disagreeing with.

Then it's a good thing people aren't toppling statues randomly.

I mean all of the statues that are in fact being toppled.

The Lincoln statue is kind of a special case, and it's obvious why from looking at it:

https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-art-commission-unanimous...

As far as the others, clearly there is an Overton shift happening here, and that will embolden some advocates to make more extreme demands. Is that bad? Probably not, but I think most statues of Washington are likely safe for at least another generation or two, and if they get moved from the public square into museums at that later point, well, that's something the future will have decided on.

If the absolute worst case scenario you can imagine is that we no longer have any huge chunks of metal in the shape of people displayed on public property, then your slippery slope argument isn't very compelling.

It isn't, see my comment on history below.

> figures saying the western portrayal of Christ is systemic racism

You mean the ones where he's shown as west-european white? I suppose we could bother thinking about why he looks like that in those portrayals when he definitely wouldn't have in real life.

One reason is that people might feel closer to something that they think superficially resembles themselves. This is part of the reason why diversity is important, according to so many people right now. Not just because groups have more perspectives, but because the people in the minority feel more comfortable when the minority is not so small.

I remember some years ago about a situation regarding a movie. I forget the exact details, but it was something like a Filipino movie about an American disaster, like 9/11. The movie was based on a historically inaccurate story of a Filipino man or family involved in the circumstances, when in reality there had been none. I don't know whether or not the Filipino person was a replacement for a white person's real story.

But as someone much closer to the original circumstances, my perspective is not that I or my community's history has been replaced or been removed due to "racism." It is rather very touching that this foreign community felt close enough and impacted enough by the story to envision themselves inside it, taking part in it. To me, it was an expression of closeness and understanding, not appropriation or racism.

Plus it seems strange to me that in a story where people walk on water and talk to burning bushes and kill gays, that the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is that some people have envisioned the main character as being similar to them.

> One reason is that people might feel closer to something that they think superficially resembles themselves.

I agree! And then they proceeded to spread that image throughout the world (commonly via imperial colonialism) as "god looks like me, not you". That closely aligns with the concept of systemic racism.

> Plus it seems strange to me that ...the most offensive or historically inaccurate thing is...

"Most" is a strawman. We don't need to start assigning gold/silver/bronze medals to badness in order to recognize that it's bad and work to change it.

If imperial colonialism is responsible for bringing the idea of Jesus to new areas to begin with, then it's not replacing something. I don't understand what's "systemic racism" about that?

You skipped the meat of my comment, which is about closeness and understanding.

Criticism of celebrating deeply flawed men with deeply flawed ideals is not, in any way, erasure. We all know about Nazism and the Holocaust despite the lack of statues of Hitler. Christians somehow know about Satan even though he’s got no statues celebrating his greatness.

I dunno, people pretend that they know about what these historical figures were thinking but I feel like nobody's read a book about it, they're all just learning from their assumptive misinformed peers and that there isn't necessarily an interest in the history.

Thomas Sowell, a black man, had some interesting historical perspectives on these figures in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, which is worth a read. This is just a small excerpt from a google search, and in itself can't directly address everything people are trying to erase, but it's a starter for listening to more and broadening your perspective:

https://www.aei.org/*/thomas-sowell-on-slavery-and-this-fact...

It's important to remember that the majority of these statues were not created after the civil war in order to remember them, but during the Jim Crow era in order to intimidate black people. The intent was never to teach history.

I don't know the history of that so I can't argue it. If you could link to some education on it, I'd like to read about it.

I would imagine that it's possible in some circumstances for this to be true for some, mostly confederate figures. I'm really skeptical that that's true for figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

I don't have any resources to link, sorry.

The weird-power-dynamic-Lincoln statue with the freed black man aside, I generally agree on statutes of the founding fathers. I doubt a statue of Washington was erected in honor of his support for slavery.

In the greater context of what is happening in America right now, tearing down statues of Washington isn't necessarily about Washington himself. Instead, it is about challenging the idea that our historical figures (and America itself) are infallible.

If I may paint a picture, put yourself in the shoes of a black man in America in 2020. You see thousands of videos of police brutality, blatant racism, and disregard from those in power. A significant portion of the representatives in this country refuse to outright state that racism is still a problem in this country, but you see it with your very eyes every day.

However, you see these statues symbolizing this "ideal" version of America, where everyone is equal, which never actually existed. Further, when people challenge the existence of these statues (and by proxy, that non-existent "ideal") in the face of all of this inequity, they are defended orders of magnitude more intensely than the rights of actual-flesh-and-blood people. It's hard to look at a statue of General Lee, or even Washington, and see anything but a symbol of the fact that America at large cares more about the "appearance" of equality and equity than actually granting it to the people. If the people who defending these statues so vigorously also defended the civil rights of their fellow Americans with the same energy, I don't think we would see as much of a struggle over this.

Respectfully, without a place to read about the intimidation tactic of statues, I'm not sure that I put much weight in it. An alternative explanation on the timing could for example be that people in the majority in those communities sensed that the tides of public opinion were shifting, and they felt a strong desire to reach backward and preserve the past that they had fought for, which they felt like they were now losing. This seems more likely just psychologically to me, with the primary element being about a sense of independence and not really about slavery specifically.

As for blacks in America today, it's complicated to discuss and I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to go down all the paths. I think to some degree your picture is based on the news and what is visible, rather than what we know people actually think. Does BLM/the mob speak for all blacks? Are there any who dissent, on either the history, today's context, the solutions, or all three? Yes, definitely. And if opinions vary, should we not attempt to understand whether or not there is a right or wrong, and proceed according to rightness? If it is not about right or wrong, but the perception of offense, what does that mean? If a symbol stands for something good, and one person out of a million falsely perceives it to be a hate symbol, is that sufficient for a teardown? What if it were 10% or 50%? Is it just a matter of threshold? Do we even know the percentages today for what's happening before we let the mob do its thing?

I think a lot of people are smart enough to know that there is a difference between representing "an ideal version of America," and specific ideals that individuals represented. Washington for example largely representing the fight for independence; Roosevelt standing for social justice; Lincoln for freedom and equality - not American utopia.

When considering people as symbols it is important to isolate what they did that made them stand out from their time, from their common beliefs or actions that were the same as everyone else. Without doing that, we expose symbols to the injustice of being judged by modern moral standards, and sacrifice the good that we isolated. Like it or not, the acceptance of slavery was not exceptional in Washington's time. The ability and bravery to lead a revolution certainly were exceptional. The exceptional is what we isolate and create a symbol from.

It is of course possible to have been exceptionally cruel within the time of American slavery, which would be a reason to not symbolize someone. But that isn't the case for these figures and in fact Washington eventually came to flip his perspective on slavery in his lifetime.

The morality of the past is fixed and the morality of the future is in perpetual development, meaning that if we continue to take the same approach that's happening now, all symbols will eventually be lost in time, because with an unbound future we will likely run the gamut of what is considered right and what is considered wrong in any given "now." By keeping this up, we deprive ourselves of a story and a guideline of history to help us project our own future. We sacrifice timeless positive principles to shifting moral discoveries. We leave our children with less guidance.

Can't put in any more - you get the last word!

> I think a lot of people are smart enough to know that there is a difference between representing "an ideal version of America," and specific ideals that individuals represented. Washington for example largely representing the fight for independence; Roosevelt standing for social justice; Lincoln for freedom and equality - not American utopia.

There are mainstream politicians and political commentators who explicitly say that racism used to be a big problem in the United States but that it simply does not exist any more. I suspect it's a very common belief.

> Respectfully, without a place to read about the intimidation tactic of statues, I'm not sure that I put much weight in it.

Five seconds of googling yielded several results from when this was last discussed in a major way, in 2017:

NPR piece includes a chart of dates for confederacy iconography: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues...

HuffPo piece says it was never about "history and culture": https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confederate-monuments-history...

Vox talks a bit about the process:

"But the story of the monuments is even stranger than many people realize. Few if any of the monuments went through any of the approval procedures that we now commonly apply to public art. Typically, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which claimed to represent local community sentiment (whether they did or did not), funded, erected, and dedicated the monuments. As a consequence, contemporaries, especially African Americans, who objected to the erection of monuments had no realistic opportunity to voice their opposition."

See: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/18/16165160/confeder...

And then some newer pieces:

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confede...

https://www.wral.com/confederate-monuments-were-meant-to-int...

It's not about statues, but the Wikipedia article about the modern display of the Confederate Flag seems to offer a decent summary of its usage beginning in the 1950s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_display_of_the_Confeder...

It’s so odd for people to mention it being a slippery slope. The confederate flag is a symbol of when traitors in our own country tried to rise up so that they could keep people as slaves. People say it was about state’s rights, yes the rights to keep people as slaves was a huge factor of it. There is nothing to celebrate here, the South wanted to unify and overrun the North. A lot of people died over this, it’s not worth celebrating there’s no heritage there worth putting on display. Full disclosure I grew up in the north, so it wasn’t until I moved out East that I ever encountered people that really tried to pass off flying the Confederate flag as a symbol of heritage. My belief is the Nazi flag is to Germany as the Confederate flag is to the US. They are symbols of hate and symbols of a dark past. The case seems clear cut, there’s nothing slippery.

The problem with that is that it's a pretty slippery slope.

Is this a hate symbol?

If it is and it gets banned, will you also consider whatever other symbol gets co-opted?

>it's a pretty slippery slope.

I disagree.

>Is this a hate symbol?

I believe so.

>will you also consider whatever other symbol gets co-opted?

Yes, if it does get co-opted to the extent of replacing its original meaning. Luckily that only happens rarely. That's just how symbols and communication work - it's an unfortunate and unavoidable reality. The swastika is the most obvious example.

I think a photo of the Che is a hate symbol. It is glorifying a psychopath who killed without a second thought for a genocidal ideology. That's my opinion. So do I get to get it removed everywhere because it offends me?

1. Spend time educating people on why Che doesn't deserve to be idolized 2. Garner support for his removal 3. Go to any company using or selling his image and use your support to have it removed

You asked how it works, that's how it works

I don't think this is what we should be doing in a tolerant society.

In other words, the glorification of intolerance (“I find those ideas are dangerous, they shall be banned”).

Do you find the Paradox of Intolerance to be a dangerous idea?

The premise is that maximalist tolerance means tolerating intolerant ideas, and that there's a risk that a movement of intolerance can form which destroys the culture of tolerance. It suggests that rational discourse might not always lead us away from intolerant views, and maximalist tolerance could therefore be self-defeating.

You have to decide what's worth tolerating. You can't just say "can't we all be nice to each other" when there are people trying to celebrate an icon of slavery and white nationalism.

You're talking past the point. You assume some idiots with slavery icons can't be embarrassed and shamed out of their views.

Where does this conclusion come from that rationality is so weak and our tolerant views are on such shaky ground that we have to prevent people from expressing intolerance?

It would be wonderful if things actually played out that way. What I'm seeing, are elected officials caving in to mobs with torches and pitchforks. So no, if I think Che Guevara is a hate symbol, I need only muster up a few hundred individuals, cause damage to private property and presto! No more Che...

Are Che Guevara statues on public property a common thing? I think I would support removing them from public property in my community. It also seems like the few mentions of Che statues I can find online indicate that they have long been controversial, like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/no-more-statues-of-che_b_1626...

So I'm not really sure what your point is. You seem to be trying to make a reductio ad absurdum, but it doesn't seem absurd to me for a community to be upset about a public statue of Che Guevara and demand it be removed.

We are talking about a few pixels in a videogame. It doesn't need to be a statue.

What's the actual difference between mobs and protestors?

Whether or not you agree with them.

Private company. I don't care. Jumping from Microsoft doing a thing about this to a law being passed restricting speech is quite the stretch and would be against the 1st.

Doing so would probably require amending the First Amendment, which I think would do more harm than good. But Germany seems to have implemented such a system without becoming a dystopian hellscape. Seems a pretty nice place to live.

Not an American, so feel free to correct me.

It seems to me that there are already plenty of laws that breach the 1st amendment if you interpret speech as absolutely any speech (e.g. death threats, libel, ...). And it is constitutional because the current interpretation of speech is narrower than "everything".

Doesn't that mean that, if there were the will to do it, free speech could be reinterpreted (by the supreme court?) to not include hate speech, thus not requiring to change the 1st amendment?

You're correct about the mechanism through which that could happen — if the Supreme Court decided it so, they could certainly narrow the first amendment protections for hate speech. But it's incredibly unlikely that would happen any time soon, as it would be in contradiction of many many years of free speech jurisprudence — not an expert but Brandenburg v. Ohio seems to get brought up a lot in this context.

Yes and no. Yes, the supreme court is the ultimate interpreter of the constitution, and could theoretically decide that the 1st amendment does not cover hate speech. But there's so much precedent around this that it is profoundly unlikely.

If there really was the will to do it, it would be by passing a constitutional amendment. If you aren't familiar, there is a process by which the constitution can be modified, and this can be done to completely rewrite or contradict the current text. But it's a very difficult hurdle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...

There are already many things that don't count as free speech based on case law, if something like that were to happen in the U.S. it probably wouldn't be an amendment rather a major supreme court case.

Depends on what you want to do. Cancel culture is alive and well in germany, we have official and legal discrimination against men across the country and the whole stuff is becoming more and more cemented into laws with laws like the ones the parent comment spoke about

TBH, there are a lot of other factors that make Germany a decent place. A less polarized society is one of them, a representative parliament another. IMO, it takes more than a law to keep it civilized.

I may be biased, having lived here all my life, but I would agree, it is a pretty nice place to live. To be frank, there's few countries that I would even consider moving to.

I think all the prejudice and intolerance in the world is really just bad behavior we need to unlearn and this will be just another tiny little step towards 'detoxifying society'. Hacker News demands we be civil to each other because antagonizing other users has always been superfluous to discussing tech news, if we intend to discuss tech news it is obviously better if the discussion isn't me calling you names. Users intent on antagonizing others have been an unnecessary distraction in multiplayer gaming for many years.

Well, I would lie if I said that I do not appreciate that there are no cars rocking the nazi flag in Germany.

We've already been there a long time in terms to "What you can do on Xbox Live." You'd be insane to put a German swastika on your Forza car and expect not to get banned.

Yes - we have them here in Canada and I’m a huge fan. Say whatever you want but you should be held responsible for you words.

My family lived in a place where they were responsible for their words. I can tell you it was not fun.

Everybody is a huge fan until those laws turn against them.

This applies to most laws. People are hypocrites about everything, all the time. Laws that hurt people I don't like are good. Laws that hurt me are bad. Even if it's the same law. The point is, that's not a good argument against a law.

As Idi Amin would have said "I guarantee freedom of speech but not freedom after speech"

I've heard a lot of young people in my country saying "you have freedom of speech, you can say what you want, but then you will face the consequences".

Which makes me think they don't really know what freedom of speech is.

I don't follow. It sounds like they know exactly what it is.

In some places, you can be prevented from saying something that others do not want you to say.

>In some places, you can be prevented from saying something that others do not want you to say.

Not really. The consequences in some places are just so severe that it might be one of the last things you say.

Yes, in some places communications can be intercepted and blocked by government authorities before being delivered. Or, people can be deprived of communication privileges until they prove themselves sympathetic to oppressors. Some others will spy on potential dissenters and remove them from society before they have a chance to speak.

If you are going to be punished in any way for what you say, you don't have freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that there's nobody physically preventing you from talking.

"consequence" doesn't necessarily imply a punishment or something at odds with your freedom.

For example: If you bad mouth a friend, they might no longer be your friend. This isn't a punishment for your actions or a restriction of your freedom.

Yes, but we're not talking about that here. Not being allowed to play a game you bought is a kind of punishment.

Will they also ban anyone who posts and Hindu swastika? Or the face of Che Guevara? Or anything related to ancient Rome? Or anything related to the Ottomans? And I could keep going and going and going.

> Not being allowed to play a game you bought is a kind of punishment.

I agree that is wrong, but I disagree on the grounds of contract law, not speech rights. I do think MS is well within their rights to prevent you from playing their game for any reason they want (other than membership in a protected class), but they should refund your money.

> If you are going to be punished in any way for what you say, you don't have freedom of speech.

So the punishment should instead fall on...other people? Because that's exactly what the sort of "free speech" you are advocating it - a restriction on other people's own freedom of speech and association.

You mean like you could totally say the Jews are great during the nazi time but had to live with the effects? Yeah right, sounds like free speech to me.

By the government!?

By the people, via the government, as all government action is theoretically supposed to be.

Government only remains "by the people" if the people maintain the ability to exercise effective oversight over it. Speech is an effective means of exercising government oversight, which is why marginally increasing government power to suppress it is so contentious.

No, I think the ideal end-goal is that hate speech is rejected in the private marketplace of ideas whose protection is the goal of the First Amendment, making anti-hate-speech laws unnecessary.

End goal? No. The end goal is eliminating oppression, and the ideal is to have strong enough cultural norms around this that specific laws are unnecessary.

A step in the process? Maybe. I don't know if this kind of legal enforcement is the shortest route from here to there in the US. I could be convinced either way.

No. I think that it is a responsibility and a duty for citizens and private organizations to self enforce censorship amongst themselves, as we see happening here. But, I do not think it is a good idea to grant that power to the ruling class due to the risk of abuse. Free speech is specifically a check on political power -- this is why it is entirely okay for private companies and individuals to censor speech but we greatly restrict the government's ability to do so. Yes, some governments with "hate speech" legislation have managed not to abuse the power, but there are plenty of examples of abuse to show that it is a risky step to take. Why should we take the risk of expanding state power if we have alternative solutions?

I think the status quo is the ideal. Companies can react to pressure from customers as they see fit with respect to their business needs. There is a market opportunity for a company willing to allow racist user-content in their games based on customer demand.

That is exactly what I want.

AFAIK Germany's anti hate speech laws revolve around the use of national socialist related lexicon and symbolism. I think it is perfectly reasonable that a line is drawn in this case, regarding where free speech goes to far - i.e. fascism is never OK.

Whether the goal of these censorship policies in other countries / companies, is something that should probably be determined on a case-by-case basis. Generally your question brings to mind 2 more questions I would ask you in turn for elaboration:

1) Do you think there should be a line drawn anywhere to say that this is the absolute limit of free speech? E.g. being able to say that some people are less valuable as human beings arguably brings little value any discussion. 2) Do you believe that symbols may change overtime to represent ideas that perhaps do not relate as much to their original meaning as a symbol? I'm talking about the confederate flag here. Granted, I'm not a US citizen, but I do not understand want possible purpose the confederate flag could serve in today's age, other than as an acknowledgement of antiquated values and ideas no longer endorsed by today's culture? Maybe 20, 30 years ago, not as many people really cared whether the confederate flag had anything to do with racism or slavery. But now, its meaning is arguably more hostile, just due to the way it is used as a counter to the BLM movement and other related anti-racism movements.

So, why would some one honestly use the confederate flag as a artistic symbol in this way today? Just as no-one would use the SS lightning bolt as an icon or symbol in Europe and expect to not get a reaction from people. In these cases, I would argue that doing is more an act of ignorance than it is an act of freedom of speech.

Disclaimer: I am a EU resident in Germany who knows next to nothing about censorship law in this country - this is my humble and probably misinformed opinion. Any knowledgeable Germans please feel free to correct my interpretation.

> At least admit it proudly, that you are placing a punishment on vocalbulary

Yes I admit it proudly, I live in a country that places a punishment on saying hateful things. I’m pretty fine with it

> and imposing self censorship

Life in society is based around self censorship. I don’t run around the city center naked, I don’t shit in storm grates, and I don’t shout Sieg Heil.

> invading privacy

No I don’t think anyone cares what you say to your friends within your home. We just won’t let you say it in public

Self-censorship on a public arena is predicated on invasion of privacy; the thought is implicitly not private at that point as you enact self-censorship due to norms imposed by institutions.

"Placing a punishment on hateful things" is a lot of words to cover the timeless and universal wisdom of "кто кого?".

Frankly, I consider this position to contribute much more greatly to the "reduction of politics to friend/enemy distinction" than any of the comments you're referring to. If a symbol of hatred is banned on a private platform and you consider that an attack on your politics, that makes it borderline impossible to believe that you are arguing in good faith.

People don't want to see hateful shit in video games. You do not have god-given right to be shitty in a car game. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and create your own community that tolerates hatred.

There’s a lot of grandiosity here. Just before going deeper, what is your position on bookstore that don’t sell porn magazines, night clubs that refuse smelly people, and school fairs that don’t showcase student’s penis drawings.

> reduction of politics to friend/enemy distinction

There was a war about this. The enemies of the United States waved that flag.

No more WWII games with nazis...god forbid someone sees a swastika /s

Even Germany allows the swastika when presented in a historical context in artistic or educational works, come on.

In games they allow them since 2018 only: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45142651

You want to know how to find the totalitarians? Look for the ones who want to regulate every utterance in areas like games, comedy, etc.

I think we should at least seriously consider that advocating for the murder or enslavement of people falls under the same speech category as incitement and yelling "fire!" in a theater.

And the Confederate Battle Flag and Nazi Flag absolutely do advocate the for murder and enslavement of people.

>falls under the same speech category as incitement and yelling "fire!" in a theater.

obligatory mention every time this gets brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917746

This isn’t censorship.

If the word censorship can only apply to censorship by the government, then the word "self-censorship" doesn't really exist.

I think it's hard to seriously argue that blanket prohibitions on using a particular symbol aren't censorship. Maybe there are reasonable arguments for censoring the confederate flag, but it's unhelpful to pretend that's not what's happening here.

Not Government censorship, anyway.

That wasn't the question.

It...is. It's just not illegal.

Very soon even Facebook likes will be illegal in Germany if it's the "wrong" ones by the way. That law passed a week ago or two.

Reddit already bans accounts for upvoting "wrong" posts

Explain which law are you referring to here?

A politicians who told Germans to leave their country was killed. That was taken as a welcome opportunity to turn things to 11. There is now another new law "zur Bekämpfung des Rechtsextremismus und der Hasskriminalität".

> "Dabei reicht dann auch schon, dass man als Gleichgesinnter auftritt und solche Inhalte teilt oder mit einem "Gefällt mir" versieht"

https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Internet-Thema-34041/News/Bun...

A politician who told Nazis to leave the country was murdered by a Nazi. Suddenly this sounds a lot different.

No he didn't tell that to Nazis. He told that to citizens of his own town who feared for their safety.

Why does that even matter? Are you implying that murdering him was in any way justified?

Wait, you were the one bringing that up. And no, no one would say that because that's also illegal now in Germany (you see a pattern).

Please explain what law you are referring to - I have not heard anything of the sort.

They're probably referring to this: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/internet-hass-hetze-101.htm...