But since this whole affaire started with "ElonsJet" refusing to shut down, and Musks reaction was a teenagers "Then I'll buy this company and fire you", I'm inclined to believe free speech is going to be ok as long Musk is criticized.

This has nothing to do with elonjets btw and if that's the worst example you can come up with... you'd be just convincing those who think that Twitter's moderation policy is horrible. Because for them, a dude censoring people who track him (which won't happen anyways imo) is still insanely better than the current policy that they deem is used to supress entire ideas/events.

In SV you don’t get locked up or suicided if you say the wrong thing.

Following the law in some of the places listed above would have Musk help identify those breaking local laws.

My point was that I'd prefer companies to stick to their principles, and if that means they can't do business in certain countries, so be it. Saying that you'll follow local rules if that means abuse of human rights is not something I agree with. In this context 'human rights' is used as a personal definition rather than some sort of legal one, as local rules allow abuse in some places.

Do you believe it’s a win for human rights to allow dissent whilst also helping governments identify dissenters?

Sadly, not just in Turkey but increasingly in what you'd consider developed "western" countries. This is concerning.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/introduction/enac...

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

Certainly he could retreat from places like Turkey and China. Alas, increasingly there is nowhere left to run. You can be inclined to believe what you want, we can just wait and see what happens no?

Bullsh*t alert! Name one western country that charges people for terrorism for criticizing Erdogan.

Incidentally, Ahmadinejad is quoting 2pac on twitter: https://twitter.com/Ahmadinejad1956/status/10519371063927521...

Of course this is nothing new, the slippery slope in the UK started over a decade ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial

  "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

  Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. ..was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company.

    English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.

You're welcome to explain to me how a teenager quoting snoop on her instagram is deserving of a court case whether somebody is familiar with the quote or not as opposed to Ahmadinejad quoting 2pac.

Or the Taliban being explicitly allowed to stay on the platform for that matter: https://www.mediaite.com/news/twitter-says-taliban-spokesman...

how do you think this is on par with Turkey consistently persecuting ---dissidents---?

Scotland is a small place so can't find much for you other than this one local explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmF1peteGE

You can now meme yourself to jail now. No need to even go so far as the head of state, any random individual can feign offense at you to land you in legal trouble.

> 'It had to do with an American and a Russian arguing about their two countries,' Reagan said Monday, relating the story he told Gorbachev. 'And the American in the story said, 'I can walk into the Oval Office, I can pound the president's desk, and I can say, Mr. President, I don't like the way you're running our country.'

> 'And the Soviet citizen said, 'I can do that.' The American said, 'You can?' He says, 'Yes. I can go into the Kremlin to the general secretary's office, I can pound his desk and say, Mr. General Secretary, I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country.''

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/18/Reagans-jokes-draw-S...

> The Böhmermann affair (also known as Erdogate[1]) was a political affair following an experimental poem on German satirist Jan Böhmermann's satire show Neo Magazin Royale in late March 2016 that deliberately insulted Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan using profane language. ... After the show was aired on German public television channel ZDFneo, the Turkish government released a verbal note demanding that the German government begin criminal prosecution of Böhmermann. German Chancellor Angela Merkel further escalated the situation by apologizing for Böhmermann's "intentionally hurtful" poem – later she called this "a mistake".[2] 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair

> The Netherlands' lese majeste law dates from 1881 and carries sentences of up to five years jail or a fine of 20,000 euros ($22,200; £16,700).

Not really abolished, just a lower punishment.

  Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK for posting ‘offensive’ tweet

People did get their bank accounts frozen for playing key roles in protests that shut down critical infrastructure for a prolonged period. Protests that were at least partially funded by foreign interests. Protests that cost Canadians millions of dollars and posed a safety risk for many people.

Whether you like JT or not, at least on the surface the government had justification to do <<something>> to stop the protests after so many weeks. Some governments would have gone in with clubs, rubber bullets and teargas. Ours elected to shut off the funding tap. And it worked.

Whether the emergencies act should have been used here is definitely up for debate. For what it's worth, an independent inquiry has been established to look into this. I for one hope they recognize the slippery slope that such a blunt tool represents and put in better controls and oversight.

Sure, one can’t survive without money. And they shut that dissent down real quick. Like they controlled speech quite well. Now that they’ve found the button, I wonder how many times in the future they’ll push it. You’re basically bragging about your loss of dissent.

Also, the government did not "shut down the dissent real quick". The protests went on for weeks without any reprisal. The shouts were shouted, the horns honked, the memes posted, the swastikas flown. The protesters got their fifteen minutes of fame and more. We all heard them speak, unfortunately it turned out they didn't have anything interesting to say.

So they let it take it’s natural course? Or did they force it to stop by using power wielded only by a gov?

Nobody had their bank account frozen for "saying mean things about Trudeau."

  Briane is a single mom from Chilliwack working a minimum wage job. She gave $50 to the convoy when it was 100% legal. She hasn’t participated in any other way. Her bank account has now been frozen.

Sworn testimony in parliament makes it seem as if Mr Strahl’s story is either wholly or partially manufactured. No accounts were frozen for donating when the protest was still allowed.

Additionally there is no evidence that a person by the name of “Briane” lives in that town, and no one with that name was listed as a donor to the protest.

One day Mark Strahl or somebody like him will be in power and the shoe will be on the other foot. If you start banning people you don't like (from twitter, bank accounts, whatever) left and right you will end up in a very dark place by setting that precedent.

There were ~200 accounts frozen affecting less than that number of people (some people had multiple accounts frozen). The claim is that these accounts were the ones directly supporting the protest. This was after the courts had declared many aspects of the protest unlawful. The accounts were mostly unfrozen after the protest broke up. The mechanism that was used to freeze their accounts allows them to sue for compensation

As much as the process for the emergencies act has been painted as absolute power. It very much isn’t. It is subject to quite a bit of oversight from the legislative and judicial.

I understand what your point is, but Canada has a history of going after left leaning protesters in FAR more concerning ways than this. As far as I can tell this was way more preferable to the usual tactics that the RCMP used to enforce injunctions.

For example, the military was used to clear native peoples off their land to build a golf course. A child was bayoneted. In 1990.

The RCMP broke into a cabin with a chainsaw and axe where indigenous elders were praying to stop oil and gas construction. That was last year.

Temporarily freezing funds of enablers seems like a pretty reasonable solution to an unlawful protest, all things considered.

Besides all that, at the time it was VERY clear that this political action was funded from unknown sources outside the country. I don’t think that money is speech. And I really don’t think that political destabilization should be funded by anonymous overseas donors.

Yay

> but Canada has a history of going after left leaning protesters in FAR more concerning ways than this

Sigh

Temporarily freezing the banking privileges of people involved in the perpetuation of 1. A crime 2. while acting against an injunction 3. after being authorized to use that power by a majority of elected representatives is a pretty acceptable use of government. Regardless of who in power does it.

You said you don’t like people in power arbitrarily freezing accounts of people they don’t like, and cited what appears to be a completely made up story from a fringe candidate.

I’m pointing out that this was not arbitrary, and it was used in a very specific and limited manner, as authorized by law, to accomplish a very specific goal. The goal was accomplished with, as far as has been actually proven, an absolute minimum of harm caused, even to the perpetrators themselves.

The protest is still allowed, there are still people protesting in my town. Just saw ‘em this weekend. What they aren’t allowed to do is use money from unknown international sources to shut down cities and infrastructure

What are we discussing here? Because your response to me was that "the other side is much worse" and you cited the military bayoneted a child in 1990.

This Mark Stahl fellow is a sitting MP not a fringe candidate.

> Temporarily freezing funds of enablers seems like a pretty reasonable solution to an unlawful protest, all things considered.

Well, if they are willing to bayonet children to build golf courses imagine the pandoras box you've now opened for when they get back in power. Won't seem so reasonable when they freeze your bank account in turn. Not a hard concept to grasp.

Try to imagine a carbon copy of yourself who fell into the other echo chamber and has similarly low opinions of your politics. There will be no shortage of justifications for why you must be punished.

You seem to be seeing this through the lens of “two sides”. There are more than two major political parties in Canada. And the East/West/French divide is as important as the left/right divide.

I’m seeing this through the lens of government quelling illegal protest, regardless of what is being protested. I see what happened in Ottawa as a restrained response that I wish was used more, rather than the violent response that is so common.

At the time temporary asset freezes we’re used, military force was authorized by the legislature. They could have dragged the trucks out using military recovery equipment, instead they made it so they couldn’t buy diesel and propane with money from unknown sources.

> Try to imagine a carbon copy of yourself who fell into the other echo chamber and has similarly low opinions of your politics. There will be no shortage of justifications for why you must be punished.

If I fall down some conspiracy rabbit hole, protest by unlawfully shutting down a city for a month, ignore an injunction, and encourage others to do the same while ignoring warnings about the consequences, I sure as hell expect that the government will come after me.

There was no “pandoras box” opened. The legislature authorized the PM to act in a limited way to end an unlawful protest. Those powers have expired, and could have been rescinded at any time.

The people weren’t “punished”. Organizers had money frozen for about a week until it could be seen that it wouldn’t be used to support more activity deemed to be an emergency.

The dangerous precedent isn’t the seizure of money. It’s using foreign bankrolls to pay for a destabilizing protest movement to use industrial equipment to shut down major infrastructure and cities while ignoring the rule of law.

Many people are childish and it is now fashionable to stick your fingers in your ears and try to make the thing you don't like disappear instead of dealing with it. Once upon a time citing did not imply agreement. Sometimes reality is icky.

> You seem to be seeing this through the lens of “two sides”.

I'm seeing it through the lens of "no sides". Try putting politics aside.

> If I fall down some conspiracy rabbit hole, protest by unlawfully shutting down a city for a month, ignore an injunction, and encourage others to do the same while ignoring warnings about the consequences, I sure as hell expect that the government will come after me.

I wonder why you think only people with politics that differ from yours (and therefore are clearly wrong) are susceptible to this behavior and members of your tribe are somehow immune.

> There was no “pandoras box” opened. The legislature authorized the PM to act in a limited way to end an unlawful protest. Those powers have expired, and could have been rescinded at any time.

It seems you are under the impression you need to convince me.

Many people would say otherwise, to use your parlance. Alas, Mark Strahl is still an MP, even if he spreads lies. Marjory Taylor Greene somehow got elected. They have supporters. You need to convince them.

Is it getting easier or harder? What will happen when they regain power? Something to ruminate on.

And not only the "fringe" or conservatives but even people who might agree with your politics directionally might disagree with the heavy handedness and perceived slide into authoritarianism. It is as if your perceptions are not the only ones that matter even if undoubtably you're right of course.

> The dangerous precedent isn’t the seizure of money. It’s using foreign bankrolls to pay for a destabilizing protest movement to use industrial equipment to shut down major infrastructure and cities while ignoring the rule of law.

Presumably it could be both. You could have multiple ongoing problems. And in a heavy handed attempt to solve one exacerbate others. I really hope it sinks in but I'm quite afraid you'll just reply again about how bad the people you don't like are.

Technically true, but without context, easily misunderstood. It's illegal in Germany to promote or advocate for illegal acts. Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.

Also "incitement to illegal conduct and imminent lawless action" is also illegal in the U.S. it just gets interpreted a little different.

> There is only one country on earth that has decent free speech and it's the US

Except for nearly all the other countries in Europe, Canade etc.

It's practically true, and there is nothing to "misunderstand" there, unless you try to create such a misunderstanding by claiming this comes out of some kind of "general ban", when it's actually a very specific ban German states started putting in place [0].

Case in point;

> Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.

The US attack on Iraq was also illegal, yet that didn't lead to German states banning the V symbol for Victory or any other US symbols, or US media, getting banned.

Which is not the only example of how most about this is purely political and not in any way based on impartial interpretation and application of laws for human rights and "justice" [1].

[0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-03/z-symbol-rus...

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/08/germany-could-have-deli...

But it does, it's just that to prevent a misuse, any ban on symbols (which are used to advocate or promote something criminal) a separate law is needed to prevent misuse and allow judiciary overview. That's an additional protection.

> US attack on Iraq was also illegal

That's a fair point (and I agree on the illegality), and I would actually like this to be challenged in the court and see a decision. However, the Russian flag is not banned, just the Z symbol as a symbol for this war. If there was a symbol for U.S. drone strike or the invasion of Iraq we could be talking about something more concrete.

The Z symbol exists for the same reason why the V symbol existed on US military vehicles in Iraq; It's mainly a friendly fire and unit identifier as Russia and Ukraine use a lot of the same mechanized equipment.

While the Anglo V also stands for V as in "Victory" and even has a hand sign associated with it, it's a whole campaign dating back to WWII and Winston Churchill [0].

Me and many of my schoolmates would flash it at US military convoys passing our bus at school trips in the 90s. The soldiers were always super happy about it, while we thought we were signaling "peace" to them.

Ultimately the V would morph into a Chevron with different orientations to distinguish what military group a vehicle belongs to [0], but there is a whole propagandist history behind the Anglo use of V, overlapping very much in the same ways of military necessity as the Russian Z does.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150708011459/https://time.com/...

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the-invert...

However, when a country doesn't allow you to promote or advocate for war crimes, then it's "only the U.S. has free speech", go figure.

But I agree with your more general point that Americans should be a bit less smug about the superiority of their free-speech rules.

I think both have their historic reasons, place and differences.

Ability to advocate for illegal, repugnant, or offensive ideas or acts is in fact the entire point of free speech, so being able to do it is an essential right.

In summary, those basically are high treason, murder/manslaughter, assault, robbery, counterfeiting, creating fire/explosions/radiation, destroying/interference in infrastructure (planes etc.).

[1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/138.html

Back in the day, noone prevented same-sex partners to marry in Germany in front of a religious congregation which allowed that according to their rules. They just couldn't get the marriage certificate from the State.

As for the illegality: it would make gay marriage an impossible act, because the legal framework to marry two men (or two women) from a legal standpoint (which includes the marriage certificates and the rights and responsibilities associated with it) would not exist. A public official who wrote a marriage certificate for a same-sex couple in 1999 would not have committed a crime, he or she would just have written an invalid form which would have had no legal bearing (and the public official would probably have been reprimanded).

Something you cannot do by definition cannot be illegal.

I'd say its more than a little different. The US definition is pretty narrow and immediate. You can't get on a megaphone and tell a crowd to go kill some guy right now.

>Except for nearly all the other countries in Europe, Canada etc.

It's all down to opinion of course but those nations do not have sensible freedom of speech. They pay lip service to the idea but will gladly jail people for saying things the government doesn't like but otherwise harmless or victim less.

Except for exceptions, such like making some kind of threat against the president.

> will gladly jail people for saying things the government doesn't like but otherwise harmless or victim less.

Can you show me such examples for lets say Germany?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/angela-merkel-...

It's practically true, and there is nothing to "misunderstand" there, unless you try to create such a misunderstanding by claiming this comes out of some kind of "general ban", when it's actually a very specific ban German states started putting in place only recently [0].

Case in point;

> Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.

The US attack on Iraq was also illegal, yet that didn't lead to German states banning the V symbol for Victory or any other US symbols, or US state media getting banned.

Which is not the only example of how most about this is purely political and not in any way based on impartial interpretation and application of laws for "human rights and justice" [1].

[0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-03/z-symbol-rus...

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/08/germany-could-have-deli...

None of them has free speech. Free speech is a binary thing - either speech is free, or it isn't. The moment you face criminal lawsuits for saying the wrong things, you do not live under a Free Speech regime. To my knowledge, the only country which does this correctly is the US.

Many countries claim to have Freedom of Opinion - which is a different concept from Freedom of Speech. Under a "Freedom of Opinion" regime, you can hold any opinion that you like - but some you need to keep to yourself.

Your proposed rule might be unpractical, since it would disallow the U.S. government from from saying anything about free speech for at least 30 more years (see [1] and [2]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

Suffice to say that censorship was pretty prevalent through the history of Germany and it did not provide the advantages some had hoped.

And the allies did censor speech that is true.

> The representative of the Allied forces admitted that the order in principle was no different from the Nazi book burnings, although unlike the burnings, the measure was seen as a temporary part of the denazification program.

In that case the measure can be understood as the country was full of Nazi propaganda and alternative media was more or less dead. But it was indeed temporary and the Allies also wrote Germany's constitution, which explicitly forbid censorship.

Lies and incitements to violence were a significant factor in Hitler being able to assume emergency powers, so you could argue that Germany learned a valuable lesson from one of its dictators.

But the thing everyone forgets is that he has very strong ties to the US government. From a free speech perspective, this is as good as the government taking over twitter, but much better PR