Who deems what a lie is? That vaccines do not stop the spread of Covid? That corona originated in a lab? Should people have been prosecuted for saying that?

Are there two genders? Should I get arrested if I say yes? Should I get arrested if I say no?

Horrible approach that Germany is taking against a fundamental right to free speech. Gestapo like

It's pretty simple really. Saying you don't like transgender people or some specific race makes you a jerk but shouldn't be illegal. It's just an opinion. Saying that transgender people are sacrificing children to Lucifer and someone should put a stop to it is clearly intended to move someone who feels they have nothing to lose to murder some random transgender people to "save the children from Lucifer." That should be investigated because it can and will result in real world harm.

That's only simple because you picked two made-up examples to illustrate the point. What if someone says transgender kids shouldn't have access to puberty blockers? What if they say they shouldn't have access without their parents' permission? What if they say most children desist? What if they say that because most children desist, adult transgender people are not legitimate?

When you really think about the middle ground, the examples get very murky. They are not simple.

The poster actually understands your point or they would have used examples that fall more into the grey area.

They used extreme examples precisely because they wanted to avoid the challenge that will necessarily come otherwise.

I didn't use those cases as examples because they are not incitements. They could be construed as attempts at good faith debates. If someone says that most trans kids desist for instance, I'd point them at a study [1] that shows otherwise and we can go from there. The cases I'm talking about are quite different.

For example spreading false rumors that children's hospitals are giving sex changes to young children and saying that "somebody needs to put a stop to these evil monsters mutilating children" [2][3] is definitely incitement. Calling teachers that mention the fact that they are in a gay marriage "groomers" which implies that they are child molesters is also incitement. That's not good faith debate. It's smearing people in the hopes that someone will harm them.

1. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/2/e20210...

> We found that an average of 5 years after their initial social transition, 7.3% of youth had retransitioned at least once. At the end of this period, most youth identified as binary transgender youth (94%), including 1.3% who retransitioned to another identity before returning to their binary transgender identity. A total of 2.5% of youth identified as cisgender and 3.5% as nonbinary. Later cisgender identities were more common among youth whose initial social transition occurred before age 6 years; their retransitions often occurred before age 10 years.

2. https://tennesseestar.com/2022/10/03/matt-walsh-announces-ra...

3. https://www.losangelesblade.com/2022/03/28/gubernatorial-say...

That's really the point, though. To help us understand what you're arguing for, you need to give real examples of things you disagree with and that make you uncomfortable (e.g. desisting) that are nevertheless acceptable speech, and things which cross the line and aren't acceptable.

You didn't give us examples from either side of the line to show us where the line is, you gave one example that's totally fine ("X is a jerk" isn't going to get anyone arrested in the US) and one that's a direct incitement to violence. The examples are miles apart and the line could be anywhere between them.

The Matt Walsh example doesn't really help either. If I said "someone needs to put a stop to these evil monsters pumping carbon into the atmosphere" in the context of protesting a new coal mine, pretty much everyone would understand there was an implied "...by turning up to my legal protest next Tuesday and waving some placards around" on the end. Saying the owners needed to be lined up and shot may or may not be incitement, but again that's a pretty extreme example, and it still doesn't look simple.

So if someone says 'transgenders are sacrificing children' should be illegal, does that mean 'police are arbitrarily killing unarmed blacks' - should that be illegal? Because I think the material reality could be demonstrated that the later is false as well.

I think your argument demonstrates a slippery slope.

I think probably claims should have to be more specific and inciteful to be considered illegal.

Also - I think proportionality matters as well. Saying 'the kids who died at Sandy Hook were not real people but actors' - on a personal level should be legal. But if you have an audience of 400M people and scream that nonsense, I think this might be a problem. Right now it's handled in civic courts, but we could think a bit about what that means.

It's very hard, and there are a lot of slippery slopes. Risky.

I suppose we should also consider whether the proposed response is to bomb a hospital or reduce somebody's budget.

Police have indeed been ambushed and killed as a result of such claims.

The proposed response is not uniform in either case.

Wouldn’t some think that it would be e.g. justified to set fire to a police station or something? I mean, seeing as riots include things like other places being set aflame.

It doesn't help to address claims nobody is making specifically dressed up to serve as fallacy. The normal claim is that police are killing black individuals unnecessarily. The claim you have offered is just that claim dressed in dramatic clothing.

Meanwhile transgender sacrificing children would be a falsehood wholly invented to smear a group that already frequently suffers violence and harassment and with the blatant intention of promoting and justifying further violence and harassment. The statement is in effect part of the process of harassing, harming, and ultimately killing people. It ought to be illegal in the same way that breaking into a home to commit rape is also illegal and liable to be punished more harshly itself than if the burglary was part of mere trespass.

I also take issue with drawing a line between a harmful lie like Sandy Hook and mass promotion of same in the fashion you have. Both should be illegal in the same way that starting a house on fire isn't any more legal than setting a fire that burns down whole housing development. The punishment may be harsher but its ultimately the same crime. It's also not a slippery slope AT ALL.

Passing on a falsehood that the individual knew or should have reasonable known was false is not at all like parsing the difference between police arbitrarily or unnecessarily killing black people. We can forgive trespasses where the truth is a matter of opinion, phrasing, or debate while trivially punishing people who blatantly lie or spread harmful nonsense.

If you don't know that dead children aren't crisis actors or forest fires aren't caused by jewish space lasers and you can't be educated you should probably be fined or imprisoned into silence so that the rest of society can move on.

"The normal claim is that police are killing black individuals unnecessarily. The claim you have offered is just that claim dressed in dramatic clothing."

This is plainly false.

Claims that police arbitrarily kill people, or are 'killers' etc. are all over the web..

That you would blind yourself to the radical populism in some corners because maybe you don't want it to exist is not helpful.

Here's a completely random example:

"cops are serial killers. paid, protected serial killers who believe their jobs entitle them to take human life. over and over. they lie. they kill. they lie again. repeat. "

This is one of literally millions of such Tweets.

How could you possibly suggest that such language does not exist when it's rampant?

If that example isn't specific enough for you, then just Google a bit and you'll have your examples.

"a harmful lie like Sandy Hook and mass promotion of same in the fashion you have. Both should be illegal in the same way that starting a house on fire isn't any more legal "

Again, utterly false.

So plainly wrong, that I'm sure you can't have actually thought it through.

Do realize this Orwellian implications of governing speech to the point wherein saying something that is 'non factual' is tantamount to a crime?

It's not even a 'slippery slope' it's already ultra authoritarian.

Again: hop on to Twitter, right now, by your logic, millions of people would be charged with crimes, daily.

"If you don't know that dead children aren't crisis actors or forest fires aren't caused by jewish space lasers and you can't be educated you should probably be fined or imprisoned into silence so that the rest of society can move on."

You seem to have a wilful lack of understanding of what is happening in pop culture and in the commons, and yet want to enact vicious authoritarian violence on people for arbitrary words?

I wonder if you realize that you're a fascist authoritarian?

You are exactly what we are afraid of.

People can believe what they want to believe and say what they want to say, unless it really starts to damage others, and that's a high bar.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/sheerohero666/status/127598615903...

Free speech is not absolute.

There are limitations.

Saying that the corona started in a lab without evidence can be defamation, which is not protected by free speech, not even in the US.

Saying that two genders exists or not has never been questioned, but telling a trans person that they are an aberration of the nature is "fighting words" and is not protected.

Telling a kid "you're a f*ot and should kill yourself" is not protected by free speech.

etc.

I think that telling a trans person they are an aberration of nature is wrong but calling it fighting words is only euphemistically correct. The fighting words exemption to free speech has been so narrowed that you practically have to say I'm going to kill professor plum in the library with the candlestick right now in the presence of said professor for it to count.

If you were to scream it at them in a way that would suggest to an ordinary person they are in danger of attack it would be fighting words. If you merely slung it on the street you would have no realistic means of legal redress. No cop is going to arrest them for offending you nor prosecutor press charges.

> I'm going to kill professor plum in the library

but if you write it on a social network they will probably come and knock at your door.

that's the point.

when you're writing something on a globally accessible platform you're basically making a public statement and it makes all the difference

people need to realize that freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of publishing anything they like without consequences

In the US you can most certainly according to present interpretation say virtually anything that isn't a credible threat or a false defamatory statement. You may lose your job, your significant other, and the respect of your community but you wont end up in jail.

> Telling a kid "you're a f*ot and should kill yourself" is not protected by free speech.

This would be absolutely awful but you would be unlikely to face legal consequences.

'Who deems what a lie is'?

Are you saying we can't agree on what reality is?

If you provide bullshit medical advice to people you should go to jail frankly, for example.

But misinformation, when it's applied broadly, does have consequences and that will have an effect.

Right now we actually do contend with it i.e voting machine lies, lies about Sandy Hook children - but we handle that in civil cases where people sue each other for 'damages' in which case we have to arrive at some truth. Point being - we legally identify 'damages' there.

But the government is responsible for protecting people from 'damage' as well, in which case we could feasibly have the DoJ take people to court for civil-ish kinds of things, or, find some way forward.

I don't know what the answer is, but it doesn't have to be entirely strict or all encompassing and may have thresholds for proportionality etc. or even depend on the integrity of institutions.

We already draw a lot of boundaries around medical information and could do the same. For example, there could be a requirement to indicate lack of authority / seek a doctor's opinion when discussing health matters. Like I like Joe Rogan, but absolutely detest when he starts yapping about vaccines etc. as his position de facto amounts to misinformation which actually can cause harm. If he were required to consistently remind people "I am not a doctor. This is entertainment. Please consult your doctor for advice concerning COVID." (He should have done this without being asked), then I think those kinds of things can help.

And probably we should err on the side of freedom of expression.

But there is a huge risk in getting into an authoritarian situation as people want to regulate others opinions, and yes, as you say, declaring that there are 'only two genders' is considered 'hate speech' by some and they will push hard to stop others from saying this, which is scary.

I'm wary that our governments have the ability to split hairs on these hard issues.

you are not arrested for any of these.

you get arrested when you ask to lock up transgender people, when you suggest anti-vaxxers (or vaccination supporters) "have a death wish", suggesting you'll look away if someone attacks them.

you get arrested for shouting group XYZ "should die"

§130StGB is about respect in political discourse. if you can't say it with respect shut the fuck up until you can.

any and all examples in your comment have their position not only freely stated online, in Germany, but even on print media, at lengths.

> §130StGB is about respect in political discourse.

Not it's not, it's about protecting minorities. You're free to say "Germans are a race of dogs" in response to parliament voting on recognizing the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, for example, because Germans are not a minority. You wouldn't be free to say "Turks are a race of dogs", that would be illegal.

no it's not about minorities. it's about groups. and it's not about plain insult (your example of "group XYZ are dogs") that's already covered elsewhere and it's prohibited in both directions.

it's about inciting unrest against the peace of the land, specifically targetting some specific group of humans.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...

so a better example would be ditib mosques to systematically suggest to their faithful to poorly service Germans and give them higher prices.

or some German political party to suggest that our current problems are caused by "the Russians" and to suggest discriminating against kids off Russian expats is fine at school.

> and it's not about plain insult (your example of "group XYZ are dogs") that's already covered elsewhere and it's prohibited in both directions.

No, it's really not, we know this, because it's been tested. Look up Malik Karabulut who said exactly what I wrote (he was also insulting individual officials, but that's not what this is about). The DA did specifically say (and that wasn't a controversial decision outside of right-wing circles) it does _not_ apply to the majority.

Yeah, no this is authoritarianism in action.

People are not burning down Children's hospitals, moreover, the kinds of 'misinformation' you're alluding to generally fall way, way within the boundaries of 'hate speech'.

Twitter is a private company they can mostly do what they want.

Some companies rise to the point of 'kind of public service' and therefore we might need basic regs (i.e. at least guaranteeing that Twitter act consistently within their own stated rules).

The bar for hate speech out to be very, very high.

Calls for direct violence have always been illegal.

'Disinformation' is absolutely another issue altogether. Lying about moon landing conspiracy theories is irrelevant, but lying about school shooting victims being 'actors' is something a bit different, as is lying about the effect of vaccines during a pandemic, as is lying / providing medical advice without any kind of appropriate designation. Free speeches probably don't like it but those things do have an effect, and proportionality matters: if you want to say something to your neighbour, fine, but if you're going to go in front of 400M people and broadcast it, and it causes serious harm due to direct minsinfo ... most us don't want that. I don't suggest we have the answer there but I bet if we think about it we can find a reasonable way for the insane idiots to be among each other and for them to not scream non-factual things.

They aren't burning them down, no, but there's a wave of harassment and threats aimed at Children's hospitals directly in response to misinformation about transgender care. In at least one case so far, it prompted a lockdown of the targeted hospital. Hospital lockdowns carry significant risk to patients in critical condition. This is terrorism, plain and simple, and the extremists are showing increasing disregard for bystanders.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/16/gender-care...

I understand why you'd worry about this, but I see no other way forward. Alex Jones' lie caused families who lost children to be harassed by the nuts to watched him. Because he had his own publishing platform it's pretty easy to convince people that what he did was wrong and that he acted irresponsibly. The problem is that in the age of social media everyone can cause the same harm that Alex Jones did without owning anything. They can just spread a hateful lie, it can go viral, and then we're left picking up the pieces as a society. You could only investigate misinformation that already went viral I suppose since then it becomes more equivalent to being like Alex Jones and Sandy Hook. I don't know. It just seems obvious that something has to give because all the free speech absolutists have no answer other than to keep burying their heads in the sand as hateful lies spread like wildfire and drive more and more people over the edge: Mosque shooter in New Zealand, Grocery Store shooter in the USA, etc....

Maybe a private/social response will prevent disaster. I'm unsure. The closest historical parallel I can think of to this is the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (a popular document that helped encourage Germany to liquidate Jewish people) being printed and distributed around the USA by Henry Ford. Luckily Henry Ford didn't manage to convince the US population that Jewish people were plotting to enslave them, but the Germans weren't so lucky which is probably why they're so wary of letting it happen again.

I don't think you grasp the implications of what you are suggesting.

Basically, you're suggesting that 'being wrong' about something, is effectively a crime.

That's one hell of a slippery slope.

Alex Jones has an audience of 400M people.

You and I do not.

You and I absolutely should be able to say 'Sandy Hook children were actors'.

Maybe one of us is a total idiot and actually believes that. Is that a crime?

Proportionality etc. matter.

Also - you are hugely downplaying how much censorship Twitter enacts (I'm not saying this is good or bad, but they do it).

Just like the regular police keep a lid on crime, as in, if they were to disappear all hell would instantly break lose (in Montreal the cops went on strike and immediately there were mass bank robbing etc) - Twitter keeps the total insane hate speech and death threat people off the platform.

In 2020 - the 'Protocols of the Elder's of Zion' - should be hugely and widely disseminated if it were powerful. But it's not. Why? Because we have controls. Google, Twitter etc. tamp that stuff down.

We probably need 'some' laws, but we ought to be very, very careful about it and I suggest it probably be limited to inciting violence and medical misinformation.

There is no reason to allow you or I to say Sandy Hook Children are actors. We already have standards established in civil court to distinguish between matters of opinion, debate, lies or flagrant disregard for the truth.

We regularly punish people in civil court for lies or flagrant disregard for the truth while leaving matters of opinion lie. The system prevents abuse by requiring the substantial safeguards and standards as it well could in similar criminal actions. It only takes 1 in 12 to negate any attempt to convict and the net result is people that share blatant lies will be over time fined into silence.