There are OBVIOUSLY limits to free speech. They include, among other things (going by memory from my high school journalism class here…):
-libel/slander
-invasion of privacy
-“shouting fire in a crowded theatre”
-advertisement for illegal services
-violation of official secrecy (including things like top secret documents, and also violating gag rules concerning trials, etc.)
-fighting words
Some of those are easier to define than others. But if there’s a so-far-peacful protest going on with tempers running high, and someone gets up and starts shouting “kill the cops! kill the cops!” and then violence breaks out, I am 100% happy to see the shouter prosecuted even if he himself committed no acts of violence.
But, in reality, we accept limitations on EVERY single right, including free speech. In addition to the list Max offered, you could add child pornography. Simply raising the evil spectre of a slippery slope of restrictions on speech is, to me, faulty reasoning. Lines are drawn involving “rights” all the time, and properly so.
This raises the question of why indeed we have content labels at all. In the US, fior example, the government does not mandate them.
Trade associations (MPAA and their cousins for other media) self impose because of the fear that the government would impose limits.
But the government never has, and there are better, private ways for people to ascertain the nature of the content, especially in the internet era and make a rational decision about if it is appropriate content for them.
The film “This Film is Not Yet Rated” and the DVD extras deal with some of the issues involved - the book “Hollywood vs. Hardcore”, whose author is interviewed all-to-briefly in the film goes into much much more detail about the history and nature of this.
Lawrence Lessig’s books, from “Code” on forward are also VERY on topic.
The only idiotic part of it is to not consider that those in the countries where the Nazis gained power through political means might have a very different and equally valid viewpoint.
Child pornography is only illegal because it can’t be produced without committing a crime. That is, unless it is in drawn form, in which case it isn’t (although one case was prosecuted in Australia IIRC - don’t ask me for a cite, but ISTR there was a Debate over it on this very Dope)
As for Max’s list :
libel/slander : shouldn’t be illegal. Someone smears mud on you, either it’s true and you shouldn’t have the right to silence it, or it’s not and you shouldn’t care nor dignify the mudslinger by giving him any attention whatsoever. Or you can plain debunk it in the open, and the mudslinger is made to look like an utter pillock. BTW, did you know Obama was sworn in on a Koran ?
invasion of privacy : not sure about that one, can you give me an example ?
advertisement of illegal services : same as kiddy porn, can’t be made without committing or at the very least be accessory to a crime - the speech itself is free, but one has to deal with the logical consequences of uttering it.
violation of secrecy : usually you sign an NDA before being entrusted with secret information. Again, the speech is free - but it’s also a breach of contract. You break it, you bought it.
fighting words : that one’s just stupid. They’re only fighting words in the mind of the guy who’s prepared to commit assault (or worse) to silence them. There are no fighting words, only people who still haven’t grokked the whole sticks and stones thing.
It’s funny how this one bit of Supreme Court dicta seems to be the one thing about free speech law that everyone learns. It is both incomplete (it should be “falsely shouting fire”) and outdated (the rule is no longer about creating “clear and present danger” but instead about inciting lawless action).
I live in a country where an openly racist, negationist, antisemitic and fascist party garners 15 to 20% of the votes in every election, and might have had a real shot at getting a President elected in 2002. And of course, there was that whole collaboration thing during WW2 which for many, many French wasn’t unwelcome at all.
I stand by my own viewpoint
Libel and slander are by definition false, so if an accusation is true, you can’t sue someone for libeling you. And it absolutely should be illegal, because libel can cause severe economic and social harm, particularly if the libeler has greater access to media sources that the victim. Your solutions require that the victim of libel be either more persuasive than the libeler, and that he have equal access to media sources. If a newspaper erroneously reports that you’ve done time for child molestation, how do you fight that if you don’t have recourse to the courts?
But it’s also illegal to own it. If someone downloads a bunch of child porn off the internet for free, he’s breaking the law. He hasn’t directly harmed the children in question, and he hasn’t paid anyone to harm them, but he’s still headed to prison if he gets caught.
To ground things a little, this game was produced in 2006, was never available for direct sale overseas, and had a ludicrously small circulation before these activists dragged it into the spotlight. You’d have to be actively and extensively searching for something to be outraged by to even find the game. Actually, for the group in Australia, they had to have circumvented the ban on importation of non-rated media to get their hands on it, so they’re breaking the law in their country.
The best way to deal with “problems” like this is to let them die in obscurity. Hentai and rape games cater to a very small niche, harm no one (unless you consider the willing participants — the game producers and consumers — to be victims) and are amply covered by existing obscenity/pornography laws in every single country where these activists are attempting to raise a stink.
The irony is that seeing some mainstream manga in this country would make the group’s pointy little heads explode. While Japan has some definite problems with sexually motivated crimes, they’re not even on a par with the US in either absolute or relative numbers, so it’s not like the ready availability of such media is causing widespread social disorder.
This particular issue has nothing to do with free speech. It’s an attempt to create a problem where none exists by grandstanding, and either torturing facts to make them fit a desired pattern, or just plain making shit up to further an agenda.
Go to their competitor, and tell them I’ve got a golden story for them
Mmm. Hazier territory, but one could argue that counts as profiting from a crime (in the form of whacking off to it). Or maybe encouraging the commission of said crime ?
No, we’re not talking about a video game. We’re talking about what (if any) are reasonable limits on the concept of free speech. The video game was the catalyst for the discussion, but it is not the subject.
And if their competitor doesn’t give a shit, or worse, decides that the story about you being a child molester will sell better than the story about you not being a child molester, what do you do?
More to the point, let’s say that as a result of the original story being published, you are fired from your job. Your fiance breaks up with you, and your landlord has you evicted. You’ve suffered extraordinary financial and emotional harm because of this story. How does getting another paper to print a differing account serve to redress those losses?
I don’t know about the size of the niche or the methods of distribution - I have had discussions about both at GDC - a large game developer conference, with both Japanese and American producers. The audience may be large enough to be profitable, and distribution will eventually move online in a distributed fashion if it hasn’t already.
Make any niche of game illegal, and it will simply become peer to peer, encrypted, with everyone providing only a small part, a al bittorent protocol.
Nor anywhere else on earth either. Maybe libel and its defenses are not what you think they are. Libel laws vary by country. Maybe you can actually cite your claims in order to make them concrete.
It serves to expose the lie, and giving me the means to counter the baseless accusation. One paper says I’m a bad guy, the other says the first are lying liars who didn’t do the research, and prove it without a shred of doubt. I come out on top, don’t I ? Of course, people might still believe the first paper on account of “where there’s smoke”, but that kind of stinkin’ thinking survives a lawsuit.
Besides that, if my fiancée trusts a random unsourced newspaper over my word, good riddance ;). As to the other two, I dunno the legal situation in the US, but wouldn’t I be able to sue either my boss, my landlord or both of them under anti-discrimination laws ? It is illegal to fire someone for having a prison record, isn’t it ? And again, I fail to see how suing the newspaper for slander is giving me my job, house and girlfriend back…
But films are considered speech. So you accept that there can be limits on speech. Now, we have a starting point.
And, just for the record, there are thousands of videos showing many, many real crimes, that are protected. Simply saying that the speech involved showed the commission of a crime doesn’t seem to be the determining factor in whether it is protected or not.
Intriguing idea. But, as I pointed out, rights have always had limits, including when the exercise of those rights harms another person. The same is true of libel/slander. When the exercise of your “right” causes distinct and actual harm to another, it’s no longer a “right”. Or does my right to swing my arm not matter if it connects with your face?
Got google?
And, again, we’re back to the fact that much speech that shows a crime has been considered free speech.
We’re not talking about “usually”, you made an absolutist statement. You must defend it.
The idea is the same expressed earlier for advocating immediate lawless action being another limitation on free speech.
Rights are not absolute. They never have been, and, thankfully, they never will be. Rights are limited when the exercise of those rights effect others. And shouting FIRE in a crowded theater, spreading lies about someone else to their detriment, calling on people to immediately cause harm to others, or spreading child pornography are all reasonable limits on free speech.
In a nutshell, when the exercise of a “right” has the direct effect of harming another or society, it is reasonable to limit that right. The basic idea behind that is that actions are judged by their consequences, and negative consequences can be limited by the government. If you’re looking for more, I suppose we could spend a few years going over utilitarianism, libertarianism, and the entirety of social theory, but I thought my statements wouldn’t require that much detail.
And, again, it seems to me that using the term “reasonable limits” would kind of negate the idea of “absolutes” in favor for a case by case determination. To each their own.
You still haven’t addressed the question of what you do if you can’t convince a paper to publish your side of the issue.
So far as I’m aware, criminals are not a protected class, so no, you would not be able to sue your boss or your landlord.
Most lawsuits are over things that can’t be repaired by cash alone. That doesn’t invalidate the concept of suing for damages. But more to the point, the threat of a lawsuit serves as a potent deterrent against making libelous claims in the first place.
The only “claim” I’ve made that is open to citation is that libel and slander are, by definition, false. Do you actually need me to cite that? I thought it was fairly self-evident.
