So firstly the mandatory disclaimer: free speech is about freedom from government restrictions on speech, Twitter or SDMB, or any other private entity deciding they don’t want to publish your speech is not a restriction on free speech (in fact it’s Twitter, SDMB, practicing their free speech right to decide what speech they promote)
But in terms of actual free speech restrictions and how it’s a bad idea look no further than the UK. The lack of a well defined concise freedom of speech under the British constitution has meant outright cut and dried infractions on freedom of speech by the government are now common place. I could cite numerous examples but this one appeared on my social media feed this morning. The Home Secretary has stated she believes: “'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world”, and should be prosecuted under hate speech laws.
“It is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern. I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offense.
That is about as blatant infraction of freedom of speech as you can get, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is about as protected as protected speech can be, and does not come close being a threat or anything else that could (or should) be a justification for prosecuting it.
This is not some right wing blow hard running their mouth about some massively unconstitutional thing they think should happen but will never come close to becoming law (of which the US has plenty), this is the home secretary instructing police to prosecute people for this (not to mention it would not be a particularly radical departure from the types of things that have been prosecuted or arrested for in the UK in recent years, e.g: this or this).
If a phrase is used to call for the elimination of a state then it becomes a problem. That seems like a clear and direct incitement to harm. Is that what this phrase is doing? Not always, but definitely sometimes.
To suggest that the phrase is completely harmeless and unthreatening seems very short-sighted indeed. The briefest of research will let you see how it can be used with both benign and malignant intent.
Certainly it is used by Hamas on a regular basis in various forms and Hamas do not accept the right of Israel to exist. In the mouths of Hamas and its supporters is is very likely to be a call for the elimination of the Israeli state.
If only speech that is completely harmless and unthreatening is protected then you don’t really have freedom of speech.
None of which makes it a threat. “bad people say this thing” is not a reason to ban speech. Or more specifically if “bad people say this thing” is part of your criteria for banning speech then you don’t have freedom of speech in any meaningful sense.
Whatever the context “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not a threat and should absolutely 100% be protected speech. This is a classic example of why a unambiguous open ended protection of free speech like the 1st Amendment is a good idea. The US judiciary and political system is a raging poo-filled dumpster fire right now, but not even the most extreme Trump appointed judge would allow something like this to stand.
It really does not. Your logic is fundamentally flawed. If bad group of people A make threats and also say thing X, and sometimes they even say thing X immediately after making threats. That does not make thing X a threat. A generic inspirational slogan calling for the freedom for a geographically based group of people, is about as a fundamental as political speech gets. It is not in any sense of word “a threat”
It really isn’t, seeing as I’m not trying to use logic in any technical sense.
What I am doing is telling you how a phrase can be used.
In particular, I’m telling you how this specific phrase is used, on a regular basis, to threaten an ethnic group with annihilation.
Remember, I’m agreeing with you that this phrase should not be banned and should not carry and legal ramifications. I set a very high bar for such things.
I’ve always been pretty good with the restrictions in US law as the SCOTUS has interpreted them. The problem is always with speech that may cause people harm. We have reasonable restrictions on threats, calls to action, and fraud. There are some tough calls like child porn. It’s considered illegal when it includes photos or videos of children where someone was committing a crime to produce that material in the first place. I can’t think of a sufficiently horrible torture that anyone who makes or traffics that porn should endure so I’ll just live with the current laws. The big problem is code language intended to harm people when used in valid speech if taken literally. But that is the price of democracy. Restrictions on the content of speech impermissible speech easily turn into restrictions on any speech so we have to tolerate a lot to keep our freedom.
On what basis, then, do you support that phrase being legal and not, say, “Murder every Israeli you see”? Or perhaps you would not ban that, either. You said the phrase was a “clear and direct incitement to harm,” at least in certain circumstances. Supposing we accept that, what distinguishes it from other calls to violence?
Honestly? it is subjective. I can’t give you a clear bright line which is why I err on the side of not restricting speech unless it is clear incitement to harm, the intent is the key. I’d prefer to police the menace and intent not the words used.
I do have evidence of that specific phrase being used with both a benign and a malign intent. Groups such as Hamas use it with a clear ethnic cleansing meaning. Others do not so it clearly can be used in a perfectly reasonable way. Just like, “you have a lovely family there”
“murder every Israeli you see” seems somewhat less ambiguous both in meaning and common usage (not that I’ve ever heard it in the wild).
But I freely admit that none of this is particularly neat or leads to perfect outcomes. In my world arseholes get to say horrible things without being arrested for it.
That seems like a more complicated way to achieve the same outcome. Why not just say that unambiguously violent language is banned, and leave ambiguous statements alone?
There’s still some context dependence, of course–the statements have to be a call to action rather than some lesser usage–but it seems like it makes everything more difficult if any statement can be considered a potential call to violence under the right circumstances.
It is complicated, defintely. But what exactly are you considering to be “the same outcome”?
I’d say language that is unambiguously violent in intent should definitely be subject to legal sanction but the mere words uttered do not give you the ability to come to such a conclusion.
In this case, that “Murder every Israeli you see” should be banned, while “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should not be. The straightforward view (to my mind) is that the first can be banned because it is an unambiguous call to violence, whereas the second should not be banned because it contains no such language. Your view seems to be that the second is still a call to violence, but it shouldn’t be banned because it falls under some fuzzy personal threshold. While some fuzziness is inevitable, I see no reason to incorporate it for no reason.
No you are telling me the other phrases that are sometimes used alongside this one that threaten an ethnic group with annihilation, that doesn’t say anything about whether this phrase is a threat.
If healthcare extremists were going around saying “We believe universal healthcare should be free for all, and so we are going to murder anyone who doesn’t believe in universal healthcare” that would not make the phrase “We believe universal healthcare should be free for all” a threat.
Canadian hate speech laws have been used to protect gays from a political candidate campaigning on the idea that all gays should be killed.
The laws have also been used to protect Roma from crowds that were protesting that Roma should not be allowed to enter the country, or be accepted as refugees (demonstrating exactly the type of conduct that may make Roma refugees).
The use of violent speech aimed at particular minorities is part of the process that can lead to genocide. Normalise the hate, then normalise the violence. And in the worst cases, that can lead to Kristallnacht and Hotel Rwanda.
I just don’t think it is that simple. You would still be taking context into account for both of those phrases. That subjective assessment will need to be done at some point.
Do I think it is less likely that the former would be used with non-threatening intent? Yes. But I still don’t want to live in a society where context and intent are irrelevant and runs your proposed legal system that considers it sufficient that a certain sequence of words were spoken or written.
No, my view is that the phrase can and has been used as a call to violence.
The phrase isn’t realistically bannable because it also can and has also been used in a non-threatening way.
If that’s what you consider fuzzy then I’m happy to accept the charge. It is. I want my legal system to be fuzzy.
Yes, I agreed with this point above. After all, I used violent words above, but they weren’t used as a call to violence, but rather just to make a discussion point. Context matters.
Where it seems we differ is that I think any call to violence has to contain actually violent language. If it doesn’t–even if it’s somehow meant in that way–then it’s not actually a call to violence.
If someone really believes that Israel must be destroyed, should we ban all of their speech relating to Israel? After all, everything they say ultimately supports their position that Israel should be destroyed, no matter how ambiguously they put it. It is all, by your standard, a call to violence.
So what other “evidence” do you have that proves the “malign” rather than “benign” intent of the phrase, if not the other things that were said alongside it? The expression of the speaker? The fact it was said with an Arabic accent?
The other point that strikes me about this discussion is that no-one is actually taking an absolutist free speech position.
Posters are willing to accept that the courts have the ability to determine an imminent threat of violence. That will require some subjective analysis, based on the scope of the law, the words used, the context in which they are used. Courts are apparently trusted with that task, and without concerns that they will use that restriction on free speech for political reasons.
I think posters are willing to accept that defamation is an acceptable limit on free speech. Courts are apparently trusted to make the subjective determination whether words have injured a person’s reputation or livelihood, and do not appear to be concerned that courts will allow defamation suits to be used for political purposes.
Yes, hate speech laws involve the application of legal standards to words, in the context in which they are used, for a determination whether the speech meets the legal standard for hate speech. Why do people use absolutist language to oppose that, when there are other examples where the courts are trusted to do that type of inquiry?
Civil hate speech laws have close connection to defamation laws: they are aimed at group defamation, rather than defamation of an individual. Why are defamation laws to protect individuals acceptable, but not defamation laws to protect groups? Why is it so quickly assumed that a group defamation law will be turned into a political weapon? Why the lack of trust in the courts in this area, but not for other legal restrictions on speech?
On the other hand, why give courts more power than required?
Defamation is a good example. In the US, truth is an absolute defense for defamation. There’s no fuzziness at all: if what you said was true, then it doesn’t matter how much you damaged a person’s reputation, or how much you otherwise harmed them–it is not defamation.
Not all countries are the same. Truth may be part of the defense, but it’s not absolute. Or the burden of proof may apply to the defendant. People sometimes go court shopping in different countries to take advantage of this
So while acknowledging that there will be some fuzziness at the edges, I’d rather have some bright lines in the law.