Other than “because I say so” how is that the case constitutionally? They both are laws that criminalize speech because the state has decided “the people” find that speech offensive. The only difference you (and I) personally find the latter offensive, but not the former.
Fortunately in the US both are protected so we don’t have to worry that expressing an opinion we find important will be deemed “offensive” and banned.
It seems like if free speech helps your case, you’ll be for it. And vice-versa. I notice this changes depending on who is in power. Its sad… We should support free speech, especially when we don’t agree. The more I disagree with something, the more I want to know why, and with censorship, we never have a dialogue (one we always say we need, which is where the conversation usually ends). The online de-platforming is sad, too, because there is only one Twitter, or one Facebook (2 billion users). There is no public square anymore - social media has replaced a lot of it, and it depersonalizes humanity, as well as allow anonymous to troll, and its easier to be uncivil when you can’t see the face of the person on the other end; lack of empathy.
I want you to imagine something for me.
Imagine you’re at sime kind of political open mic. The guy ahead of you goes up, and says, “I hate people like MortSahlFan. They don’t belong in this country, they make me so mad. We shouldn’t tolerate them.” A non-trivial portion of the crowd cheers. You don’t know the people in the crowd, but you know a lot of people who hold opinions like that online have been very explicit in threatening violence against people like you, and that violence has broken out towards people like you on previous occasions.
Do you feel safe to get up on stage next?
In your example, if the haters are denied free speech, they do not cease to exist. They still hate MortSahlFan but he gets up in front of them unaware of who they are. He may “feel” safer by their speech being stifled but he is actually less safe because his enemies no longer do him the favor of identifying themselves.
In theory, sure. In practice, it sends a clear signal - “this is not okay and will not be tolerated”. And while you’ll always have hardline haters, there’s quite a few hangers-on who will leave the movement when it becomes clear that it’s not cool to be part of it - hangers-on who are crucial to defend the group against accusations of being a hate group and to disguise it as less radical and more mainstream than it is. Call it the “gamergate” dynamic. Deplatforming works.
The larger point I’m trying to get to is free speech as a positive liberty - if I technically have free speech but do not feel safe to speak, my right to free speech is kind of moot. And certain kinds of speech make others very unsafe indeed.
I don’t see a large step from this and making it illegal to criticize the President. After all, we have had four presidents assassinated and many other attempted assassinations. Violence against the president has throughout history been a non-partisan thing.
If we outlaw speech because some crazy person will hear it and do violence, then there really is not much left to political speech.
Contrary to the assertions, I don’t think that a ban of “hate speech” is an edge case at all. It goes to the core of the purpose of free speech protection. Once you have the government saying that X idea is just far too offensive to be said in public, then the door is opened for Y, Z, and A ideas to be banned.
All of the recognized restraints on speech like libel, true threats, incitement to violence, obscenity, etc. are only restrictions on methods of speech and leave the speaker with alternative ways to state his or her viewpoint.
The counterargument is that the people would never go so far as to ban criticism of the President, but the whole idea of basic rights is that these things are not up for a vote. It is a basic freedom that is outside the democratic process.
Please note that it wasn’t “MortSahlFan’s policies are dangerous and harmful and must be stopped”. It was “There’s something intrinsically dangerous about MortSahlFan.” There’s a significant difference between one’s politics and one’s skin color, in that you can change your politics. This is why anyone equating antifascists and fascists fundamentally does not understand at least one of those groups. (How do you get a fascist to stop wanting you dead? Ha ha good fucking luck. How do you get an antifascist to stop wanting you dead? Stop being a nazi.)
Germany has laws about this. “Volksverhetzung” is banned - an entire category of speech talking, first and foremost, about “crazy people hearing it and doing violence”. Or, more specifically:
Whosoever, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace:
[INDENT] incites hatred against a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or
assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning an aforementioned group, segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population, or defaming segments of the population,
shall be liable to imprisonment from three months to five years.[/INDENT]
The reason for this? Because our experience with hate speech shows that this kind of protection is crucially important. And thus far, we have yet to see much mission creep - it’s pretty much exclusively used on racist extremist groups and holocaust deniers. Mission fucking accomplished.
But… That door is already open. There is no venue in which I can say, “UltraVires fucks dogs, no seriously, this is not a joke, he actually rapes dogs, and we should probably stop him from doing that” (at least not as part of a bit - and to clarify, no, I do not actually believe this nor would I claim it seriously) and not be sanctioned. And that’s a good thing. No, I do not have an “alternative way” to state that viewpoint; there is no way for me to state that viewpoint that does not either make it clear that that’s a joke/not actually true, or opens me up to libel/slander accusations. Or maybe I’m wrong, in which case, by all means, enlighten me - I’m not the lawyer here.
But there are definitely things you just cannot say. “I’m going to hunt you down and murder you”; “We should kill person X”; “Person X fucks dogs”; et cetera. Hell, even joking about that shit can put you in legal hot water. And what hate speech laws do is put acts of speech that pose such threats to minorities in the “not okay” category.
And this is important, because, as it turns out, racist speech is very often chilling. If you do not feel safe to speak, the fact that you are technically free to speak is cold comfort indeed. This is what I’m talking about when I speak of a positive right to free speech. It’s not just “I am free to speak without government intervention”; it’s “I am free to speak and feel safe and empowered to speak freely.” A purely negative construction of free speech ignores that second part, and leaves a whole lot of people out in the cold. Restrictions on hate speech are not bad for free speech. They actively enable the speech of those who would otherwise be silenced. That’s a good thing.
Again, I fundamentally do not get what you’re talking about. Let’s say I want to start a rumor that you fuck your dog. In this hypothetical, I want people to genuinely believe that you regularly rape your household pets, and that action should be taken to prevent that. What “alternative way to state my viewpoint” is there that doesn’t open me up to legal proceedings? Because I honestly cannot think of one, short of doing it on 4chan, as the channer might put it, “behind seven proxies”, and even then it’s still illegal. :rolleyes:
But the fact that there are modern democracies doing just fine with plenty of protections against hate speech should tell you something, shouldn’t it? And the fact that they have those protections because they learned the hard way that not having them is incredibly dangerous.
That said, at this point I have to go to work, so I’m just going to leave you with the incredibly obvious low blow: “Honestly, I feel like any country that equates money with speech (and takes that to mean that it’s infringing against your freedom of speech if you cannot buy up every news station in the country and use it to broadcast right-wing propaganda) has absolutely no fucking business telling the rest of us how norms around free speech are supposed to work.”
A couple of points. It means little that it is okay to incite hatred against people who are capable of changing their views. The point is that those views are protected and are part of the political discourse, even if very offensive. Yes, a racist can see the light and become non-racist, or a Democrat can become a Republican.
Just because these countries have showed restraint so far doesn’t mean that a creative prosecutor cannot bring similar charges in the future, or that a legislature could not enact further laws in the future and base their decision on this type of law.
And again, just because this enforcement is confined to racists and holocaust deniers, it is a violation of basic human rights now WRT to those individuals. It is easy to protect speech that we really like; the test of our seriousness is when we apply it to positions that we don’t like or in fact abhor.
If a person wants to say that we need to bring back segregation because blacks have shown that they are incapable of acting properly in an integrated society, that is terribly offensive, but it is a political viewpoint that goes to the heart of what free speech is. You counter that with facts, statistics, and fierce counterargument, not prison.
Libel/slander law is fairly complicated, but Wikipedia gives it a shot: United States defamation law - Wikipedia
Libel/slander is something that has always been outside the protection of the First Amendment and is not even defined as free speech. So, to continue the hypo, you want to make the claim that I am committing bestiality with my dog. Several questions: Do you honestly believe that (for the purposes of the hypo) or are you saying it, knowing that it is false, in an attempt to harm my reputation? It would also matter how much of a public figure I am to determine whether such a statement is worth anything at all to the public discourse, even if true.
But even if it turns out that the statement is libelous and not protected speech, the point that you are attempting to make is that you don’t like me and I am a bad guy. There is nothing preventing you from doing that. The only thing that libel laws prohibit is you saying untrue things about me and/or that the information you are sharing is so private and of such little interest to others that the public dissemination of it harms my right to be left alone.
The first amendment, like all other amendments is not absolute. It doesn’t guarantee me the right to say anything I want anywhere I want, and is subject to historical exceptions. But to say that I hate someone or a group of people is fundamental to the right. It is not an exception.
True threats or threats of imminent lawless action are likewise outside the protections of free speech. If someone threatens to kill blacks or an individual black person, then they are protected just as anyone else. But the statement that, “Nazis had it right” or “Blacks are subhuman” are not these type of threats. They are not threats at all.
If an expression of an idea which does not contain a threat makes someone else feel unsafe to speak, then that is too bad. Speech should not be silenced because of a heckler’s veto.
The claim that I fuck my dog is not a “viewpoint,” it is an accusation. You can say what it is you are getting at about me without falsely claiming that I am having sex with my dog.
Again, they are not doing “just fine.” They are denying the right of free speech to their citizens. Free speech can indeed be dangerous, but we chartered a course over 200 years ago that freedom is better.
Counterpoint: fuck nazis.
Slightly less facetious counterpoint: not all political views are created equal. It is hardly “inciting hatred” to point out that Nazis will not be tolerated. It’s really fucking important for society to make it clear that Nazis will not be tolerated. And before you respond, make sure you understand the paradox of tolerance.
Look, we keep hitting this same stumbling block.
You: “Free speech is absolute! Allowing limitations on speech is a slippery slope to tyranny!”
Me: “But we already have limitations on speech.”
You: “Those don’t count because…”
…I’m gonna be honest, I don’t get that last part. The closest I can find to an actual reason in your post is this:
Wat
It’s speech. When I say, “Ultravires is fucking his dog right now”, it’s speech. It’s terribly offensive, and really quite nasty, but if it’s wrong, you counter with facts, statistics, and fierce counterargument, not prison. If the best you can argue is tradition, I don’t see that as a good argument.
Hmm, maybe the problem is that if your counterargument fails (despite being true), the results will be dreadful?
Hmm, couldn’t be that.
Why does any of that matter? It’s speech. It’s just words. I’m merely saying things. Things that are untrue, and which I know are untrue, but hey, if “we need to bring back segregation because blacks have shown that they are incapable of acting properly in an integrated society” is somehow “just speech”, I fail to see how “UltraVires fucks his dog” is not. Both are just as wrong and dishonest and fundamentally dangerous (to you in the latter case, to an entire demographic in the former). I don’t see a huge difference here, is my point. “Libel is not free speech” is not an argument any more than “Hate speech is not free speech” is an argument.
Given that the statement you gave as an example of political speech is untrue and harmful, I see this as a distinction without a difference.
Okay, let me amend my previous model of our conversation:
You: “Free speech is absolute! Allowing limitations on speech is a slippery slope to tyranny!”
Me: “But we already have limitations on speech.”
You: “Those don’t count because…”
Also you: “Free speech is not absolute”.
:smack:
Show me an actual distinction between hate speech and libel that actually explains why the former is obviously free speech to the point where we must legally protect it and the latter is obviously not. Because so far, you haven’t really offered much. There’s no good reason why it should be that way. It’s just “Ultravires says so”.
Buddy, according to your country, we’re “denying the right of free speech to our citizens” by preventing them from anonymously spending billions of dollars to influence elections. I’ll take my chances.
I feel like I’m repeating myself, and that’s because I am. So I’ll just copy-paste from my last post.
That said, at this point I have to go to bed, so I’m just going to leave you with the incredibly obvious low blow: “Honestly, I feel like any country that equates money with speech (and takes that to mean that it’s infringing against your freedom of speech if you cannot buy up every news station in the country and use it to broadcast right-wing propaganda) has absolutely no fucking business telling the rest of us how norms around free speech are supposed to work.”
Snip.
The basic idea of free speech is that the government is not in the business of saying that this political view is acceptable and that political view is not. It is even worse for the government to say that a political view “will not be tolerated.” I cannot imagine anyone who professes freedom to hold such a thing, no matter how bad the political view. That’s what free speech is for: to hear things we don’t like. It’s easy to “tolerate” views we agree with.
The distinction between hate speech and libel is that hate speech goes to the absolute heart of what free speech is about: protecting unpopular views. Telling a factual untruth about someone does not contribute to any exchange of ideas, it does not suppress any viewpoint, nor does it forbid you from saying that you don’t like me. You can vote against me, urge people to vote against me, tell people not to do business with me, or to avoid me at all costs. But what you cannot do is harm my reputation by spreading an objective falsehood.
Such a thing was never considered by the founders to be covered by “free speech.” Your argument that since we cannot make bomb threats then there are limits on speech and a limit on hate speech would just be another way does not hold any water. A prohibition on hate speech goes means that the government can suppress unpopular ideas: the very reason to have freedom of speech.
What will be your argument when criticism of President Trump is banned because such “will not be tolerated” by a majority? You would have no principle upon which to make that point.
All rights have exceptions. There are exceptions to the 4th Amendment. That doesn’t mean that we can just search neo-Nazi leaders’ homes without a warrant.
The “paradox of tolerance” is both bullshit and not a paradox. Unless you count the fact that if you believe in the “paradox of tolerance” then you should be OK with criminalizing stating the “paradox of tolerance”. As its clearly an expression of dangerous extremist views (namely the suppression of free speech) that are counter the principles of a free society. So in order to protect our free society we should ban people from talking about the “paradox of intolerance”. To let people free express that kind of extremism will only lead to totalitarianism.
The government is forbidden the use of prior restraint of your speech. That does not protect you from the consequences of your speech. Speech itself is not a justification, in support of, or restriction of actions of others. If I say “Pogon must die.” it does not serve as collusion for a murder. Primarily because I lack authority, or even influence necessary to meet the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt that I intended for someone or anyone to kill anyone.
If my boss tells me never to say that again, or I will be fired immediately, that does not violate my right of free speech. My boss is not the government. The First Amendment does not protect me from acts of private parties to shut me up. If I commit libel, I can be sued, or even charged by the government, after I commit libel. Inciting violence is illegal, but the reasonable man philosophy does apply to evidence in that case. But even in that case, prior restraint on my ability to scream “Into the Streets!” is forbidden to the government.
Nothing protects you from the consequences of your speech. There are laws against killing you, or threatening you or those you love. If those are done to prevent your speech, that is not an additional crime. Those things are otherwise illegal. Firing your ass because you are a Racist Nazi might or might not be subject to redress by lawsuit, but it isn’t illegal. The things I have said, or written in the past may be used as evidence to include “hate crime” in areas where those statutes exist. That isn’t prior restraint. It is possible that it should encourage prior restraint of the speaker, but that is voluntary.
Lying, verbally, or in print is not illegal. Nor is it protected from civil redress. Saying “I did not have sex with that woman.” isn’t a matter of legal significance if you are not under oath.
Those same things, in courts, before congress, or in sworn affidavits is illegal. There is prior restraint on that speech. You get advised about it when you sign or swear.
There is no case law, of which I am aware that deals with the possibility that offering a pardon before the fact of a felony would be a crime for a president, or governor. However, I don’t think such a case, in the event of a conviction of that president or governor would invalidate the pardon itself.
Tris
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. ~ Thomas Paine ~
So, if someone goes about and says, “Miller is a pedophile,” it’s not a violation of free speech to prosecute them, because that’s a lie that can harm me personally. But if they go around saying, “All queers are pedophiles,” that needs to be given the strongest constitutional support we can muster, despite being exactly the same lie, causing the exact same harm, but applied to even more people?
In order to be successful in a lawsuit for libel or slander, one has to prove actual damages, not “can harm me”.
Because the latter isn’t specific to one individual.
Otherwise, by that logic, pretty much all threads or speeches that “Republicans are bigots” would be a violation of free speech.