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Wow, UK has lost freedom of speech

arthwollipot said:
Not according to the UN, which does not use the word "incitement" except in a description of how hate speech goes beyond it.
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I don't give a rats arse what the UN says? They are not the World Police, they are not my government, they don't formulate or pass laws in my country, they have no enforcement powers, and nor should they.

The UN is wrong on a lot of things, and in any case, it is only an advisory body.

arthwollipot said:
Any one of them, in context, could be interpreted as a call for action against the targeted person and/or people. Which is why incitement cannot and must not be the sole defining feature of hate speech.
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I disagree vehemently and fundamentally with that view. Incitement to violence should be the ONLY criteria for suppressing speech.

arthwollipot said:
See, this is what you are missing. Context. Calling someone a slur once, in isolation, probably cannot be considered hate speech. But if you make an entire career out of belittling entire groups of people based on religion, ethnicity, nationality, skin colour, gender identity or sexuality, then you might be engaging in hate speech when you use those slurs.
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So? Should it be the government's job to Police the speech of social justice? Of course not? If you make a habit of using slurs all the time, you will become a social pariah. THIS is how you should be dealt with, not with some arbitrary law demanding your silence, and punishing you if you don't shut up.
If you allow this stuff to progress where does it end? - prison for calling someone a naughty name? Ten years ago, if someone told you that a child was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail for calling another student a retard, that a person was arrested for calling a man a man, or for standing in the street silently praying, or for burning a Qu'ran, or for calling a neighbour a bad name, or approached and detained by Police for waving an Israeli flag, they'd think you'd gone potty. These are now routine occurrences in the UK.

Once you start suppressing free speech and freedom of expression, you have started down a very slippery slope - one that can, and often does, inevitably lead to Totalitarianism.... Its STARTS with the kind of suppression that you and others here are supporting. Then it gets extended, and added to include other speech, and just a little more (punicment for using incorrect pronouns), and a little more (no criticising Islam). A few extra restrictions here (arrest for misgendering), a few more limits there (no insulting other people). Y'all are like a frog in a pot of water on the stove. You think everything is OK, until suddenly, its not OK anymore... and you've got Russia, China, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, East Germany under Ulbricht then Honecker, Chile under Pinochet, Argentina under Videla, Serbia under Milošević, Bosnia under Mladić. These are all counties that took, or have taken suppression of free speech to the ultimate level.

I have no particular wish to have my country ending up like any of those!!

arthwollipot said:
When you are repeatedly posting images on social media that, say, place specific named individuals in nooses on a hangman's gallows, to take just one of your examples, then you might be engaging in hate speech. When you are making speeches and posting tweets every day, all with the purpose of demeaning certain groups of people, then you might be engaging in hate speech.
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And yet when that is done repeatedly by the officially "favoured" group... nothing ever happens. But, do that as a member of the officially "non-favoured" group, you get arrested and thrown in jail.

arthwollipot said:
You're looking at the world in black and white. Either something is always a thing, or it is never a thing. A slur is always hate speech or it isn't. The world does not work that way. Context matters. Nuance matters. Details matter.
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No. In the world of speech this simply is not true.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
Yes, once they were in power the Nazi's did fully suppress free speech. But in Weimar they were defenders of free speech so they could claim all Jews sought to assault innocent blonde German girls. So they could run daily stories about how all Jews were secretly using baby blood from German children in hidden ceremonies. How all Jews were the cause of any societal ill at that time. And at the same time running stories about how in the old days Jews who did such things were violently expelled from cities and everything became milk and honey afterwards again.
But because they never directly called for violence against Jews or named specific people it was protected free speech.
And to use your words, the Jewish community at that time 'had a thick skin'. They accepted that it were 'just words and words did not hurt anyone'.
But in the meantime that relentless barrage of hate slowly poisoned the well, so that when the actual Holocaust started enough people went 'Well, I've read about it so often, there must be some truth to it' and looked away.

A nice current example is Twitter. Musk was THE critic of the company because it suppressed his (followers) right to spew hate speech. Once he was in power he suppressed everyone critical of him or the hate speech.
The Anti-vaxx movement is similar, decades of open and unopposed lies and people are welcoming back diseases as if it is a good thing.

I do understand your philosophy, but personally I feel it is as untenable. You assume some mythical Free Speech right that everyone shares.
In reality your philosophy is very open to abuse by the 'Free speech for me, but not for thee' crowd. Sure, both left and right have those with that idea, but it's the right in control of most media and who are in control of the US and seeking so in the UK. And their tactic is disturbingly similar to the Nazi one. The right wing press invents/exaggerates problems, repeats that on a daily basis and blames it on scapegoats. All free speech of course. But once they are in power free speech vanishes to a far greater degree than imposed by the laws you and Hercules56 so oppose.

So yeah, I do believe that hate speech laws by the government, tested by an independent judicial apparatus, will allow far freer speech than your model, which will lead to free speech as seen in Hungary, Russia and increasingly the US.
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Sorry, I just completely disagree with your assessment.
 
Hercules56 said:
Do you believe that hate speech that makes no reference to any violence, should face prison, fine, community service or some other sort of government enforced sanctions?
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Why do you think the right of hate speechers is sovereign over their targets? As for it being a crime I believe people should have the right of redress. How it should be done needs to be enshrined in statute - which in the UK are democratically decided laws by consent. So, we have the Equality Act effective in the workplace and extreme political movements proscribed. I don't see why you so strongly object to that. Perhaps, like Elon Musk you have a distorted view believing Lucy Conolly was imprisoned for a 'hurty feelings' tweet, when she actually pleaded guilty to a public disorder crime of inciting people to burn down asylum seeker hotels, which invariably include families with very young children. I find it rather suspect that you pretend you don't understand the issue.
 
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Hercules56 said:
Yeah, and some people here seem to think that the right to not be offended or have their feelings hurt is more important than freedom of speech.

And that is ridiculous.

We should not be wasting police and district attorney resources on investigating and prosecuting people for hurting people's feelings. No matter how rude and hateful the speech might be.
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Example please of wasting police and district attorney resources on investigating and prosecuting people for hurting people's feelings. No matter how rude and hateful the speech might be. It simply doesn't happen.
 
Hercules56 said:
If democracy, freedom, liberty, tolerance mutual respect, all the ideals I hold dear cannot win the battle for hearts and minds against Fascism, Communism, Islamism, and must instead rely on censorship and metaphorical book burning in order to win the game, then my ideals have already lost the war. :(


If you can't win through exchanging ideas and debate and argue, and must rely on censorship, what does that say?
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Oh it's 'censorship' now, is it? You've changed the parameters. In my experience it's people who lack debating skills, comprehension and have generally low-IQ who believe in censorship. You claim that your right to say obnoxious stuff is superior to the right of people you direct it at to seek redress. So we have all these macho guys strutting about telling females what they are allowed to think, do or say but any female objecting is considered an outrageous breach of a guy's right to be misogynistic, or a racist's right to spout racist invective.
 
smartcooky said:
I don't give a rats arse what the UN says? They are not the World Police, they are not my government, they don't formulate or pass laws in my country, they have no enforcement powers, and nor should they.

The UN is wrong on a lot of things, and in any case, it is only an advisory body.


I disagree vehemently and fundamentally with that view. Incitement to violence should be the ONLY criteria for suppressing speech.


So? Should it be the government's job to Police the speech of social justice? Of course not? If you make a habit of using slurs all the time, you will become a social pariah. THIS is how you should be dealt with, not with some arbitrary law demanding your silence, and punishing you if you don't shut up.
If you allow this stuff to progress where does it end? - prison for calling someone a naughty name? Ten years ago, if someone told you that a child was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail for calling another student a retard, that a person was arrested for calling a man a man, or for standing in the street silently praying, or for burning a Qu'ran, or for calling a neighbour a bad name, or approached and detained by Police for waving an Israeli flag, they'd think you'd gone potty. These are now routine occurrences in the UK.

Once you start suppressing free speech and freedom of expression, you have started down a very slippery slope - one that can, and often does, inevitably lead to Totalitarianism.... Its STARTS with the kind of suppression that you and others here are supporting. Then it gets extended, and added to include other speech, and just a little more (punicment for using incorrect pronouns), and a little more (no criticising Islam). A few extra restrictions here (arrest for misgendering), a few more limits there (no insulting other people). Y'all are like a frog in a pot of water on the stove. You think everything is OK, until suddenly, its not OK anymore... and you've got Russia, China, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, East Germany under Ulbricht then Honecker, Chile under Pinochet, Argentina under Videla, Serbia under Milošević, Bosnia under Mladić. These are all counties that took, or have taken suppression of free speech to the ultimate level.

I have no particular wish to have my country ending up like any of those!!


And yet when that is done repeatedly by the officially "favoured" group... nothing ever happens. But, do that as a member of the officially "non-favoured" group, you get arrested and thrown in jail.


No. In the world of speech this simply is not true.
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Logical fallacy of disproportionality. Nobody is being led away in handcuffs for calling a neighbour's child a 'retard'. The oppressive regimes you mention are the very same ones that insist on labelling people retards and undesirables. For example, mass sterilisation and enforced contraception regimes. These aren't regimes in favour of 'free speech'. Shee-eeesh, talk about poor logic.
 
smartcooky said:
I disagree vehemently and fundamentally with that view.
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Yeah, I can tell.

smartcooky said:
Incitement to violence should be the ONLY criteria for suppressing speech.
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As I have patiently explained on any number of occasions, there are many examples of "free" speech that are not explicitly incitements to violence, and yet are taken so by the audience.

Theo van Gogh did not incite violence when he produced his 2004 film Submission: Part 1. And he was murdered by an Islamist because of it. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote that film, also received death threats.

Sanal Edamaruku demonstrated that a local miracle could be explained by a leaky drain, did not incite violence, and yet was forced to flee the country to escape it.

Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Benazir Bhutto, Jo Cox - all people who spoke out against violence and yet violence was done against them because of what they said.

Incitement to violence cannot and must not be the ONLY criteria that defines hate speech. Different groups of people will take different things as incitement. Drawing Mohammed or burning a Quran or an American flag has been taken by some as incitement. I think you would agree that none of those things incite violence, yet they are held by violent people are excuses for violence.

Your binary, black-and-white philosophy fails in the real world.
 
Hercules56 said:
Just stop it already.

But nice strawman.

We are now talking about murdering innocent people, absent of any criminal conviction or social misdeads.

Not sentencing someone to death after committing a heinous crime and being convicted by a jury and exhausting the appeal process.
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The laws that someone is campaigning for could have checks to ensure only certain mentally ill people are put to death, for example those that are deemed to be a danger to society but have committed no heinous crime, allow for an appeal system and review by a jury. Would that then change your mind?

WIth what you have stated so far you actually agree with my view that Nazis' should not have freedom of speech.
 
Hercules56 said:
Executing somebody for a crime after they have been convicted by a jury and exhausted the appeals process, it's not what we are talking about.

It is not the same as walking around with a sign saying "murder my next door neighbor!!!"

You can stop now.
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It wouldn't be murder, it would like the current death sentence be a legal remedy.
 
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smartcooky said:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
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WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.
 
Hercules56 said:
If democracy, freedom, liberty, tolerance mutual respect, all the ideals I hold dear cannot win the battle for hearts and minds against Fascism, Communism, Islamism, and must instead rely on censorship and metaphorical book burning in order to win the game, then my ideals have already lost the war. :(


If you can't win through exchanging ideas and debate and argue, and must rely on censorship, what does that say?
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That Nazis have shown that they will use the idea that we should be tolerant of all free speech to gain power and kill millions for the crime of existing.
Darat said:

WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.
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I like that quote as it is is very Pratchett or Douglas Adams.
 
smartcooky said:
That is NOT what I said. Stop mischaracterizing what I say!
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You said: Declaring an organisation to be terrorist in the US only prevents you from materially supporting them.

Hercules said: Absolutely not. It is not a crime to support Antifa.

You said it was, he said it wasn't.
 
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