4 ms·

I recently did a lot of research into this as part of a project. As far as actual laws on the books (and not whatever one's political opinion of how they tend t

I recently did a lot of research into this as part of a project. As far as actual laws on the books (and not whatever one's political opinion of how they tend to be applied), the U.S. isn't just "one of" - it is literally the only country in the world matching descriptions like "first-world", "liberal", and "democratic", that does not have some variety of broad, nation-level laws against insulting people or groups of people. Aside from the U.S., only a handful of completely random small countries happen to lack such laws. So, as far as I can tell, the U.S. is practically unique in having the most liberal free speech protections, and actually unique among any countries that could be considered peers.

2bitencryption 10y ago
this is sort of an aside, but even though I wish other countries practiced the same degree of freedom of speech as the US, I think the Germans ban on Naziism might be a valid exception in my book. I only bring it up because I think of it quite a lot. When that is part of your national history and identity, I think there's a good reason for banning that practice and behavior. Even if it violates free speech. To practice those ideals in the same country where those crimes were committed can do no service to anyone; there is no good outcome, no valid reasoning. It can only harm everyone. That's just about the only "exception" to free speech I can think of that holds up, though I still do question where you CAN have exceptions. Kind of like with encryption, you can't say "it's secure BUT..." you can't say "we have free speech BUT..."