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No. Europe has had hate-speech laws for a while—separate from libel laws which are a totally different story. What makes "hate speech" specific is its broad rec

No. Europe has had hate-speech laws for a while—separate from libel laws which are a totally different story. What makes "hate speech" specific is its broad recognition by an overwhelming portion of the population (including historians), with facts & events to back up its consequences. It's very different from "you said something that hurts my feelings", and it's purposely narrow in its scope.

throwawaywonk 9y ago
Speech on its own has no consequences. I'm on a phone so please do look up Brandenburg v. Ohio and the Brandenburg incitement test. Basically, the opinion of the courts since like 1969 has been that even "hateful" speech is protected because advocating some kind of lawlessness is not the same as actually encouraging or engaging in lawlessness. Do also remember that for most of England and America's history, it wasn't "harmful" speech being punished, it was any speech that the ruling class deemed wrong. In America, this was overwhelmingly left-wig speech. Communists, anarchists, union activists, even pacifists were jailed under such laws as the Espionage Act of 1917. I'm not willing to put enough faith in the vagaries of public opinion to gamble free speech, and neither are American lawyers or historians. Furthermore, who would police such speech? Given how, for example, police in Charlottesville stood back and let the fascists and antifascists beat the stuffing out of each other, can you really imagine the State protecting speech such as "kill all landlords" and "fuck laws" and "smash capitalism" if it were suddenly legal to disallow certain types of political speech?
DarkKomunalec 9y ago
I was unable to find polls directly on 'hate speech', but http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen... says 49% support limiting offensive speech, and 46% oppose such limits, in the EU - hardly an 'overwhelming' portion.

throwawaywonk 9y ago

Speech on its own has no consequences. I'm on a phone so please do look up Brandenburg v. Ohio and the Brandenburg incitement test. Basically, the opinion of the courts since like 1969 has been that even "hateful" speech is protected because advocating some kind of lawlessness is not the same as actually encouraging or engaging in lawlessness. Do also remember that for most of England and America's history, it wasn't "harmful" speech being punished, it was any speech that the ruling class deemed wrong. In America, this was overwhelmingly left-wig speech. Communists, anarchists, union activists, even pacifists were jailed under such laws as the Espionage Act of 1917. I'm not willing to put enough faith in the vagaries of public opinion to gamble free speech, and neither are American lawyers or historians. Furthermore, who would police such speech? Given how, for example, police in Charlottesville stood back and let the fascists and antifascists beat the stuffing out of each other, can you really imagine the State protecting speech such as "kill all landlords" and "fuck laws" and "smash capitalism" if it were suddenly legal to disallow certain types of political speech?

DarkKomunalec 9y ago

I was unable to find polls directly on 'hate speech', but http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen... says 49% support limiting offensive speech, and 46% oppose such limits, in the EU - hardly an 'overwhelming' portion.