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No, it isn't misleading. "Universities could face fines for failing to uphold free speech if their student unions do not give a platform to speakers such as Ger
by vixen99 9y ago
No, it isn't misleading. "Universities could face fines for failing to uphold free speech if their student unions do not give a platform to speakers such as Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell, the higher education minister has said.". Such behaviour if it occurred would be 'disallowing free speech' and might be dealt with accordingly as described in the article.
Your second paragraph epitomises the problem highlighted by the minister. It seems that you seek to judge free speech by considerations aside from its legality. I am not aware that Voltaire added a qualification to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
- emn13 9y agoIt's misleading not because it's false (it's not!), but because it's selectively leaving out context. The original title is better. I'm not saying there's no free speech dimension here, just that the original (since-corrected) hacker-news title was more click bait than accurate summary.
- observation 9y agoThis is the thing, the laws in the USA and UK already have provisions for death threats, so when you have to fall back on hate speech or hate crime it is not clear at all that 'hate' isn't merely an appellation that denotes 'people we don't like'. We talk of dog whistles, but the phrases hate speech and hate crime are also some kind of whistle. If there is a crime, then there exists a law to deal with it. What then does the 'hate' add? Subjectivity and political bias in my opinion. When I see my ideological enemy I don't get good feelings about them either, but they have the privilege of being able to talk, that should be what is right.