5 ms·

Man charged for 'liking' photo of murdered French teacher

50 points by baybal2 6y ago

dmitrygr 6y ago
This is a tough thing to form an opinion on. Clearly Islam, if followed to the letter, is incompatible with the modern world, and this need to be made clear to anyone who wants to live in a modern country in the modern world. Hell, nor is Christianity, if taken literally. But it has adapted slowly, and Christians no longer kill non-Christians on the streets for blashpemy. On the other hand, I support freedom of speech, and liking something is speech. To me, I think, that matters more. So I choose to be unhappy at this news. IMHO, he had every right to like it. Just like Nazis had every right to march through Skokie [1]. I find it despicable, but that is precisely what freedom of speech protects: things I find despicable and would rather not see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am... edit: downvoted to hell, predictably. Everyone loves freedoms, unless they are of something they dislike
- mdifrgechd 6y ago
  In some ways the whole thing supports a classic argument for free speech: better people know this guy had that kind of opinion (the "like") and intervene, either though anti radicalization programs or at worst keeping an eye on him. If he keeps his views private or underground, we only learn about them when he does something really bad.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    This is a perspective I have not seen before. It's very interesting. I've always viewed freedom of speech from a purely personal liberty perspective but you are right that it also creates an opportunity for the rest of society to hear and react to that speech. For better or worse. I'm not totally comfortable with this because it creates a situation in which people may be compelled to speak or reproduce the speech of others for the supposed benefit to society. This is a very interesting perspective I will continue to consider.
- mulmen 6y ago
  Well unsavory opinions are more of an unavoidable side effect of freedom of speech, not the intent. If the only benefit of freedom of speech was to offend other people it wouldn't be much of a foundation of civilization. Sometimes it is important to make people uncomfortable in the name of progress. Sometimes people take advantage of that to be trolls. The two are inseparable and to a generic outside observer indistinguishable. But the real reason for freedom of speech is purely to preserve individual liberty and remove any value judgement on the part of society. The only time it is ok to limit speech is when it poses a risk of real harm to others.
- recuter 6y ago
  > He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. > Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. Spare me. This has nothing to do with the technicalities of free speech. A right incidentally that Islamists who cut peoples heads off don't accept. It is certainly rational to arrest someone for screaming they are about to kill rather than waiting for them to go through with it.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    > screaming they are about to kill Was there another story?
  - dmitrygr 6y ago
    > It is certainly rational to arrest > someone for screaming they are > about to kill With you so far. But the guy in the story did not do that...
    - recuter 6y ago
      > He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. > Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. I'm all for free speech and I understand slippery slopes and don't approve of thought policing. My reading of this article is that they had sufficient evidence to arrest him, technicalities and legalities aside.
      - dmitrygr 6y ago
        I have several knives and weapons at my house. And "endorse" is a slippery word. Hell, my comment above could be construed as endorsing this guy (by refusing to condemn him loudly enough). Thus, transitively, I can be said to have endorsed this killing. Should I be arrested?
        6y ago
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  > Christians no longer kill non-Christians on the streets for blashpemy. Tell this to all the gay and trans people who are very much killed in the streets in places like the US. (I'm not saying Christians do all the violence against lgbtq people or that all Christians are complicit in said violence. I'm just pointing out that the parent's claim that Christians don't do this any more is not correct.)
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    No, gay and trans people are not being killed for blasphemy.
    - sidlls 6y ago
      They have most certainly been killed in the US because they violate the murderers’ view of religious rules. It may not be technically correct to say they’ve been killed (strictly) for blasphemy, but that’s nitpicking in my view.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      They've been killed for religious reasons related to what was perceived as sinning. Blasphemy has many definitions, and I believe that what you've suggested is a distinction without a difference.
      - howlgarnish 6y ago
        Blasphemy is quite narrowly defined as insulting a deity or sacred objects. "Sinning" is not blasphemy, and homosexuality is not blasphemous unless you're involving religious objects in sexual activities. For an example of actual blasphemy that riled up a lot of Christians in the US, see Serrano's Piss Christ. Although to the best of my knowledge nobody was killed because of it.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Do you have any data on that? I’m very skeptical that this could be happening without the media blowing it up.
- nicolas_t 6y ago
  Any fundamentalism be it Islamic, Christian (Klu Klux Klan, westboro baptism, lgbt murders), Buddhist (Rohingya killed by Buddhists in Myanmar) is incompatible with the modern world. Not just Islam. The problem is not religion, it's that some fundamentalists who are not right in the head use it as an excuse to commit horrifying acts.
  - rcstank 6y ago
    Westboro Baptists are fundamentalists? I’d say they’re hateful, not fundamentalists as they preach that God hates people which is not what the Bible says.
    - leephillips 6y ago
      I must have a different translation from yours.
    - vaidhy 6y ago
      Isn’t it just that their interpretation and your interpretation of bible are different? They claim that their position is a literal interpretation of the book. They are fundamentalist by the same reason Wahhabism is the fundamental strain of Islam.
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    As an atheist, I never really understood how a religious person can not be a fundamentalist. Isn't that just reading the book and doing exactly as it says, which is required by the God? I don't get how people disregard sections of the books and still consider themselves members. How much of the book can be ignored before you are no longer following the religion in peoples eyes?
    - mdifrgechd 6y ago
      Atheism is a very strong stance. Consider that not everybody needs to think in such absolutes.
- illys 6y ago
  " I support freedom of speech, and liking something is speech" Freedom, liberty have limits. The limits are cultural and ruled by law. In France, the freedom of speech must respect individuals and allows to mock ideas and ideologies. And religions are ideologies. If people feel offended when their ideas are criticized or mocked, they are not supposed to kill: they have to adapt, or if in doubt they are personally attacked, they can address a tribunal to settle the case. Liking a murder is not an opinion or a speech, it is personally attacking the victim and his relatives. "Clearly Islam, if followed to the letter, is incompatible with the modern world (...) Hell, nor is Christianity, if taken literally." Not sure about this: all religions have specificities and different reference texts. Of course christians and muslims are humans, and humans kill when reaching extreme conditions. However christians are in violation of their texts when killing. Not in Islam: muslims are in line with their prophet life (hadith "who leaves the Religion, kill him!") and Koran, a book written by God himself. Koran is quite a bloody book describing severe rules, xenophobia for non-muslims, slaughters, slavery, explicitly allowing wife-beating... And being written by God, not a word can be challenged by moderates to stop extremists: they would just put themselves in the blasphemy list for being murdered. Some muslims try to unlock Islam from these deadlocks. However it usually brings them to harsh times, a lifetime in jail in the best case (Raif Badawi), or being murdered (Mahmoud Mohammed Taha). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Mohammed_Taha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Mohammed_Taha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Badawi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Badawi
jtsiskin 6y ago
“A young man who "liked" a gruesome Twitter picture showing French teacher Samuel Paty after he was murdered has been charged with glorifying terrorism... ... But in France, which has a long tradition of satirising religion, they are seen as symbolic of free speech.” Free speech, or no free speech?
- k2enemy 6y ago
  Yes, there is a certain irony that his criminal charges seem to be a violation of free speech.
- jwagenet 6y ago
  >But in France, which has a long tradition of satirising religion, [Depictions of the Prophet Mohammed] are seen as symbolic of free speech.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  In France? Freedom of expression is somewhat less than in the US, and is biased towards secularism. So yes, blasphemy is protected while expression involving violence or religion is more limited.
  - soco 6y ago
    Maybe also because blasphemous cartoons don't kill people.
- staticautomatic 6y ago
  Does France also charge people with crimes for liking Weegee photographs?
- rcstank 6y ago
  I think free speech stops at the point where a photo of a severed head is posted by the murderer and people “liking” it as well.
  - khazhoux 6y ago
salamimonger 6y ago
"He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. The man denied being radicalised, Chevallier added."
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Very important context.
- mrits 6y ago
  "Several knives and other weapons were found at his home" What kind of horrible person would keep knives in their home?
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Some of the British "deadly weapon" arrests read like a parody to me, crazy how different cultural views on these things can be. I regularly carried worst than most of them when I was 12.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      Here in rural US, I got my first knife when I was 6 and my first rifle when I was 10. It really is a different world, lol
      - thatguy0900 6y ago
        I tried to make it a point to have the scariest knife in my boy scout troop lol. I got my dad to buy me one of the big hollow handle survival knifes after I saw Rambo, I took that thing everywhere
        mrits 6y ago
        The one with the compass on the end and you can hide stuff in?
Cantbekhan 6y ago
At some point I think we have to consider the view of Karl Popper: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." The problem remains as who defines what is intolerant. But in this case I think the argument is sound. This like was clearly endorsement. And the act was inexcusable no matter how offended anyone can be in their religion.
- chromatin 6y ago
  > suppress them ... by force The trouble is deciding who gets to wield that force
  - fergbrain 6y ago
    By definition it’s the state (whomever the state allows), since they have a monopoly on force.
    - robotresearcher 6y ago
      Which means as ever it's super important to maintain and preferably improve democratic processes to keep the state accountable for that terrible responsibility. Also, vote!
  - mulmen 6y ago
    The "who" is pretty easy, it's the state. Who they wield it on and to what extent is the open question.
lliamander 6y ago
What does "liking" on a social platform like Twitter even mean? When you only have a limited range of reacting to to something (like, retweet, comment) a lot of complex reactions often get lumped together.
- salamimonger 6y ago
  This is important. Without any of the other context(that could be found in the article), this case sounds absurd. What does it mean to like something on social media? Am I liking something because I endorse x, or because I abhor x, and want more people to see it? I think a distinction could be made by having a "bump" button in addition to like/dislike.
- oblio 6y ago
  There is one correct move. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything. As they say, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Actually applying the golden rule would probably be the death of social media's business model
  - megous 6y ago
    Life shouldn't be lived as if you're talking to a police officer all the time.
    - oblio 6y ago
      When you're up voting a beheading, it definitely should. I'm dismayed I need to spell this out.
      - megous 6y ago
        I was responding to a suggested general rule.
idoubtit 6y ago
In France, it's not only about what you say or "like". Over the last decade, several men have been sentenced to 2 years of jail for what they read ("consultation régulière de site terroristes" / regularly visiting terrorist web sites). This is no surprise to anyone who knows how the French law evolved in recent years. A NGO even wrote that legislation in France was more repressive than in Turkey (the law texts, not the legal application).
- leephillips 6y ago
  Without looking into the case, I have to say this seems quite depressing, especially for what most people still think of as a free society. What about a journalist or scholar, who may be monitoring these groups? You can be jailed merely for watching what they are up to, without participating or endorsing them?
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    I'd wager the law is written more as a way to be able to charge people who the authorities are concerned about but haven't provably done anything yet. Not that that's much better but that's the slightly more reasonable application of the law. There's been several times where the people who've gone on to do attacks were known to whatever the national security services were but hadn't been caught actually planning the thing. It's the kind of law that'd be great in a world where government is and could be guaranteed to always be run by angels and saints but is absolutely untenable in the real world.
- seszett 6y ago
  > consultation régulière de site terroristes As far as I know, that was struck down in 2017 as unconstitutional though.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Why would anyone want this to be illegal? It does two things - offends people (you have no right to not be offended, and this is a good thing), and, broadcasts a signal that this is not someone you want to be involved with, not someone you want to hire, and someone who authorities can keep an eye on. Letting such people out themselves seems to be more beneficial then letting them lurk in polite society.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Put simply, a large population of public support continually creates a small stream of people willing to turn ideas into violent action. You can’t get in front of the first time violent offenders before they do things, and there doesn’t seem to be much you can do to disincentivize them so you have to go after the publicly expressed ideas.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  Because the people who "like" calls to genocide and murder, and stockpile weapons... are the kind of people that you don't want running around in society? It's not like they are arrest everyone who liked this photo. Just this one particular person who showed a pattern of behavior that advocates murder.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Letting such people out themselves seems to be more beneficial then letting them lurk in polite society. Removing them from society is the best course of action, which is what France seems to try to do right now.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    I would argue that they removed the first one who was dumb enough to out themselves with a like button click. There are many more who will just keep a lower profile. Regardless, I just can’t bring myself to accept the idea that clicking a thumbs up emoji can send you to prison. I don’t care how bad the picture is. That doesn’t sit right.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

50 points by baybal2 6y ago

This is a tough thing to form an opinion on. Clearly Islam, if followed to the letter, is incompatible with the modern world, and this need to be made clear to anyone who wants to live in a modern country in the modern world. Hell, nor is Christianity, if taken literally. But it has adapted slowly, and Christians no longer kill non-Christians on the streets for blashpemy. On the other hand, I support freedom of speech, and liking something is speech. To me, I think, that matters more. So I choose to be unhappy at this news. IMHO, he had every right to like it. Just like Nazis had every right to march through Skokie [1]. I find it despicable, but that is precisely what freedom of speech protects: things I find despicable and would rather not see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am... edit: downvoted to hell, predictably. Everyone loves freedoms, unless they are of something they dislike

mdifrgechd 6y ago
In some ways the whole thing supports a classic argument for free speech: better people know this guy had that kind of opinion (the "like") and intervene, either though anti radicalization programs or at worst keeping an eye on him. If he keeps his views private or underground, we only learn about them when he does something really bad.
- mulmen 6y ago
  This is a perspective I have not seen before. It's very interesting. I've always viewed freedom of speech from a purely personal liberty perspective but you are right that it also creates an opportunity for the rest of society to hear and react to that speech. For better or worse. I'm not totally comfortable with this because it creates a situation in which people may be compelled to speak or reproduce the speech of others for the supposed benefit to society. This is a very interesting perspective I will continue to consider.
mulmen 6y ago
Well unsavory opinions are more of an unavoidable side effect of freedom of speech, not the intent. If the only benefit of freedom of speech was to offend other people it wouldn't be much of a foundation of civilization. Sometimes it is important to make people uncomfortable in the name of progress. Sometimes people take advantage of that to be trolls. The two are inseparable and to a generic outside observer indistinguishable. But the real reason for freedom of speech is purely to preserve individual liberty and remove any value judgement on the part of society. The only time it is ok to limit speech is when it poses a risk of real harm to others.
recuter 6y ago
> He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. > Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. Spare me. This has nothing to do with the technicalities of free speech. A right incidentally that Islamists who cut peoples heads off don't accept. It is certainly rational to arrest someone for screaming they are about to kill rather than waiting for them to go through with it.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > screaming they are about to kill Was there another story?
- dmitrygr 6y ago
  > It is certainly rational to arrest > someone for screaming they are > about to kill With you so far. But the guy in the story did not do that...
  - recuter 6y ago
    > He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. > Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. I'm all for free speech and I understand slippery slopes and don't approve of thought policing. My reading of this article is that they had sufficient evidence to arrest him, technicalities and legalities aside.
    - dmitrygr 6y ago
      I have several knives and weapons at my house. And "endorse" is a slippery word. Hell, my comment above could be construed as endorsing this guy (by refusing to condemn him loudly enough). Thus, transitively, I can be said to have endorsed this killing. Should I be arrested?
      - 6y ago
Pfhreak 6y ago
> Christians no longer kill non-Christians on the streets for blashpemy. Tell this to all the gay and trans people who are very much killed in the streets in places like the US. (I'm not saying Christians do all the violence against lgbtq people or that all Christians are complicit in said violence. I'm just pointing out that the parent's claim that Christians don't do this any more is not correct.)
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  No, gay and trans people are not being killed for blasphemy.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    They have most certainly been killed in the US because they violate the murderers’ view of religious rules. It may not be technically correct to say they’ve been killed (strictly) for blasphemy, but that’s nitpicking in my view.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    They've been killed for religious reasons related to what was perceived as sinning. Blasphemy has many definitions, and I believe that what you've suggested is a distinction without a difference.
    - howlgarnish 6y ago
      Blasphemy is quite narrowly defined as insulting a deity or sacred objects. "Sinning" is not blasphemy, and homosexuality is not blasphemous unless you're involving religious objects in sexual activities. For an example of actual blasphemy that riled up a lot of Christians in the US, see Serrano's Piss Christ. Although to the best of my knowledge nobody was killed because of it.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Do you have any data on that? I’m very skeptical that this could be happening without the media blowing it up.
nicolas_t 6y ago
Any fundamentalism be it Islamic, Christian (Klu Klux Klan, westboro baptism, lgbt murders), Buddhist (Rohingya killed by Buddhists in Myanmar) is incompatible with the modern world. Not just Islam. The problem is not religion, it's that some fundamentalists who are not right in the head use it as an excuse to commit horrifying acts.
- rcstank 6y ago
  Westboro Baptists are fundamentalists? I’d say they’re hateful, not fundamentalists as they preach that God hates people which is not what the Bible says.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    I must have a different translation from yours.
  - vaidhy 6y ago
    Isn’t it just that their interpretation and your interpretation of bible are different? They claim that their position is a literal interpretation of the book. They are fundamentalist by the same reason Wahhabism is the fundamental strain of Islam.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  As an atheist, I never really understood how a religious person can not be a fundamentalist. Isn't that just reading the book and doing exactly as it says, which is required by the God? I don't get how people disregard sections of the books and still consider themselves members. How much of the book can be ignored before you are no longer following the religion in peoples eyes?
  - mdifrgechd 6y ago
    Atheism is a very strong stance. Consider that not everybody needs to think in such absolutes.
illys 6y ago
" I support freedom of speech, and liking something is speech" Freedom, liberty have limits. The limits are cultural and ruled by law. In France, the freedom of speech must respect individuals and allows to mock ideas and ideologies. And religions are ideologies. If people feel offended when their ideas are criticized or mocked, they are not supposed to kill: they have to adapt, or if in doubt they are personally attacked, they can address a tribunal to settle the case. Liking a murder is not an opinion or a speech, it is personally attacking the victim and his relatives. "Clearly Islam, if followed to the letter, is incompatible with the modern world (...) Hell, nor is Christianity, if taken literally." Not sure about this: all religions have specificities and different reference texts. Of course christians and muslims are humans, and humans kill when reaching extreme conditions. However christians are in violation of their texts when killing. Not in Islam: muslims are in line with their prophet life (hadith "who leaves the Religion, kill him!") and Koran, a book written by God himself. Koran is quite a bloody book describing severe rules, xenophobia for non-muslims, slaughters, slavery, explicitly allowing wife-beating... And being written by God, not a word can be challenged by moderates to stop extremists: they would just put themselves in the blasphemy list for being murdered. Some muslims try to unlock Islam from these deadlocks. However it usually brings them to harsh times, a lifetime in jail in the best case (Raif Badawi), or being murdered (Mahmoud Mohammed Taha). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Mohammed_Taha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Mohammed_Taha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Badawi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Badawi

jtsiskin 6y ago

“A young man who "liked" a gruesome Twitter picture showing French teacher Samuel Paty after he was murdered has been charged with glorifying terrorism... ... But in France, which has a long tradition of satirising religion, they are seen as symbolic of free speech.” Free speech, or no free speech?

k2enemy 6y ago
Yes, there is a certain irony that his criminal charges seem to be a violation of free speech.
jwagenet 6y ago
>But in France, which has a long tradition of satirising religion, [Depictions of the Prophet Mohammed] are seen as symbolic of free speech.
colechristensen 6y ago
In France? Freedom of expression is somewhat less than in the US, and is biased towards secularism. So yes, blasphemy is protected while expression involving violence or religion is more limited.
- soco 6y ago
  Maybe also because blasphemous cartoons don't kill people.
staticautomatic 6y ago
Does France also charge people with crimes for liking Weegee photographs?
rcstank 6y ago
I think free speech stops at the point where a photo of a severed head is posted by the murderer and people “liking” it as well.
- khazhoux 6y ago

salamimonger 6y ago

"He was already on the radar of the authorities for having endorsed a massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Mohammed cartoons. Several knives and other weapons were found at his home, prosecutor Frederic Chevallier. The man denied being radicalised, Chevallier added."

sebmellen 6y ago
Very important context.
mrits 6y ago
"Several knives and other weapons were found at his home" What kind of horrible person would keep knives in their home?
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Some of the British "deadly weapon" arrests read like a parody to me, crazy how different cultural views on these things can be. I regularly carried worst than most of them when I was 12.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    Here in rural US, I got my first knife when I was 6 and my first rifle when I was 10. It really is a different world, lol
    - thatguy0900 6y ago
      I tried to make it a point to have the scariest knife in my boy scout troop lol. I got my dad to buy me one of the big hollow handle survival knifes after I saw Rambo, I took that thing everywhere
      - mrits 6y ago
        The one with the compass on the end and you can hide stuff in?

Cantbekhan 6y ago

At some point I think we have to consider the view of Karl Popper: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." The problem remains as who defines what is intolerant. But in this case I think the argument is sound. This like was clearly endorsement. And the act was inexcusable no matter how offended anyone can be in their religion.

chromatin 6y ago
> suppress them ... by force The trouble is deciding who gets to wield that force
- fergbrain 6y ago
  By definition it’s the state (whomever the state allows), since they have a monopoly on force.
  - robotresearcher 6y ago
    Which means as ever it's super important to maintain and preferably improve democratic processes to keep the state accountable for that terrible responsibility. Also, vote!
- mulmen 6y ago
  The "who" is pretty easy, it's the state. Who they wield it on and to what extent is the open question.

lliamander 6y ago

What does "liking" on a social platform like Twitter even mean? When you only have a limited range of reacting to to something (like, retweet, comment) a lot of complex reactions often get lumped together.

salamimonger 6y ago
This is important. Without any of the other context(that could be found in the article), this case sounds absurd. What does it mean to like something on social media? Am I liking something because I endorse x, or because I abhor x, and want more people to see it? I think a distinction could be made by having a "bump" button in addition to like/dislike.
oblio 6y ago
There is one correct move. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything. As they say, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Actually applying the golden rule would probably be the death of social media's business model
- megous 6y ago
  Life shouldn't be lived as if you're talking to a police officer all the time.
  - oblio 6y ago
    When you're up voting a beheading, it definitely should. I'm dismayed I need to spell this out.
    - megous 6y ago
      I was responding to a suggested general rule.

idoubtit 6y ago

In France, it's not only about what you say or "like". Over the last decade, several men have been sentenced to 2 years of jail for what they read ("consultation régulière de site terroristes" / regularly visiting terrorist web sites). This is no surprise to anyone who knows how the French law evolved in recent years. A NGO even wrote that legislation in France was more repressive than in Turkey (the law texts, not the legal application).

leephillips 6y ago
Without looking into the case, I have to say this seems quite depressing, especially for what most people still think of as a free society. What about a journalist or scholar, who may be monitoring these groups? You can be jailed merely for watching what they are up to, without participating or endorsing them?
- rtkwe 6y ago
  I'd wager the law is written more as a way to be able to charge people who the authorities are concerned about but haven't provably done anything yet. Not that that's much better but that's the slightly more reasonable application of the law. There's been several times where the people who've gone on to do attacks were known to whatever the national security services were but hadn't been caught actually planning the thing. It's the kind of law that'd be great in a world where government is and could be guaranteed to always be run by angels and saints but is absolutely untenable in the real world.
seszett 6y ago
> consultation régulière de site terroristes As far as I know, that was struck down in 2017 as unconstitutional though.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

Why would anyone want this to be illegal? It does two things - offends people (you have no right to not be offended, and this is a good thing), and, broadcasts a signal that this is not someone you want to be involved with, not someone you want to hire, and someone who authorities can keep an eye on. Letting such people out themselves seems to be more beneficial then letting them lurk in polite society.

colechristensen 6y ago
Put simply, a large population of public support continually creates a small stream of people willing to turn ideas into violent action. You can’t get in front of the first time violent offenders before they do things, and there doesn’t seem to be much you can do to disincentivize them so you have to go after the publicly expressed ideas.
ggggtez 6y ago
Because the people who "like" calls to genocide and murder, and stockpile weapons... are the kind of people that you don't want running around in society? It's not like they are arrest everyone who liked this photo. Just this one particular person who showed a pattern of behavior that advocates murder.
luckylion 6y ago
> Letting such people out themselves seems to be more beneficial then letting them lurk in polite society. Removing them from society is the best course of action, which is what France seems to try to do right now.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  I would argue that they removed the first one who was dumb enough to out themselves with a like button click. There are many more who will just keep a lower profile. Regardless, I just can’t bring myself to accept the idea that clicking a thumbs up emoji can send you to prison. I don’t care how bad the picture is. That doesn’t sit right.

deleted 6y ago

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