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I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and som

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) and in terms of awful things people tweet…it’s not actually that bad. Suddenly I find myself agreeing with the people arguing these restrictions are a slippery slope.

naoqj 5y ago
If you are in favour of limits on speech then you should not have a problem with this. Everything is offensive to someone. We should all go to prison!
- Aeolun 5y ago
  It’s more that it should be clearly defined what counts as ‘limits on speech’. “Nazi glorification” is fairly specific. “Grossly offensive” is not. If nobody is aware that it’s prosecutable that you are happy someone is dead (a perfectly valid opinion), then you shouldn’t prosecute people for it.
- jeffalyanak 5y ago
  Just like how speed limits necessitate the arrest of everyone who drives.
  - michaelscott 5y ago
    ...over the speed limit, yes. The point of parent's post is that the offensive nature of a statement or speech in general is subjective and can change with whims and the time. A speed limit is objective and quantifiable; if you go over the speed limit stated you get fined, there's no room for interpretation
    - Pyramus 5y ago
      Speed limits are not objective at all - Germany infamously does not have speed limits on highways. And yes, speed limit laws, do change over time. And no, you can't be punished for having broken a speed limit in the past, that is not in effect today. Parent's comparison seems rather apt.
      - hervature 5y ago
        They obviously meant speed is quantifiable. You can measure speed and say "you violated the limit".
        Pyramus 5y ago
        Yes, but it doesn't strengthen the argument. If society A says the speed limit is X and society B it's Y and society C it's infinite. What's the point that speed is objectively measurable?
        hervature 5y ago
        That making a rule even makes sense. It is not an argument as to what amount is sensible, just that "amount" is sensible.
        refurb 5y ago
        You’re missing the point. Society A and society B won’t disagree on whether something is moving at 150km/hr.
        endominus 5y ago
        Well, they might if a physicist gets involved and starts complaining that no one has defined their point of reference.
  - tored 5y ago
    Your comparison would be true if the speed limit differentiated on the intent on the speeder, e.g. person A can drive over the speed limit but not person B because person B has the wrong intent.
    - linschn 5y ago
      Ambulance, firefighters, etc.
      - tored 5y ago
        They can do that because of regulation, not intent. It is more like this, person A is in a hurry and is allowed to drive over the speed limit because person A is good person, but person B, who also is in a hurry, is a scumbag and therefore person B is not allowed to drive over the speed limit. It is very similar to how woke culture works.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      In the UK it does. If you are speeding because you are an appropriately trained person performing emergency response duties then it's not illegal.
      - tored 5y ago
        It is not comparable, see this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30877026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30877026
  - refurb 5y ago
    We can objectively measure speed. Please detail how we can objectively measure “offense”.
- alickz 5y ago
  By that logic if you are in favour of actionable threats being illegal you should have no problem with this. It's just speech after all. I'm also in favour of limits on speech, but I draw the line at threats and sustained harassment. I don't think the tweet in the article rises to that level, and I don't think I'm a hypocrite for allowing that tweet but not allowing threats. I do understand there are benefits to the all-or-nothing approach to free speech though.
- matthewmacleod 5y ago
  Almost literally every person is "in favour of limits on speech" to some extent, so this kind of reductionism contributes nothing (and I'd argue generally makes the signal-to-noise ratio even worse). There are huge numbers of interesting questions around how we treat freedom of speech in a civilised society. What restrictions can we collectively accept? How do we ensure that individual rights to speech are protected? How do we protect people from harassment or abuse, and how does this balance against the fundamental right to be offensive? Discussion about these is way more interesting than hot takes about how we're all going to prison for being mean on Twitter. And worst of all it detracts from the serious conversation to be had about how grossly inappropriate the reaction in this specific case is.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    I 100% agree with you. There is strong indication we are heading towards a more volatile world, and we need to collectively discuss these questions. I'd like to add that most posters here on HN are arguing conditional on living in a Western democracy. And most Western democracies have set different restrictions - but all do have some restrictions. E.g. it's illegal to deny the holocaust in Germany.
cjrp 5y ago
I think racist comments, for example, would already be covered under the Public Order Act 1986
- bloak 5y ago
  It looks like they might be. This seems to be the relevant part of the Act: (1) A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if— (a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or (b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby. (2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the written material is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and are not heard or seen except by other persons in that or another dwelling. -------- However, it looks as though you might get away with saying some very nasty racist things in public if you were careful with your vocabulary, tone of voice and so on. Is there any protection for people with Tourette's or mentally ill people, I wonder?
  - heurisko 5y ago
    Someone with Asperger's who requires a carer was prosecuted after they loudly questioned a PCSO's sex in a public place. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teen-prosecuted-after-asking-whether-17651755 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teen-prosecute... So if that is anything to go by, it is "No".
    - LocalH 5y ago
      The article doesn't say Armstrong requires a carer. > The court heard Armstrong, who acts as a carer for a man he considers his father, had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and suffered from anxiety and depression. Also, Asperger's is not really an excuse to say hurtful things. I have ADHD, which is related to both Asperger's and autism, and I would never say something like that. It's not so cut and dry to say "oh, they have <x>, so they're excused".
londgine 5y ago
I never understood why "slippery slope" was listed among other logical fallacies. It is exactly the opposite.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  When the UK brought in laws around lockdowns and handling covid people here were complaining that it was a slippery slope and the government would never give up those restrictions yet they did exactly that and those laws are no longer in play. In that case the slippery slope argument was a fallacy.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    There was indeed a slippery slope from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to extended lockdowns. I don't think those policies necessarily were a net benefit, either, particularly in the case of mask mandates for children, which weren't shown as effective enough to warrant damaging the mental health of children. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044767/Evidence_summary_-_face_coverings.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy.
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        > Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. > Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy. That is wrong. What you mentioned is the very definition of a slippery slope, where the conditional relationships of the hypothetical syllogism do not hold.
  - 5y ago
tored 5y ago
Speech laws also requires the court to make a judgement on the intent of the perpetrator, the exact same expression can either be legal or illegal depending on intent.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  Shooting someone can be illegal or legal based on the intent of the perpetrator, establishing the state of mind of someone accused of a crime isn't exactly a legal novelty
  - tored 5y ago
    True, but the intent here is very subjective, the court basically has to fantasize about the perpetrators intent. And what it usually comes down to is if the perpetrator is "good" person or not. Speech laws invites courts to be subjective in their rulings.
    - tikkabhuna 5y ago
      Isn’t that the entire point of mens rea in law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
trashtester 5y ago
The problem with banning things like "racism" is that words change meaning over time. Maybe some time in the future, any reference to "White Privlege" may be considered racist, for instance.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  - sharikous 5y ago
    It's more about the political undertone. Your definition of racism is one of many. Today there is a strong push to define racism only as discrimination against historically oppressed racial minorities. It's a loaded term now, not a neutral one.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    White working class boys in the UK are amongst the least likely to go to university in the UK, they don't have a privilege for being white. I think terms like white privilege drive resentment and are divisive. "In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race..." Barack Obama. https://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/ https://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/
    - matthewmacleod 5y ago
      they don't have a privilege for being white. As a white (and formerly working class) boy from the UK, I can confidently say that nobody has at any point in my life discriminated against me on the basis of my ethnic background. That is the extent of what this expression means – it does not mean that any individual to whom it applied is in a superior position relative to others, but only that they do not suffer from disadvantage due to one specific thing. There is a stubborn desire to ignore this distinction, and the reason that these terms become divisive is because people are too often manipulated into misrepresenting them.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>"I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. " Why not,and who gets to make the determination? I'm an atheist, and having so many blasphemy and religion protection laws in liberal democracies misused (or rather, used exactly as they are truly intended) so horribly has really taught me what poorly defined restrictions on speech mean in the real world. As for racist speech, I really truly believe that censoring does not ever serve its intended purpose. You are only breeding further resentment, driving the expression under ground,and giving people new reason to hate and feel oppressed.
- TomGullen 5y ago
  Racism is wrong and dangerous, and giving oxygen to it helps propagate and give validity to it. Censoring it might keep the racists to their ugly selves, but that's OK with me.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    I agree with first claim. We clearly disagree on the second so can you elaborate? I believe formal legal censorship of an expression GIVES it oxygen and will subsequently increase it.
    - PuppyTailWags 5y ago
      My understanding is that studies show deplatforming actually works if the goal is to remove the broader cultural influence of a group. That is to say, if there is a group on platform A who are then group-banned from platform A, when they move to platform B the group is actually smaller in size and has less influence. If this happens from platform B to platform C the group continues to become smaller and have less influence. The same papers I read also pointed out that the people who follow the group across platforms become more and more entrenched though, which is also interesting.
      - kansface 5y ago
        Or you know, occasionally you accidentally create a new front in the culture war which is far more expansive and destructive than the side effects of the original problem.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
helloworld11 5y ago
Aside from me absolutely being in favor of even offensive and racist speech out of general principles, you'd be surprised (or not) by how easily "racism" can be redefined to include all kinds of things that are very, very dubiously racist by any normal definition. There are extremely woke people who consider even questioning any of their arguments about race or class as a racist act. There are cases where a person making clear cut criticisms of islam as a religion is labeled racist because of its general association with the arabic world, and so forth. The list goes on. The number of people and public figures I've seen labeled as so called fascists or racists when their own clearly stated postures are emphatically not racist by any rational notion is large. Once some authority gains the right to prohibit racist speech, it's very, very easy for their definition of racism to shift as well. Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  > Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries. Depends on how you measure it. The US has some pretty notable racial issues, even compared to other Anglosphere countries. I wouldn't put that down to freedom of speech laws, but it's also not a very good defense of those laws to say that it's affected the level of bigotry in the US.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    But is racism actually worse in the US? I feel like in many other western nations it's just more socially acceptable, and not so controversial.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      I suppose it depends on what you mean by racism. Interpersonal racism seems to fly under dogwhistles moreso than outright statements now that it's socially unacceptable (in most places), where e.g. casual racism against Romania people is still pretty common in Europe. Judging from economic outcomes, though, I'd say the US is still pretty racist, even if being individually racist is mostly condemned (though I think it's fair to say from the Trump presidency that there was still quite a lot just bubbling under the surface).
chroma 5y ago
I disagree with restrictions on speech for the following reason: - If you limit what people are allowed to write or say, you are effectively limiting what others are allowed to read or hear. - Censorship means delegating a censor. - That censor would then be able to determine what I am allowed to read or hear. There is nobody I trust besides myself to do that. I definitely don't trust any government body to do that. Also if you're going to enforce laws against racist speech dispassionately, you will ban every major religious text. The Torah, Bible, and Qur'an have parts that advocate for all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally terrible behavior. The UK government doesn't try to censor these books, so it's obvious that their censorship laws are simply a way for law enforcement to persecute people they dislike.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > I disagree with restrictions on speech for the following reason: I've never once met a true free speech absolutist. We accept restrictions on speech all the time. We restrict companies from outright lying about their products. We (sometimes) hold people accountable for lying under oath. We even compel certain speech by forcing companies to disclose ingredients and allergens. Even for government some material is justifiably classified and shouldn't be publicly shared. I should not be allowed to make direct calls for violence against others, phone in fake bomb threats, or yell "fire" in a theater. There are good reasons to limit/place restrictions on speech. It's the same with every right we have. There will be instances that call for restriction. It falls on us to make sure that we preserve freedom as much as we can while still enacting sane restrictions. Laws against racist speech do more harm than good. They hinder our efforts to understand and confront racism and they are so broadly defined that they are easily abused. That doesn't mean other restrictions on speech are't a good idea though.
  - chroma 5y ago
    > We restrict companies from outright lying about their products. These sorts of lies are usually covered under existing fraud laws. When such laws don't exist, companies use accreditation firms. Long before OSHA, Underwriters Laboratories tested the safety of various building materials and electrical devices. Customers and insurers preferred UL-approved products because it meant a lower risk of harm. If a manufacturer changed their product to be less safe, they'd lose their UL certification and a lot of revenue. > We (sometimes) hold people accountable for lying under oath. Yes and we hold people accountable for trying to pass counterfeit money or writing bad checks. These sorts of situations are special because all parties agree on the rules at the start of the transaction. By the same token I'm against unprovoked violence but fine with sports like boxing. > We even compel certain speech by forcing companies to disclose ingredients and allergens. I'd be fine abolishing such laws. Companies that didn't list their ingredients would probably lose significant business (since many people have allergies). Companies that lied about their ingredients could be charged with fraud (either in civil or criminal court). And again, in places where such laws don't exist, accreditation firms do the job. That said, we don't require ingredient labeling at bake sales and those seem to do fine. > I should not be allowed to make direct calls for violence against others, phone in fake bomb threats, or yell "fire" in a theater. The "fire in a crowded theater" hypothetical is from a supreme court case where socialists were imprisoned for distributing leaflets that protested conscription in the first world war.[1] It has since been overturned, and it is an excellent example of why any restriction on speech ends up being abused by those in power. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
listless 5y ago
> "You shouldn't be able to tweet racist messages" This seems right on the surface, but the problem is that it's really hard to determine what a racist message is. For instance, if black people want to discuss their frustration with white people in honest language, it might sound pretty racist. But I'm not sure any of us would want to curtail that. FB had this exact problem not too long ago.. https://revealnews.org/article/how-activists-of-color-lose-battles-against-facebooks-moderator-army/ https://revealnews.org/article/how-activists-of-color-lose-b...
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  > if black people want to discuss their frustration with white people in honest language, it might sound pretty racist Because it is.
  - listless 5y ago
    Agreed. And this is exactly why we shouldn’t ban it.
tonguez 5y ago
“I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example.” we live in a world where saying “all lives matter” makes you adolf hitler 2.0. crime statistics are banned on twitter. if you say “its ok to be white” you will be called a nazi, and fired from your job. THAT’S racism.
f7ebc20c97 5y ago
The slope is slippery because, given enough time, lawyers are always be able to form a causal effect chain from human action A to undesirable outcome B.
- krapp 5y ago
  This implies all such causal chains, regardless of their nature, will always be accepted as valid. If that were true, no lawyer would ever lose a case. It's the same argument that people make when they say, because any word can be claimed to mean anything, any so-called hate speech crime can be used to make any arbitrary speech illegal, simply by labeling any form of speech "hate speech." It's the 'perfectly spherical cow in a frictionless void' model of society that assumes societies are not made up of humans with brains already aware that people can lie and attempt to game the system, and that no one will ever be willing or able to correct flaws in the system. Even in the case of OP, I doubt the UK could take any arbitrary tweet and sentence someone under the same law. That said, I think the laws in the UK in this regard are going too far - but a slippery slope implies an irreversible process. These laws exist because the people of the UK want them to. If they wanted otherwise, they could change the laws to reflect that. That isn't a slippery slope.
  - f7ebc20c97 5y ago
    Okay, buddy, we have this thing called the Internet now. It's a magical place where you can be anonymous and say whatever the fuck you want. The cat has left the bag. All restrictive speech laws do now is push dissidents underground into radicalizing echochambers like 4chan, while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that what you want?
    - krapp 5y ago
      It's odd that you seem to find restricting speech and pushing dissidents underground into radicalizing echo chambers to be a problem, while not being at all concerned about those dissidents' capacity to radicalize orders of magnitude more people and form even bigger echo chambers when given free rein on the biggest platforms the internet has to offer. The entire point is to slow the ability of dissidents to spread their message, because despite what believers in free speech maximalism claim, truth doesn't always out. "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on" was a meme well before the internet gave lies the speed of light. >while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that what you want? I've already commented that I reject the slippery slope argument. If the people of the UK find their free speech laws go too far, they can change those laws.
Msw242 5y ago
Slippery slopes aren't really a type of fallacy. Much in the same way that conspiracies are often real. Outside of limited cases where speech can be linked to physical harm, it should be legal and unrestricted. And companies should embrace the spirit of freedom of speech in choosing not to restrict it on their platforms. (Or they could be forced as common carriers)
erdos4d 5y ago
> I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages I just got kicked off the main lemmy.ml server because I had the audacity to challenge the current Ukraine invasion and say that the Russians were fuck ups who broke what they touch (which I honestly believe, and I feel history backs me up on this). Was accused of being "a nasty racist" and instantly banned site wide. Was this right? I think not. Was I racist for this statement? Also, I think not. The Russians aren't even a race, so I just don't see it. Nevertheless, this is an example of the sort of free speech that is silenced by this attitude and I don't think the pro-Kremlin echo chamber in there is better off for it. Please be careful what you support, there are plenty of people out there who will use it for their own ends, regardless of how you meant it.
voidr 5y ago
If you believe that people should be punished for being offensive, like making racist remarks, then I don't understand your issue here. Just imagine if the deceased guy was your grandpa or someone you care about a lot, would you not feel hurt by that tweet?

naoqj 5y ago

If you are in favour of limits on speech then you should not have a problem with this. Everything is offensive to someone. We should all go to prison!

Aeolun 5y ago
It’s more that it should be clearly defined what counts as ‘limits on speech’. “Nazi glorification” is fairly specific. “Grossly offensive” is not. If nobody is aware that it’s prosecutable that you are happy someone is dead (a perfectly valid opinion), then you shouldn’t prosecute people for it.
jeffalyanak 5y ago
Just like how speed limits necessitate the arrest of everyone who drives.
- michaelscott 5y ago
  ...over the speed limit, yes. The point of parent's post is that the offensive nature of a statement or speech in general is subjective and can change with whims and the time. A speed limit is objective and quantifiable; if you go over the speed limit stated you get fined, there's no room for interpretation
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    Speed limits are not objective at all - Germany infamously does not have speed limits on highways. And yes, speed limit laws, do change over time. And no, you can't be punished for having broken a speed limit in the past, that is not in effect today. Parent's comparison seems rather apt.
    - hervature 5y ago
      They obviously meant speed is quantifiable. You can measure speed and say "you violated the limit".
      - Pyramus 5y ago
        Yes, but it doesn't strengthen the argument. If society A says the speed limit is X and society B it's Y and society C it's infinite. What's the point that speed is objectively measurable?
        hervature 5y ago
        That making a rule even makes sense. It is not an argument as to what amount is sensible, just that "amount" is sensible.
        refurb 5y ago
        You’re missing the point. Society A and society B won’t disagree on whether something is moving at 150km/hr.
        endominus 5y ago
        Well, they might if a physicist gets involved and starts complaining that no one has defined their point of reference.
- tored 5y ago
  Your comparison would be true if the speed limit differentiated on the intent on the speeder, e.g. person A can drive over the speed limit but not person B because person B has the wrong intent.
  - linschn 5y ago
    Ambulance, firefighters, etc.
    - tored 5y ago
      They can do that because of regulation, not intent. It is more like this, person A is in a hurry and is allowed to drive over the speed limit because person A is good person, but person B, who also is in a hurry, is a scumbag and therefore person B is not allowed to drive over the speed limit. It is very similar to how woke culture works.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    In the UK it does. If you are speeding because you are an appropriately trained person performing emergency response duties then it's not illegal.
    - tored 5y ago
      It is not comparable, see this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30877026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30877026
- refurb 5y ago
  We can objectively measure speed. Please detail how we can objectively measure “offense”.
alickz 5y ago
By that logic if you are in favour of actionable threats being illegal you should have no problem with this. It's just speech after all. I'm also in favour of limits on speech, but I draw the line at threats and sustained harassment. I don't think the tweet in the article rises to that level, and I don't think I'm a hypocrite for allowing that tweet but not allowing threats. I do understand there are benefits to the all-or-nothing approach to free speech though.
matthewmacleod 5y ago
Almost literally every person is "in favour of limits on speech" to some extent, so this kind of reductionism contributes nothing (and I'd argue generally makes the signal-to-noise ratio even worse). There are huge numbers of interesting questions around how we treat freedom of speech in a civilised society. What restrictions can we collectively accept? How do we ensure that individual rights to speech are protected? How do we protect people from harassment or abuse, and how does this balance against the fundamental right to be offensive? Discussion about these is way more interesting than hot takes about how we're all going to prison for being mean on Twitter. And worst of all it detracts from the serious conversation to be had about how grossly inappropriate the reaction in this specific case is.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I 100% agree with you. There is strong indication we are heading towards a more volatile world, and we need to collectively discuss these questions. I'd like to add that most posters here on HN are arguing conditional on living in a Western democracy. And most Western democracies have set different restrictions - but all do have some restrictions. E.g. it's illegal to deny the holocaust in Germany.

cjrp 5y ago

I think racist comments, for example, would already be covered under the Public Order Act 1986

bloak 5y ago
It looks like they might be. This seems to be the relevant part of the Act: (1) A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if— (a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or (b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby. (2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the written material is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and are not heard or seen except by other persons in that or another dwelling. -------- However, it looks as though you might get away with saying some very nasty racist things in public if you were careful with your vocabulary, tone of voice and so on. Is there any protection for people with Tourette's or mentally ill people, I wonder?
- heurisko 5y ago
  Someone with Asperger's who requires a carer was prosecuted after they loudly questioned a PCSO's sex in a public place. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teen-prosecuted-after-asking-whether-17651755 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teen-prosecute... So if that is anything to go by, it is "No".
  - LocalH 5y ago
    The article doesn't say Armstrong requires a carer. > The court heard Armstrong, who acts as a carer for a man he considers his father, had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and suffered from anxiety and depression. Also, Asperger's is not really an excuse to say hurtful things. I have ADHD, which is related to both Asperger's and autism, and I would never say something like that. It's not so cut and dry to say "oh, they have <x>, so they're excused".

londgine 5y ago

I never understood why "slippery slope" was listed among other logical fallacies. It is exactly the opposite.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
When the UK brought in laws around lockdowns and handling covid people here were complaining that it was a slippery slope and the government would never give up those restrictions yet they did exactly that and those laws are no longer in play. In that case the slippery slope argument was a fallacy.
- heurisko 5y ago
  There was indeed a slippery slope from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to extended lockdowns. I don't think those policies necessarily were a net benefit, either, particularly in the case of mask mandates for children, which weren't shown as effective enough to warrant damaging the mental health of children. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044767/Evidence_summary_-_face_coverings.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. > Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy. That is wrong. What you mentioned is the very definition of a slippery slope, where the conditional relationships of the hypothetical syllogism do not hold.
- 5y ago

tored 5y ago

Speech laws also requires the court to make a judgement on the intent of the perpetrator, the exact same expression can either be legal or illegal depending on intent.

Barrin92 5y ago
Shooting someone can be illegal or legal based on the intent of the perpetrator, establishing the state of mind of someone accused of a crime isn't exactly a legal novelty
- tored 5y ago
  True, but the intent here is very subjective, the court basically has to fantasize about the perpetrators intent. And what it usually comes down to is if the perpetrator is "good" person or not. Speech laws invites courts to be subjective in their rulings.
  - tikkabhuna 5y ago
    Isn’t that the entire point of mens rea in law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

trashtester 5y ago

The problem with banning things like "racism" is that words change meaning over time. Maybe some time in the future, any reference to "White Privlege" may be considered racist, for instance.

gonzo41 5y ago
- sharikous 5y ago
  It's more about the political undertone. Your definition of racism is one of many. Today there is a strong push to define racism only as discrimination against historically oppressed racial minorities. It's a loaded term now, not a neutral one.
- heurisko 5y ago
  White working class boys in the UK are amongst the least likely to go to university in the UK, they don't have a privilege for being white. I think terms like white privilege drive resentment and are divisive. "In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race..." Barack Obama. https://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/ https://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/
  - matthewmacleod 5y ago
    they don't have a privilege for being white. As a white (and formerly working class) boy from the UK, I can confidently say that nobody has at any point in my life discriminated against me on the basis of my ethnic background. That is the extent of what this expression means – it does not mean that any individual to whom it applied is in a superior position relative to others, but only that they do not suffer from disadvantage due to one specific thing. There is a stubborn desire to ignore this distinction, and the reason that these terms become divisive is because people are too often manipulated into misrepresenting them.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

>>"I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. " Why not,and who gets to make the determination? I'm an atheist, and having so many blasphemy and religion protection laws in liberal democracies misused (or rather, used exactly as they are truly intended) so horribly has really taught me what poorly defined restrictions on speech mean in the real world. As for racist speech, I really truly believe that censoring does not ever serve its intended purpose. You are only breeding further resentment, driving the expression under ground,and giving people new reason to hate and feel oppressed.

TomGullen 5y ago
Racism is wrong and dangerous, and giving oxygen to it helps propagate and give validity to it. Censoring it might keep the racists to their ugly selves, but that's OK with me.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  I agree with first claim. We clearly disagree on the second so can you elaborate? I believe formal legal censorship of an expression GIVES it oxygen and will subsequently increase it.
  - PuppyTailWags 5y ago
    My understanding is that studies show deplatforming actually works if the goal is to remove the broader cultural influence of a group. That is to say, if there is a group on platform A who are then group-banned from platform A, when they move to platform B the group is actually smaller in size and has less influence. If this happens from platform B to platform C the group continues to become smaller and have less influence. The same papers I read also pointed out that the people who follow the group across platforms become more and more entrenched though, which is also interesting.
    - kansface 5y ago
      Or you know, occasionally you accidentally create a new front in the culture war which is far more expansive and destructive than the side effects of the original problem.

deleted 5y ago

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helloworld11 5y ago

Aside from me absolutely being in favor of even offensive and racist speech out of general principles, you'd be surprised (or not) by how easily "racism" can be redefined to include all kinds of things that are very, very dubiously racist by any normal definition. There are extremely woke people who consider even questioning any of their arguments about race or class as a racist act. There are cases where a person making clear cut criticisms of islam as a religion is labeled racist because of its general association with the arabic world, and so forth. The list goes on. The number of people and public figures I've seen labeled as so called fascists or racists when their own clearly stated postures are emphatically not racist by any rational notion is large. Once some authority gains the right to prohibit racist speech, it's very, very easy for their definition of racism to shift as well. Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries.

beaconstudios 5y ago
> Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries. Depends on how you measure it. The US has some pretty notable racial issues, even compared to other Anglosphere countries. I wouldn't put that down to freedom of speech laws, but it's also not a very good defense of those laws to say that it's affected the level of bigotry in the US.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  But is racism actually worse in the US? I feel like in many other western nations it's just more socially acceptable, and not so controversial.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I suppose it depends on what you mean by racism. Interpersonal racism seems to fly under dogwhistles moreso than outright statements now that it's socially unacceptable (in most places), where e.g. casual racism against Romania people is still pretty common in Europe. Judging from economic outcomes, though, I'd say the US is still pretty racist, even if being individually racist is mostly condemned (though I think it's fair to say from the Trump presidency that there was still quite a lot just bubbling under the surface).

chroma 5y ago

I disagree with restrictions on speech for the following reason: - If you limit what people are allowed to write or say, you are effectively limiting what others are allowed to read or hear. - Censorship means delegating a censor. - That censor would then be able to determine what I am allowed to read or hear. There is nobody I trust besides myself to do that. I definitely don't trust any government body to do that. Also if you're going to enforce laws against racist speech dispassionately, you will ban every major religious text. The Torah, Bible, and Qur'an have parts that advocate for all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally terrible behavior. The UK government doesn't try to censor these books, so it's obvious that their censorship laws are simply a way for law enforcement to persecute people they dislike.

autoexec 5y ago
> I disagree with restrictions on speech for the following reason: I've never once met a true free speech absolutist. We accept restrictions on speech all the time. We restrict companies from outright lying about their products. We (sometimes) hold people accountable for lying under oath. We even compel certain speech by forcing companies to disclose ingredients and allergens. Even for government some material is justifiably classified and shouldn't be publicly shared. I should not be allowed to make direct calls for violence against others, phone in fake bomb threats, or yell "fire" in a theater. There are good reasons to limit/place restrictions on speech. It's the same with every right we have. There will be instances that call for restriction. It falls on us to make sure that we preserve freedom as much as we can while still enacting sane restrictions. Laws against racist speech do more harm than good. They hinder our efforts to understand and confront racism and they are so broadly defined that they are easily abused. That doesn't mean other restrictions on speech are't a good idea though.
- chroma 5y ago
  > We restrict companies from outright lying about their products. These sorts of lies are usually covered under existing fraud laws. When such laws don't exist, companies use accreditation firms. Long before OSHA, Underwriters Laboratories tested the safety of various building materials and electrical devices. Customers and insurers preferred UL-approved products because it meant a lower risk of harm. If a manufacturer changed their product to be less safe, they'd lose their UL certification and a lot of revenue. > We (sometimes) hold people accountable for lying under oath. Yes and we hold people accountable for trying to pass counterfeit money or writing bad checks. These sorts of situations are special because all parties agree on the rules at the start of the transaction. By the same token I'm against unprovoked violence but fine with sports like boxing. > We even compel certain speech by forcing companies to disclose ingredients and allergens. I'd be fine abolishing such laws. Companies that didn't list their ingredients would probably lose significant business (since many people have allergies). Companies that lied about their ingredients could be charged with fraud (either in civil or criminal court). And again, in places where such laws don't exist, accreditation firms do the job. That said, we don't require ingredient labeling at bake sales and those seem to do fine. > I should not be allowed to make direct calls for violence against others, phone in fake bomb threats, or yell "fire" in a theater. The "fire in a crowded theater" hypothetical is from a supreme court case where socialists were imprisoned for distributing leaflets that protested conscription in the first world war.[1] It has since been overturned, and it is an excellent example of why any restriction on speech ends up being abused by those in power. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

listless 5y ago

> "You shouldn't be able to tweet racist messages" This seems right on the surface, but the problem is that it's really hard to determine what a racist message is. For instance, if black people want to discuss their frustration with white people in honest language, it might sound pretty racist. But I'm not sure any of us would want to curtail that. FB had this exact problem not too long ago.. https://revealnews.org/article/how-activists-of-color-lose-battles-against-facebooks-moderator-army/ https://revealnews.org/article/how-activists-of-color-lose-b...

rubyist5eva 5y ago
> if black people want to discuss their frustration with white people in honest language, it might sound pretty racist Because it is.
- listless 5y ago
  Agreed. And this is exactly why we shouldn’t ban it.

tonguez 5y ago

“I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example.” we live in a world where saying “all lives matter” makes you adolf hitler 2.0. crime statistics are banned on twitter. if you say “its ok to be white” you will be called a nazi, and fired from your job. THAT’S racism.

f7ebc20c97 5y ago

The slope is slippery because, given enough time, lawyers are always be able to form a causal effect chain from human action A to undesirable outcome B.

krapp 5y ago
This implies all such causal chains, regardless of their nature, will always be accepted as valid. If that were true, no lawyer would ever lose a case. It's the same argument that people make when they say, because any word can be claimed to mean anything, any so-called hate speech crime can be used to make any arbitrary speech illegal, simply by labeling any form of speech "hate speech." It's the 'perfectly spherical cow in a frictionless void' model of society that assumes societies are not made up of humans with brains already aware that people can lie and attempt to game the system, and that no one will ever be willing or able to correct flaws in the system. Even in the case of OP, I doubt the UK could take any arbitrary tweet and sentence someone under the same law. That said, I think the laws in the UK in this regard are going too far - but a slippery slope implies an irreversible process. These laws exist because the people of the UK want them to. If they wanted otherwise, they could change the laws to reflect that. That isn't a slippery slope.
- f7ebc20c97 5y ago
  Okay, buddy, we have this thing called the Internet now. It's a magical place where you can be anonymous and say whatever the fuck you want. The cat has left the bag. All restrictive speech laws do now is push dissidents underground into radicalizing echochambers like 4chan, while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that what you want?
  - krapp 5y ago
    It's odd that you seem to find restricting speech and pushing dissidents underground into radicalizing echo chambers to be a problem, while not being at all concerned about those dissidents' capacity to radicalize orders of magnitude more people and form even bigger echo chambers when given free rein on the biggest platforms the internet has to offer. The entire point is to slow the ability of dissidents to spread their message, because despite what believers in free speech maximalism claim, truth doesn't always out. "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on" was a meme well before the internet gave lies the speed of light. >while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that what you want? I've already commented that I reject the slippery slope argument. If the people of the UK find their free speech laws go too far, they can change those laws.

Msw242 5y ago

Slippery slopes aren't really a type of fallacy. Much in the same way that conspiracies are often real. Outside of limited cases where speech can be linked to physical harm, it should be legal and unrestricted. And companies should embrace the spirit of freedom of speech in choosing not to restrict it on their platforms. (Or they could be forced as common carriers)

erdos4d 5y ago

> I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages I just got kicked off the main lemmy.ml server because I had the audacity to challenge the current Ukraine invasion and say that the Russians were fuck ups who broke what they touch (which I honestly believe, and I feel history backs me up on this). Was accused of being "a nasty racist" and instantly banned site wide. Was this right? I think not. Was I racist for this statement? Also, I think not. The Russians aren't even a race, so I just don't see it. Nevertheless, this is an example of the sort of free speech that is silenced by this attitude and I don't think the pro-Kremlin echo chamber in there is better off for it. Please be careful what you support, there are plenty of people out there who will use it for their own ends, regardless of how you meant it.

voidr 5y ago

If you believe that people should be punished for being offensive, like making racist remarks, then I don't understand your issue here. Just imagine if the deceased guy was your grandpa or someone you care about a lot, would you not feel hurt by that tweet?