4 ms·

More restrictive, for certain categories of speech, like hate speech, certainly. More authoritarian? As a European (well, in the UK - can I still consider mys

More restrictive, for certain categories of speech, like hate speech, certainly. More authoritarian? As a European (well, in the UK - can I still consider myself European?), I do not find my right to speak, or speak truth to power to be restricted unncessarily. I see what is happening in the US with the rise of genuinely authoritarian politics fueled by misinformation and hate speech and find it genuinely disturbing. I guess a lot depends on the cultural context you grow up in.

causality0 4y ago
I do not find my right to speak, or speak truth to power to be restricted unncessarily Again, this is not an axis with good on one end and bad on the other. It's an axis between fewer limits and more limits.
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  I don't understand your point. I agree the law is more restrictive in Europe, but not restrictive in ways that limit my freedom in ways that matter to me. I was questioning why you see it as authoritarian. Are you saying that any law is authoritarian?
  - causality0 4y ago
    I said it was "more authoritarian". Perhaps it was a poor choice of words.
    - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
      That could be it. I think this relates to the cultural context. People in the US are fierce defenders of free speech, and I can see why any attempt to restrict it there would be seen as authoritarian. In Europe, after the horrors of the second world war (and our entire history really) we aren't so keen to let people stir up hatred among us. So restricting things like that is not being imposed on the majority of us;we want those restrictions for the most part. So doesn't feel authoritarian at all.
collegeburner 4y ago
no, restrictive of what you consider hate speech. here's a example: it is pretty common for my generation (zoomers) to joke about suicide. so if i mention i got a 89 on a recent exam a friend might reply "lol kys". this isn't actually hateful. similarly, i was talking with a few friends. one mentioned her boyfriend broke up with her suddenly, and another female friend rolled her eyes and said "kill all men". again, not actually hateful. now apply this problem of "potentially hateful depending on context" to more important stuff. some racists have abused studies on demographic differences to give hateful rhetoric some "scientific" backing, ignoring that you can't generalize from a population to an individual. this has led to mention of demographic differences being very sensitive subjects and sometimes labeled as "hateful". but i don't think we want to stop all research involved with this. i do not trust the government to make these determinations about when context is hateful and not. since Americans are much less trusting of government than most europeans maybe you can see why we come down on a much higher bar for the government restricting speech and even higher for prior restraint. let's take a counterexample from your country, where a man was sentenced to community service for a "grossly offensive tweet": the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn he faced possible jail time. now i think this is more easy to identify as "hateful" than prior examples i've listed. i don't know if this was the person's intent, but in this case hate can serve a legitimate political purpose (anti-imperialism/anti-military industrial complex). similar to how "all cops are bastards" is "hateful" towards cops but again serves a legitimate political purpose (protesting police brutality, racial profiling, etc.) so again, should anyone really trust a government to be the entity to determine what is "too hateful"?
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  It's a legitimate point, but the courts decide, not the executive.

causality0 4y ago

I do not find my right to speak, or speak truth to power to be restricted unncessarily Again, this is not an axis with good on one end and bad on the other. It's an axis between fewer limits and more limits.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago
I don't understand your point. I agree the law is more restrictive in Europe, but not restrictive in ways that limit my freedom in ways that matter to me. I was questioning why you see it as authoritarian. Are you saying that any law is authoritarian?
- causality0 4y ago
  I said it was "more authoritarian". Perhaps it was a poor choice of words.
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    That could be it. I think this relates to the cultural context. People in the US are fierce defenders of free speech, and I can see why any attempt to restrict it there would be seen as authoritarian. In Europe, after the horrors of the second world war (and our entire history really) we aren't so keen to let people stir up hatred among us. So restricting things like that is not being imposed on the majority of us;we want those restrictions for the most part. So doesn't feel authoritarian at all.

collegeburner 4y ago

no, restrictive of what you consider hate speech. here's a example: it is pretty common for my generation (zoomers) to joke about suicide. so if i mention i got a 89 on a recent exam a friend might reply "lol kys". this isn't actually hateful. similarly, i was talking with a few friends. one mentioned her boyfriend broke up with her suddenly, and another female friend rolled her eyes and said "kill all men". again, not actually hateful. now apply this problem of "potentially hateful depending on context" to more important stuff. some racists have abused studies on demographic differences to give hateful rhetoric some "scientific" backing, ignoring that you can't generalize from a population to an individual. this has led to mention of demographic differences being very sensitive subjects and sometimes labeled as "hateful". but i don't think we want to stop all research involved with this. i do not trust the government to make these determinations about when context is hateful and not. since Americans are much less trusting of government than most europeans maybe you can see why we come down on a much higher bar for the government restricting speech and even higher for prior restraint. let's take a counterexample from your country, where a man was sentenced to community service for a "grossly offensive tweet": the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn he faced possible jail time. now i think this is more easy to identify as "hateful" than prior examples i've listed. i don't know if this was the person's intent, but in this case hate can serve a legitimate political purpose (anti-imperialism/anti-military industrial complex). similar to how "all cops are bastards" is "hateful" towards cops but again serves a legitimate political purpose (protesting police brutality, racial profiling, etc.) so again, should anyone really trust a government to be the entity to determine what is "too hateful"?

MattPalmer1086 4y ago
It's a legitimate point, but the courts decide, not the executive.