5 ms·

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: h

Hate speech is not legal in many jurisdictions and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech. See, for example, Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

nine_k 4y ago
It also leads to the state censoring things, including on the internet. "Germany is a country where the Godwin's Law does not hold", as one of my friends once said.
kashkhan 4y ago
Many things can be done, but it doesn't mean they should be. Currently it seems asking for rights of indigenous palestinians is hate speech in Germany.
dbrueck 4y ago
What do you mean by "stable statutory definition"? Are you meaning to imply that they have removed subjectivity from identifying it? It seems like Germany's approach has the same problem that all others do, in that so-called "hate speech" is usually in the eye of the beholder, and so it's impossible to define or identify objectively. The net result, of course, is inconsistency and absurdity (see e.g. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/erding/volksverhetzung-geldstrafe-facebook-amtsgericht-erding-1.5712933 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/erding/volksverhetzung-... for a recent example).
oceanplexian 4y ago
Well yeah, the German constitution doesn’t guarantee an absolute right to freedom of speech. There is a clause to the effect of “These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws” In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment, which requires a super-majority.
- gizmo686 4y ago
  The US Supreme Court does, however, have the power to add limits. In fact all all of the current limits to free speech are inventions of the Court.
  - SllX 4y ago
    Court jurisprudence over time continues to favor more free speech rather than less. Even abominations like Schenck v. United States have been overturned with Brandenburg v. Ohio constraining the limitations to inciting imminent lawless action (e.g. intentionally trying to start a riot).
- krapp 4y ago
  >In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment. That there are limitations means it isn't an absolute right. The fact that the First Amendment only limits Congress means private enterprise has the right to limit speech in ways the government can't - this right is also defined in the Constitution by the 10th Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Why is it that Americans don't use Germany as an example of a country sliding into authoritarian censorship, but would argue such if the same restrictions were applied to the US?
  - colonCapitalDee 4y ago
    Because German society is very different from American society due to historical factors. The modern German state and people must grapple with their country's role in WW2 and the Holocaust. They have chosen to limit free speech for the sake of preventing future catastrophes, and that seems quite sensible to me. America's history isn't pristine by a long shot, but we don't have a legacy comparable to the Germans to grapple with. Without a clear and compelling reason for limiting speech, myself and most Americans favor free speech. Attempting to restrict speech without a clear and compelling reason (and I believe that such reasons do not currently exist in America) would be tyranny.
spritefs 4y ago
> and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech Doesn't sound like it. If the washington post is saying you're going too far in this category, there's a good chance you've already gone off the deep end > The raid Wednesday came a little over three months after he replied to a tweet from Andy Grote, the interior and sports minister for the city of Hamburg, describing him as a “pimmel.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-german-politician-police-raid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/13/can-social-media-become-less-hateful-by-law-germany-is-trying-it-and-failing-critics-say/?itid=lk_inline_manual_12 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/13...
guywithahat 4y ago
Reading that article it doesn't sound like they created a stable definition, it contains no exceptions for factual statements that may differ by a persons race/gender. Further, the term group is quite broad and could be applied to groups of people expressing themselves in a way others may find offensive
akerl_ 4y ago
Am I understanding correctly that if I were to fly to Germany, step out of the airport, and shout “Americans are evil”, I’d have violated this law?
- croes 4y ago
  Calling them evil is not prohibited, but if you say they are evil, so we should kill them all. That's a different level.
  - akerl_ 4y ago
    That’s not what the law says, though. It criminalizes speech that incites hatred or calls for violence.
    - croes 4y ago
      Americans are evil, doesn't incite hatred but kill them all, calls for violence.
      - akerl_ 4y ago
        Shouting that a group of people is evil doesn't incite hatred of that group?
  - batmansmom1 4y ago
    What about if I said "I hate all Americans"? That's certainly hateful but is it inciting hatred?
vjulian 4y ago
Germany, like most countries in the world, is a political definition that circumscribes a culture that exists in a geography. Its culture is somewhat tacit to its laws. The US (and a fewer other countries) is a political definition merely circumscribing a geography—explicitly independent of culture. Laws governing social expression therefore are more challenging to define, establish and execute.
verisimi 4y ago
That 'hate speech' is not legal (or illegal) everywhere, in itself goes to show how poor the law is in reflecting the moral perspective. If law had anything to do with right or wrong, it would be the same everywhere, and would have been so from the beginning. Right and wrong haven't changed. The real question imo is: Is hate speech immoral? The answer, imo, is no in most cases. If you are not harming another, there is nothing 'bad' occurring. (There will be exceptions to this.) Just like you ought to be free to indulge your vices (and you are free to choose to harm yourself if you like), you should also be able to say what you like. Words might be unpleasant, but they are not actually harmful. If there are physical consequences to your behaviour, it is the consequences that are 'bad'. Eg, if you insult some group, and someone hears you and consequently physically harms someone in that group, the immoral act that has occurred is the violence that was inflicted, nor the initial words. It's really pretty simple. But no, the law does not (and cannot) reflect the moral reasoning.
- ginngeo 4y ago
  It's rather like how some jurisdictions have blasphemy laws and some don't. The idea of what's moral varies amongst societies and subcultures.
voxic11 4y ago
I notice that definition doesn't include inciting hatred towards people because of their gender or sexual orientation. I think that kind of shows the limitations of these laws, you can't ban hate speech against any group because there are many groups that seem to "deserve" it. So instead you have to explicitly list out the groups which don't deserve it. This picking and choosing of specially protected groups can get pretty ugly, like in the USA the hate crime laws have been expended to include law enforcement as a protected group.
cjbgkagh 4y ago
Germany - because nothing bad happened there… The Weimar Republic had strict hate speech law that were rigorously enforced. These backfired to such an extent that I’m surprised anyone is looking to repeat it. In fact it appears that neo-nazi accelerationists are encouraged by hate speech laws as it serves as a purity test, brings more people to their cause, and they have their own people they wish to silence.
pyuser583 4y ago
There was book written a while back that criticized aspects of trans rights movement. Many Americans called it hate-speech, yet the book was freely published in many countries with anti hate speech laws. Publishers and distributors were more willing to sell the book in countries where hate speech is illegal. After all, it’s not like it’s hate speech. One downside of having hate speech undefined is that anyone can claim your words are hate speech. One downside of having hate speech defined is you can stay bad things, and as long as it’s not hate speech, it’s not hate speech. Edit: I actually read this book. I would be horrified if it was outlawed or even boycotted.
- ginngeo 4y ago
  Which book is this? I'd be interested to read it.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    The title is Irreversible Damage. It’s of uneven quality, and tries to take on too many topics.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
The German definition is crap and loaded with a lot of baggage. Some believe it is necessary to adhere to the first principles of the constitution of Germany, but that is false. In reality this is a backward residue from monarchy and the laws are just as old. If Germans would have had more inclination to freedom, perhaps less authoritarian governments would have formed in the past. So empirically hate speech legislation doesn't really seem to be effective either.

nine_k 4y ago

It also leads to the state censoring things, including on the internet. "Germany is a country where the Godwin's Law does not hold", as one of my friends once said.

kashkhan 4y ago

Many things can be done, but it doesn't mean they should be. Currently it seems asking for rights of indigenous palestinians is hate speech in Germany.

dbrueck 4y ago

What do you mean by "stable statutory definition"? Are you meaning to imply that they have removed subjectivity from identifying it? It seems like Germany's approach has the same problem that all others do, in that so-called "hate speech" is usually in the eye of the beholder, and so it's impossible to define or identify objectively. The net result, of course, is inconsistency and absurdity (see e.g. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/erding/volksverhetzung-geldstrafe-facebook-amtsgericht-erding-1.5712933 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/erding/volksverhetzung-... for a recent example).

oceanplexian 4y ago

Well yeah, the German constitution doesn’t guarantee an absolute right to freedom of speech. There is a clause to the effect of “These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws” In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment, which requires a super-majority.

gizmo686 4y ago
The US Supreme Court does, however, have the power to add limits. In fact all all of the current limits to free speech are inventions of the Court.
- SllX 4y ago
  Court jurisprudence over time continues to favor more free speech rather than less. Even abominations like Schenck v. United States have been overturned with Brandenburg v. Ohio constraining the limitations to inciting imminent lawless action (e.g. intentionally trying to start a riot).
krapp 4y ago
>In the USA, however, freedom of speech is an absolute right. There are some narrow limitations (Libel, Calls to Violence), however the legislature does not have the power to add limits without a constitutional amendment. That there are limitations means it isn't an absolute right. The fact that the First Amendment only limits Congress means private enterprise has the right to limit speech in ways the government can't - this right is also defined in the Constitution by the 10th Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)
kelseyfrog 4y ago
Why is it that Americans don't use Germany as an example of a country sliding into authoritarian censorship, but would argue such if the same restrictions were applied to the US?
- colonCapitalDee 4y ago
  Because German society is very different from American society due to historical factors. The modern German state and people must grapple with their country's role in WW2 and the Holocaust. They have chosen to limit free speech for the sake of preventing future catastrophes, and that seems quite sensible to me. America's history isn't pristine by a long shot, but we don't have a legacy comparable to the Germans to grapple with. Without a clear and compelling reason for limiting speech, myself and most Americans favor free speech. Attempting to restrict speech without a clear and compelling reason (and I believe that such reasons do not currently exist in America) would be tyranny.

spritefs 4y ago

> and it is perfectly possible to create a stable statutory definition of hate speech Doesn't sound like it. If the washington post is saying you're going too far in this category, there's a good chance you've already gone off the deep end > The raid Wednesday came a little over three months after he replied to a tweet from Andy Grote, the interior and sports minister for the city of Hamburg, describing him as a “pimmel.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-german-politician-police-raid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/13/can-social-media-become-less-hateful-by-law-germany-is-trying-it-and-failing-critics-say/?itid=lk_inline_manual_12 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/13...

guywithahat 4y ago

Reading that article it doesn't sound like they created a stable definition, it contains no exceptions for factual statements that may differ by a persons race/gender. Further, the term group is quite broad and could be applied to groups of people expressing themselves in a way others may find offensive

akerl_ 4y ago

Am I understanding correctly that if I were to fly to Germany, step out of the airport, and shout “Americans are evil”, I’d have violated this law?

croes 4y ago
Calling them evil is not prohibited, but if you say they are evil, so we should kill them all. That's a different level.
- akerl_ 4y ago
  That’s not what the law says, though. It criminalizes speech that incites hatred or calls for violence.
  - croes 4y ago
    Americans are evil, doesn't incite hatred but kill them all, calls for violence.
    - akerl_ 4y ago
      Shouting that a group of people is evil doesn't incite hatred of that group?
- batmansmom1 4y ago
  What about if I said "I hate all Americans"? That's certainly hateful but is it inciting hatred?

vjulian 4y ago

Germany, like most countries in the world, is a political definition that circumscribes a culture that exists in a geography. Its culture is somewhat tacit to its laws. The US (and a fewer other countries) is a political definition merely circumscribing a geography—explicitly independent of culture. Laws governing social expression therefore are more challenging to define, establish and execute.

verisimi 4y ago

That 'hate speech' is not legal (or illegal) everywhere, in itself goes to show how poor the law is in reflecting the moral perspective. If law had anything to do with right or wrong, it would be the same everywhere, and would have been so from the beginning. Right and wrong haven't changed. The real question imo is: Is hate speech immoral? The answer, imo, is no in most cases. If you are not harming another, there is nothing 'bad' occurring. (There will be exceptions to this.) Just like you ought to be free to indulge your vices (and you are free to choose to harm yourself if you like), you should also be able to say what you like. Words might be unpleasant, but they are not actually harmful. If there are physical consequences to your behaviour, it is the consequences that are 'bad'. Eg, if you insult some group, and someone hears you and consequently physically harms someone in that group, the immoral act that has occurred is the violence that was inflicted, nor the initial words. It's really pretty simple. But no, the law does not (and cannot) reflect the moral reasoning.

ginngeo 4y ago
It's rather like how some jurisdictions have blasphemy laws and some don't. The idea of what's moral varies amongst societies and subcultures.

voxic11 4y ago

I notice that definition doesn't include inciting hatred towards people because of their gender or sexual orientation. I think that kind of shows the limitations of these laws, you can't ban hate speech against any group because there are many groups that seem to "deserve" it. So instead you have to explicitly list out the groups which don't deserve it. This picking and choosing of specially protected groups can get pretty ugly, like in the USA the hate crime laws have been expended to include law enforcement as a protected group.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

Germany - because nothing bad happened there… The Weimar Republic had strict hate speech law that were rigorously enforced. These backfired to such an extent that I’m surprised anyone is looking to repeat it. In fact it appears that neo-nazi accelerationists are encouraged by hate speech laws as it serves as a purity test, brings more people to their cause, and they have their own people they wish to silence.

pyuser583 4y ago

There was book written a while back that criticized aspects of trans rights movement. Many Americans called it hate-speech, yet the book was freely published in many countries with anti hate speech laws. Publishers and distributors were more willing to sell the book in countries where hate speech is illegal. After all, it’s not like it’s hate speech. One downside of having hate speech undefined is that anyone can claim your words are hate speech. One downside of having hate speech defined is you can stay bad things, and as long as it’s not hate speech, it’s not hate speech. Edit: I actually read this book. I would be horrified if it was outlawed or even boycotted.

ginngeo 4y ago
Which book is this? I'd be interested to read it.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  The title is Irreversible Damage. It’s of uneven quality, and tries to take on too many topics.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

The German definition is crap and loaded with a lot of baggage. Some believe it is necessary to adhere to the first principles of the constitution of Germany, but that is false. In reality this is a backward residue from monarchy and the laws are just as old. If Germans would have had more inclination to freedom, perhaps less authoritarian governments would have formed in the past. So empirically hate speech legislation doesn't really seem to be effective either.