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Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. One really has to wonder where this is going to go? I und

by bwanab 3y ago

Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. One really has to wonder where this is going to go? I understand why they want to do it, but once a censorship regime is established it will be very difficult to dislodge. What happens when the next set of elections puts in somebody who uses that power for less than ideal purposes?

bink 3y ago
Maybe that question was better to ask decades ago when these policies were put into place? This isn't new.
bestouff 3y ago
I'm not sure this "freedom of speech" absolutism is such a good idea. A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane. I support that people can express whatever opinion they have, but not in any way they want.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  I think one issue is that on the internet it's becoming impossible to know anything. You can't know that those thousands of accounts are trolls or neighbors. Does freedom of speech grant you the right to use a troll/bot army to spread misinformation? I suppose if each troll/bot were labeled I would be fine with it but they aren't, they pollute these online spaces. Whose speech is being protected?
  - acdha 3y ago
    Also there’s less accountability at the same time that the costs have never been lower. A lot of free speech assumptions are based on relative ratios and implicit social pressure to discourage abuse. There just aren’t that many people who are going to stand around screaming insults or lies in a public space, and there’s no equivalent for one guy pretending to be hundreds of people or, especially, for 10 people in a different country to pretend to be part of an entire political movement on another continent.
    - frumper 3y ago
      So are we banning bots or what the bots are saying? One guy can say the same thing and that is what appears to be targeted.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Probably both and neither - for example, rather than outright banning things requiring them to be linked to a verified owner would potentially allow some speech without the negatives. A historic comparison might be the way Americans making political donations are required to affirm that they are using their own money without reimbursement to add a legal risk to paying people to flood public debate. I don’t claim to have the answers, but was just pointing out that the world has changed and we will need different policies.
        frumper 3y ago
        Media has always been filled with lies and propaganda. That isn't new. The folk traveling from out of town brought slanted news and biased stories to the watering hole. Songs manipulate your feelings on various topics. Broadsheets brought you the vile things the bad guys are doing, whether accurate or not. The newspapers, radio, and tv media have been filled with propaganda since their inceptions. I'm not sure that anything has changed except there is now another medium people need to learn to filter through. It's coming at us from more directions at once, but we have to open the door for those voices to come in.
        petsfed 3y ago
        So, since it was always in principle possible that the streets of every city, town, and village could be flooded by millions of newsies, all hocking editions of a variety of newspapers that had all just began publishing that day, we should do nothing now that it is actually possible in practice? I'm not saying I know what the solution actually is, but denying that there even is a problem, or that the existing guidelines were designed with the above scenario in mind, is just preposterous to me.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    The goal of much disinfo is exactly this, to remove the idea of objective reality, facts, or truth. It is common and useful to do this in authoritarian regimes. It goes along with depoliticization where the population comes to believe that they have no control and should desire no control over politics or government. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    The idea of automated bot armies manipulating public discourse is largely a fantasy. The claims about such bots (usually on Twitter) never hold up to close inspection. Go do your own research (the thing that anti-free speech people often hate the most) and you'll discover many of the accounts labelled as bots by media and academia are humans.
- houseatrielah 3y ago
  You say "society", but in practice its a group of unelected bureaucrats engaging in political censorship and regulatory capture.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    Who exactly is unelected?
    - perceptronas 3y ago
      European Commission fits here. Head of commission is approved by parliament as far I know, but commissars are not elected, just suggested by each state governments. Also, all EU laws can only be proposed by European Commission. Others can suggest them, but only they can bring them to parliament. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
      - bmurphy1976 3y ago
        Are the EU state governments not elected? Last I checked they were. Lots of bureaucratic and political positions are appointed by other elected representatives. We can't elect everybody, that would be too much. So is that really a problem here? I am not that up to speed on the intricacies of EU governance at this level so I really don't know if this is a real problem or not.
        stvltvs 3y ago
        This is more like the way we used to elect Senators in the US. The state legislatures used to select Senators until we amended the Constitution to require direct election by the people. Personally, I would prefer direct accountability of top government officials like the European Commission to the public.
      - malermeister 3y ago
        Isn't this the same as like a secretary in the US, appointed by an elected government official?
- threatofrain 3y ago
  No nation has pure freedom of speech anyway; we're all just shades of gray with Europe opting for a little more color over the US.
  - Gud 3y ago
    With more censorship it would be less color, I guess?
- 2356234562537 3y ago
  I don't think anywhere is actually absolutist. Even America has restrictions they just are primarily things like shouting fire in a theatre to use the common example. I wonder, aside from offending good taste though, what harm is actually caused by the American approach that the Europeans can say they don't have to deal with. Unlike comparing gun violence, where I can easily just point out there's fewer civilians shooting civilians in Europe, I can't say that I've seen Europe's more restrictive speech laws to have much of an impact on the peace of the people there. Usually when I see critics in any country arguing for censorship it's primarily because "the other team" was being persuasive in some shady manner and that gets presented as the end all be all reason for why the other group is compelling at all.
  - bdzr 3y ago
    Fire in a theater usually is legal, see https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-fire-crowded-theater-speech-regulation/621151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f....
- jiscariot 3y ago
  When anyone says 'Yes, I believe in free speech, but …,' I stop listening. ~ Salman Rushdie.
- bwanab 3y ago
  Absolutism isn't the point. We all know that there are limits - the classic example of yelling fire in a crowed theater. And as somebody below pointed out, no country has full freedom of speech and while that is true the US does have freedom of speech enshrined in its founding documents as the first amendment. For most other countries, it's not a clear "right" except by common practice and legislation that could be easily revised. But, the point is, we should always have the presumption of freedom of speech. As a matter of course that means we also must have certain responsibilities for the consequences of exercising that freedom. This last point often gets overlooked.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    How does that works with your initial comment though?
  - bdzr 3y ago
    FWIW, fire in a crowded theater usually is legal. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-fire-crowded-theater-speech-regulation/621151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    The limits in the US are essentially action. You can say whatever you want. But when you take an illegal action (or, grey area, compel someone else to take an action) then you lose free speech protections. "Fire" in a movie theater is the classic example of the court deciding what sort of speech consitutes compelling action. This in contrast to other many other countries, where there is no guarantee that speech-that-does-not-compel-action will always be free. To me, speech vs action is a critical distinction, because it prevents anyone in power from monopolizing the marketplace of ideas by banning an idea itself. While simultaneously preventing the worst societal consequences from actions. Or, in other words... neo Nazis should be allowed to march peacefully... but so should everyone else. And the latter should massively outweigh the former. (That said, nothing prevents keeping a much closer eye on violence-espousing neo Nazis)
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  > A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane Just look at how Indian politicians abuse hate speech laws. A classic example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/india-bbc-office-raid-third-day-thursday-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/india-bbc-office-raid-t... "Officials had spent three days raiding the spaces following the country’s ban on a BBC documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago. " "Now ranked between Turkey and Sudan, India dropped eight places to 150 out of 180 nations in last year’s World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders. "
  - StopTheWorld 3y ago
    Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy gave a speech 13 years ago saying Kashmir was never an integral part of India, and New Delhi just announced she is going to be prosecuted for her speech https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/booker-winner-arundhati-roy-facing-prosecution-in-india-media https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/booker-winner-a...
    - rangerelf 3y ago
      Please don't conflate issues. Retroactively applying laws to target your political enemies has nothing to do with censorship laws (except using them as an excuse) and everything to do with corruption and authoritarianism. Donald Trump promised to prosecute everyone he holds a grudge against if he was elected president again, and the USA has constitutionally enshrined free speech laws.
      - pauldenton 3y ago
        Donald Trump talked about "locking her up". Joe Biden is actually "locking him up" and is using lawfare as an alternative to campaigning as a way to win
        scarface_74 3y ago
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  > I support that people can express whatever opinion they have, but not in any way they want. This is a contradiction and makes no sense. > A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane But lack of free speech and free politics drives societies insane. Look at all the crazy stuff the USSR and PRC have done in their histories, relative to the free speech and very much not insane USA.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    > very much not insane USA. Is that supposed to be a joke or does it just reflect your extreme bias? You had a failed coup attempt in January 2021; your speaker of the house was just toppled by a few right-wing extremists in congress; government is on the edge of a default every few months; lots of important leaders (Biden, Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, to name a few, not to mention ones that straight up died of old age in office like RBG and Feinstein) are old to the point where one questions their mental acuity, a gerontocracy reminiscent of the last decades of the Soviet Union.
    - nvm0n2 3y ago
      What's this "you" business. I'm not American and don't live there. Get back to this thread when the USA has killed millions of its own citizens through enforcing insane policies on them in defiance of basic common sense e.g. the Great Leap Forward or Holomodor. That's what counts as insanity here, not politicians being outside your preferred age range.
      - malermeister 3y ago
        It was a bit earlier, so scale is somewhat smaller in absolute (but not necessarily in relative) terms, but there's obviously this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal
8bithero 3y ago
Your concerns about the potential pitfalls of establishing a censorship regime are 100% warranted. However the paradox of tolerance, as described by Karl Popper, is quite relevant here. Popper posited that for a society to remain tolerant, it must have the right to be intolerant of intolerance. This seems contradictory, but the essence is that unchecked tolerance can eventually be exploited by the intolerant, jeopardising the very foundation of a tolerant society. Popper emphasised that the intolerance which shouldn't be tolerated is that which refuses to engage in "rational argument". It's crucial to strike a balance to ensure the preservation of free speech while preventing its misuse.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > Popper emphasised that the intolerance which shouldn't be tolerated is that which refuses to engage in "rational argument". This is the key bit most people miss out. "You should be intolerant of intolerance" is a useless heuristic. You can rephrase most moral statements to be intolerant.
- petsfed 3y ago
  One of the better "solutions" I've seen to the paradox of tolerance is to stop viewing tolerance as a unilateral act, but rather as social contract: You agree to calmly, respectfully, and rationally engage with my ideas, and I agree to do the same for your ideas. But if either of us refuses, then the other is not obliged to maintain the tolerance. I think whenever a bad actor tries to talk about tolerance re: being "muzzled", this different formulation of tolerance should be brought up.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ponector 3y ago
There is a censorship in USA as well. No country has truly freedom of speech.
r00fus 3y ago
What I theorized 10 years ago - balkanization of the internet - a GFW for each country/jurisdiction, and large entities like FAAMG forced to either play ball (and allow country censors), split up their operations, or leave markets.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  This might be an opportunity to really push back if all the companies join forces. What would happen to these bureaucrats if Reddit, HN, Meta, Twitter, Goole etc. all join forces and block the EU as a form of protest(while clearly explaining why). The people/businesses there would be quite pissed off and finally pay attention to who is making these decisions. Thats the worst thing a politician can want: a spotlight on them. Recall the anti-SOPA movement? They changed their tune real quick after that. Frankly the EU is playing the same game as China. They are exploiting capitalism's weakness in an effort to force their will on these companies.
Manfred 3y ago
The Digital Services Act is about enforcing rules that are already in place. For example, traditional media has always been bound to certain rules. > These are dissemination of illegal content, negative effects on certain fundamental rights (privacy, freedom of expression, prohibition on discrimination and the rights of a child), and intentional manipulation of the services […] Source: https://policyreview.info/articles/news/digital-services-act-risk-based-regulation-online-platforms/1606 https://policyreview.info/articles/news/digital-services-act... If enough countries in the EU shift their moral compass and then elect enough officials in the EU parliament and then change the laws and regulations you could say that it's a democratic decision to change the rules.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  > If enough countries in the EU shift their moral compass and then elect enough officials in the EU parliament and then change the laws and regulations you could say that it's a democratic decision to change the rules. But that is impossible because the European Parliament constitutionally is not allowed to change the law. You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe, which is why it's not a democratic system, short of electing a national party that will simultaneously leave the EU and revert to its own currency in one step, something that is widely regarded as logistically difficult to impossible. This is a really, really common point of confusion. It's well past time to consider the way the EU names its institutions to be propaganda. The EU Parliament is not a Parliament. Write it out 100 times on a blackboard. EU policy does not reflect the will of Europeans, who aren't even close to being culturally homogenous enough to have such a will anyway.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    > You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe, which is why it's not a democratic system You can. EU law is written by commissioners, which are appointed by national governments. You can change the commissioners by changing the national governments, which happens through elections.
    - 3y ago
slg 3y ago
>Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. One really has to wonder where this is going to go? It leads to an oligarchy as the rich are able to use their money as speech to buy control of the government. Oh wait, you meant the US's free speech laws are a good thing. Maybe the Americans reading this should think about how their opinion on this issue might have been impacted by their American education and American upbringing. People outside the US aren't all stupid. There are reasons other countries have different speech laws and not all of those reasons are bad.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > People outside the US aren't all stupid. There are reasons other countries have different speech laws and not all of those reasons are bad. This is flawed logic. Consider: There are reasons other countries have honor killings and not all of those reasons are bad.
  - slg 3y ago
    Honor killings are outlawed in Europe and also occur in the US, so I don't understand what point you are trying to make here.
    - f1shy 3y ago
      So the world is USA (I suppose that is what you mean with America/Americans) and Europe. You have a big big world my friend!
      - slg 3y ago
        Remember the context in which this conversation is occurring. The article is about European law. Most people reading this live in the USA (yes, I also wish there was a better demonym for people from the US than "Americans", but there isn't).
        3y ago
anonyfox 3y ago
I, for one, don’t want to see/read holocaust deniers, aggressive hate speech, or fascist propaganda. This stuff is not okay in any way. People being allowed to megaphone this FUD for cheap attention/clicks/manipulation always find idiots who actually believe this shit, and move the Overton window towards even more destructive speech being tolerated. While I do value free speech in general, there is a red line. Like, I can tolerate a lot of weird people talking nonsense, but when you spread hate I‘d confront you right on the street in reallife. „But it’s my opinion“ is NO excuse for being an asshole.
- r00fus 3y ago
  My concern is that any pro-Palestinian content gets axed (US/EU are very pro-Israel) Like the story about the HAMAS rapes/baby beheadings were completely uncorroborated - will any questioning of that be censored?
  - anonyfox 3y ago
    Right now in Germany we have real problems with the large amount of Muslims entering the country, the single reason why rightwing parties are coming to power. It’s a very delicate topic and polarized. Now people spread propaganda garbage that _looks_ credible but is actually fake or several years old. This is adding kerosene into the fire and might ultimately lead to additional problems _ontop of_ the current suffering in the Middle East. I‘d prefer to not pile up additional issues instead of worrying about media underrepresentation of a side.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      And what kind of rule do you imagine you could put in place that wouldn't also do things like van discussion of murder rate statistics?
- jl6 3y ago
  > fascist propaganda Huge opportunity here to censor your disfavored groups by calling them fascist, which has, in recent times, evolved from being a political science term, to being a very broad type of insult/accusation usable against almost anyone you don’t like.
Animats 3y ago
> Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. The US now seems to have a censorship regime, but it's privatized. "Harvard student groups issued an anti-Israel statement. CEOs want them blacklisted."[1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas-ceos-students/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas...
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Don't forget all the "anti- Israel Boycott" laws on the books in many states. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
- ejb999 3y ago
  yes harvard students can say what they want, and CEO's asking to blacklist ALSO have freedom of speech - freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequences.
nebula8804 3y ago
What use is the freedom of speech if it results in you getting canceled or barred from jobs/contracts with the government because you did something like boycott a country they like? This whole Israel-Hamas saga has really shown how little the general population knows about how many freedoms they have lost. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
hackerlight 3y ago
> What happens when the next set of elections puts in somebody who uses that power for less than ideal purposes? But a related question is whether the current status quo increases the probability that such an authoritarian will get elected in the first place. On the one hand, yes, it's bad to give tools like this to a would-be authoritarian. But on the other hand, a lack of such tools may increase the chances that such an authoritarian will rise. They use the freedoms you gave them to get in, then strip those freedoms from you. A liberal and democratic society can't survive without some level of involuntary force applied against those who don't care for such ideals.

by bwanab 3y ago

bink 3y ago

Maybe that question was better to ask decades ago when these policies were put into place? This isn't new.

bestouff 3y ago

I'm not sure this "freedom of speech" absolutism is such a good idea. A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane. I support that people can express whatever opinion they have, but not in any way they want.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I think one issue is that on the internet it's becoming impossible to know anything. You can't know that those thousands of accounts are trolls or neighbors. Does freedom of speech grant you the right to use a troll/bot army to spread misinformation? I suppose if each troll/bot were labeled I would be fine with it but they aren't, they pollute these online spaces. Whose speech is being protected?
- acdha 3y ago
  Also there’s less accountability at the same time that the costs have never been lower. A lot of free speech assumptions are based on relative ratios and implicit social pressure to discourage abuse. There just aren’t that many people who are going to stand around screaming insults or lies in a public space, and there’s no equivalent for one guy pretending to be hundreds of people or, especially, for 10 people in a different country to pretend to be part of an entire political movement on another continent.
  - frumper 3y ago
    So are we banning bots or what the bots are saying? One guy can say the same thing and that is what appears to be targeted.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Probably both and neither - for example, rather than outright banning things requiring them to be linked to a verified owner would potentially allow some speech without the negatives. A historic comparison might be the way Americans making political donations are required to affirm that they are using their own money without reimbursement to add a legal risk to paying people to flood public debate. I don’t claim to have the answers, but was just pointing out that the world has changed and we will need different policies.
      - frumper 3y ago
        Media has always been filled with lies and propaganda. That isn't new. The folk traveling from out of town brought slanted news and biased stories to the watering hole. Songs manipulate your feelings on various topics. Broadsheets brought you the vile things the bad guys are doing, whether accurate or not. The newspapers, radio, and tv media have been filled with propaganda since their inceptions. I'm not sure that anything has changed except there is now another medium people need to learn to filter through. It's coming at us from more directions at once, but we have to open the door for those voices to come in.
        petsfed 3y ago
        So, since it was always in principle possible that the streets of every city, town, and village could be flooded by millions of newsies, all hocking editions of a variety of newspapers that had all just began publishing that day, we should do nothing now that it is actually possible in practice? I'm not saying I know what the solution actually is, but denying that there even is a problem, or that the existing guidelines were designed with the above scenario in mind, is just preposterous to me.
- kurthr 3y ago
  The goal of much disinfo is exactly this, to remove the idea of objective reality, facts, or truth. It is common and useful to do this in authoritarian regimes. It goes along with depoliticization where the population comes to believe that they have no control and should desire no control over politics or government. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  The idea of automated bot armies manipulating public discourse is largely a fantasy. The claims about such bots (usually on Twitter) never hold up to close inspection. Go do your own research (the thing that anti-free speech people often hate the most) and you'll discover many of the accounts labelled as bots by media and academia are humans.
houseatrielah 3y ago
You say "society", but in practice its a group of unelected bureaucrats engaging in political censorship and regulatory capture.
- malermeister 3y ago
  Who exactly is unelected?
  - perceptronas 3y ago
    European Commission fits here. Head of commission is approved by parliament as far I know, but commissars are not elected, just suggested by each state governments. Also, all EU laws can only be proposed by European Commission. Others can suggest them, but only they can bring them to parliament. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
    - bmurphy1976 3y ago
      Are the EU state governments not elected? Last I checked they were. Lots of bureaucratic and political positions are appointed by other elected representatives. We can't elect everybody, that would be too much. So is that really a problem here? I am not that up to speed on the intricacies of EU governance at this level so I really don't know if this is a real problem or not.
      - stvltvs 3y ago
        This is more like the way we used to elect Senators in the US. The state legislatures used to select Senators until we amended the Constitution to require direct election by the people. Personally, I would prefer direct accountability of top government officials like the European Commission to the public.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      Isn't this the same as like a secretary in the US, appointed by an elected government official?
threatofrain 3y ago
No nation has pure freedom of speech anyway; we're all just shades of gray with Europe opting for a little more color over the US.
- Gud 3y ago
  With more censorship it would be less color, I guess?
2356234562537 3y ago
I don't think anywhere is actually absolutist. Even America has restrictions they just are primarily things like shouting fire in a theatre to use the common example. I wonder, aside from offending good taste though, what harm is actually caused by the American approach that the Europeans can say they don't have to deal with. Unlike comparing gun violence, where I can easily just point out there's fewer civilians shooting civilians in Europe, I can't say that I've seen Europe's more restrictive speech laws to have much of an impact on the peace of the people there. Usually when I see critics in any country arguing for censorship it's primarily because "the other team" was being persuasive in some shady manner and that gets presented as the end all be all reason for why the other group is compelling at all.
- bdzr 3y ago
  Fire in a theater usually is legal, see https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-fire-crowded-theater-speech-regulation/621151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f....
jiscariot 3y ago
When anyone says 'Yes, I believe in free speech, but …,' I stop listening. ~ Salman Rushdie.
bwanab 3y ago
Absolutism isn't the point. We all know that there are limits - the classic example of yelling fire in a crowed theater. And as somebody below pointed out, no country has full freedom of speech and while that is true the US does have freedom of speech enshrined in its founding documents as the first amendment. For most other countries, it's not a clear "right" except by common practice and legislation that could be easily revised. But, the point is, we should always have the presumption of freedom of speech. As a matter of course that means we also must have certain responsibilities for the consequences of exercising that freedom. This last point often gets overlooked.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  How does that works with your initial comment though?
- bdzr 3y ago
  FWIW, fire in a crowded theater usually is legal. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-fire-crowded-theater-speech-regulation/621151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ethbr1 3y ago
  The limits in the US are essentially action. You can say whatever you want. But when you take an illegal action (or, grey area, compel someone else to take an action) then you lose free speech protections. "Fire" in a movie theater is the classic example of the court deciding what sort of speech consitutes compelling action. This in contrast to other many other countries, where there is no guarantee that speech-that-does-not-compel-action will always be free. To me, speech vs action is a critical distinction, because it prevents anyone in power from monopolizing the marketplace of ideas by banning an idea itself. While simultaneously preventing the worst societal consequences from actions. Or, in other words... neo Nazis should be allowed to march peacefully... but so should everyone else. And the latter should massively outweigh the former. (That said, nothing prevents keeping a much closer eye on violence-espousing neo Nazis)
RestlessMind 3y ago
> A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane Just look at how Indian politicians abuse hate speech laws. A classic example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/india-bbc-office-raid-third-day-thursday-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/india-bbc-office-raid-t... "Officials had spent three days raiding the spaces following the country’s ban on a BBC documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago. " "Now ranked between Turkey and Sudan, India dropped eight places to 150 out of 180 nations in last year’s World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders. "
- StopTheWorld 3y ago
  Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy gave a speech 13 years ago saying Kashmir was never an integral part of India, and New Delhi just announced she is going to be prosecuted for her speech https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/booker-winner-arundhati-roy-facing-prosecution-in-india-media https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/booker-winner-a...
  - rangerelf 3y ago
    Please don't conflate issues. Retroactively applying laws to target your political enemies has nothing to do with censorship laws (except using them as an excuse) and everything to do with corruption and authoritarianism. Donald Trump promised to prosecute everyone he holds a grudge against if he was elected president again, and the USA has constitutionally enshrined free speech laws.
    - pauldenton 3y ago
      Donald Trump talked about "locking her up". Joe Biden is actually "locking him up" and is using lawfare as an alternative to campaigning as a way to win
      - scarface_74 3y ago
nvm0n2 3y ago
> I support that people can express whatever opinion they have, but not in any way they want. This is a contradiction and makes no sense. > A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane But lack of free speech and free politics drives societies insane. Look at all the crazy stuff the USSR and PRC have done in their histories, relative to the free speech and very much not insane USA.
- malermeister 3y ago
  > very much not insane USA. Is that supposed to be a joke or does it just reflect your extreme bias? You had a failed coup attempt in January 2021; your speaker of the house was just toppled by a few right-wing extremists in congress; government is on the edge of a default every few months; lots of important leaders (Biden, Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, to name a few, not to mention ones that straight up died of old age in office like RBG and Feinstein) are old to the point where one questions their mental acuity, a gerontocracy reminiscent of the last decades of the Soviet Union.
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    What's this "you" business. I'm not American and don't live there. Get back to this thread when the USA has killed millions of its own citizens through enforcing insane policies on them in defiance of basic common sense e.g. the Great Leap Forward or Holomodor. That's what counts as insanity here, not politicians being outside your preferred age range.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      It was a bit earlier, so scale is somewhat smaller in absolute (but not necessarily in relative) terms, but there's obviously this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal

8bithero 3y ago

Your concerns about the potential pitfalls of establishing a censorship regime are 100% warranted. However the paradox of tolerance, as described by Karl Popper, is quite relevant here. Popper posited that for a society to remain tolerant, it must have the right to be intolerant of intolerance. This seems contradictory, but the essence is that unchecked tolerance can eventually be exploited by the intolerant, jeopardising the very foundation of a tolerant society. Popper emphasised that the intolerance which shouldn't be tolerated is that which refuses to engage in "rational argument". It's crucial to strike a balance to ensure the preservation of free speech while preventing its misuse.

concordDance 3y ago
> Popper emphasised that the intolerance which shouldn't be tolerated is that which refuses to engage in "rational argument". This is the key bit most people miss out. "You should be intolerant of intolerance" is a useless heuristic. You can rephrase most moral statements to be intolerant.
petsfed 3y ago
One of the better "solutions" I've seen to the paradox of tolerance is to stop viewing tolerance as a unilateral act, but rather as social contract: You agree to calmly, respectfully, and rationally engage with my ideas, and I agree to do the same for your ideas. But if either of us refuses, then the other is not obliged to maintain the tolerance. I think whenever a bad actor tries to talk about tolerance re: being "muzzled", this different formulation of tolerance should be brought up.
deleted 3y ago
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ponector 3y ago

There is a censorship in USA as well. No country has truly freedom of speech.

r00fus 3y ago

What I theorized 10 years ago - balkanization of the internet - a GFW for each country/jurisdiction, and large entities like FAAMG forced to either play ball (and allow country censors), split up their operations, or leave markets.

nebula8804 3y ago
This might be an opportunity to really push back if all the companies join forces. What would happen to these bureaucrats if Reddit, HN, Meta, Twitter, Goole etc. all join forces and block the EU as a form of protest(while clearly explaining why). The people/businesses there would be quite pissed off and finally pay attention to who is making these decisions. Thats the worst thing a politician can want: a spotlight on them. Recall the anti-SOPA movement? They changed their tune real quick after that. Frankly the EU is playing the same game as China. They are exploiting capitalism's weakness in an effort to force their will on these companies.

Manfred 3y ago

The Digital Services Act is about enforcing rules that are already in place. For example, traditional media has always been bound to certain rules. > These are dissemination of illegal content, negative effects on certain fundamental rights (privacy, freedom of expression, prohibition on discrimination and the rights of a child), and intentional manipulation of the services […] Source: https://policyreview.info/articles/news/digital-services-act-risk-based-regulation-online-platforms/1606 https://policyreview.info/articles/news/digital-services-act... If enough countries in the EU shift their moral compass and then elect enough officials in the EU parliament and then change the laws and regulations you could say that it's a democratic decision to change the rules.

nvm0n2 3y ago
> If enough countries in the EU shift their moral compass and then elect enough officials in the EU parliament and then change the laws and regulations you could say that it's a democratic decision to change the rules. But that is impossible because the European Parliament constitutionally is not allowed to change the law. You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe, which is why it's not a democratic system, short of electing a national party that will simultaneously leave the EU and revert to its own currency in one step, something that is widely regarded as logistically difficult to impossible. This is a really, really common point of confusion. It's well past time to consider the way the EU names its institutions to be propaganda. The EU Parliament is not a Parliament. Write it out 100 times on a blackboard. EU policy does not reflect the will of Europeans, who aren't even close to being culturally homogenous enough to have such a will anyway.
- malermeister 3y ago
  > You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe, which is why it's not a democratic system You can. EU law is written by commissioners, which are appointed by national governments. You can change the commissioners by changing the national governments, which happens through elections.
  - 3y ago

slg 3y ago

>Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. One really has to wonder where this is going to go? It leads to an oligarchy as the rich are able to use their money as speech to buy control of the government. Oh wait, you meant the US's free speech laws are a good thing. Maybe the Americans reading this should think about how their opinion on this issue might have been impacted by their American education and American upbringing. People outside the US aren't all stupid. There are reasons other countries have different speech laws and not all of those reasons are bad.

concordDance 3y ago
> People outside the US aren't all stupid. There are reasons other countries have different speech laws and not all of those reasons are bad. This is flawed logic. Consider: There are reasons other countries have honor killings and not all of those reasons are bad.
- slg 3y ago
  Honor killings are outlawed in Europe and also occur in the US, so I don't understand what point you are trying to make here.
  - f1shy 3y ago
    So the world is USA (I suppose that is what you mean with America/Americans) and Europe. You have a big big world my friend!
    - slg 3y ago
      Remember the context in which this conversation is occurring. The article is about European law. Most people reading this live in the USA (yes, I also wish there was a better demonym for people from the US than "Americans", but there isn't).
      - 3y ago

anonyfox 3y ago

I, for one, don’t want to see/read holocaust deniers, aggressive hate speech, or fascist propaganda. This stuff is not okay in any way. People being allowed to megaphone this FUD for cheap attention/clicks/manipulation always find idiots who actually believe this shit, and move the Overton window towards even more destructive speech being tolerated. While I do value free speech in general, there is a red line. Like, I can tolerate a lot of weird people talking nonsense, but when you spread hate I‘d confront you right on the street in reallife. „But it’s my opinion“ is NO excuse for being an asshole.

r00fus 3y ago
My concern is that any pro-Palestinian content gets axed (US/EU are very pro-Israel) Like the story about the HAMAS rapes/baby beheadings were completely uncorroborated - will any questioning of that be censored?
- anonyfox 3y ago
  Right now in Germany we have real problems with the large amount of Muslims entering the country, the single reason why rightwing parties are coming to power. It’s a very delicate topic and polarized. Now people spread propaganda garbage that _looks_ credible but is actually fake or several years old. This is adding kerosene into the fire and might ultimately lead to additional problems _ontop of_ the current suffering in the Middle East. I‘d prefer to not pile up additional issues instead of worrying about media underrepresentation of a side.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    And what kind of rule do you imagine you could put in place that wouldn't also do things like van discussion of murder rate statistics?
jl6 3y ago
> fascist propaganda Huge opportunity here to censor your disfavored groups by calling them fascist, which has, in recent times, evolved from being a political science term, to being a very broad type of insult/accusation usable against almost anyone you don’t like.

Animats 3y ago

> Very few countries have freedom of speech enshrined quite as forcefully as it is in the United States. The US now seems to have a censorship regime, but it's privatized. "Harvard student groups issued an anti-Israel statement. CEOs want them blacklisted."[1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas-ceos-students/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas...

nebula8804 3y ago
Don't forget all the "anti- Israel Boycott" laws on the books in many states. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
ejb999 3y ago
yes harvard students can say what they want, and CEO's asking to blacklist ALSO have freedom of speech - freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequences.

nebula8804 3y ago

What use is the freedom of speech if it results in you getting canceled or barred from jobs/contracts with the government because you did something like boycott a country they like? This whole Israel-Hamas saga has really shown how little the general population knows about how many freedoms they have lost. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

hackerlight 3y ago

> What happens when the next set of elections puts in somebody who uses that power for less than ideal purposes? But a related question is whether the current status quo increases the probability that such an authoritarian will get elected in the first place. On the one hand, yes, it's bad to give tools like this to a would-be authoritarian. But on the other hand, a lack of such tools may increase the chances that such an authoritarian will rise. They use the freedoms you gave them to get in, then strip those freedoms from you. A liberal and democratic society can't survive without some level of involuntary force applied against those who don't care for such ideals.