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>>The state has also been told that it must implement legislation against the denial, condoning of and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holo

>>The state has also been told that it must implement legislation against the denial, condoning of and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust. Such heavy-handed, draconian laws give ammo to Holocaust deniers.

surgical_fire 1y ago
Eh, it gives them more ammo to allow them to spread their bullshit without any law forbidding it. I would rather them having imaginary ammo by being punished for it.
- d4v3 1y ago
  That's shortsighted. Today it's the holocaust. What is it tomorrow?
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    "what will be of us if we can't call black people monkeys anymore? RIP freedom".
    - d4v3 1y ago
      Once you open the door to criminalizing ideas, even vile ones, you risk that power being misused later in ways no one intended. Defending the principle of free speech isn’t the same as defending the content of the speech. It’s about protecting the framework that allows us to challenge bad ideas rather than bury them.
      - surgical_fire 1y ago
        And once you open the door of vile ideas being treated as valid information, you risk them becoming the norm. "Your knowledge is as valid as my ignorance" is a scocietal disease every country is facing right now to varying degrees of severity because bad ideas spread fast. The thought that bad ideas can be challenged fairly in an open marketplace is a utopia. Most people are not interested in truth. They would rather touch themselves.
        d4v3 1y ago
        Vile ideas are not automatically accepted as 'valid information'. You're assuming that society can't handle challenging ideas while ignoring the possibility that free speech is what allows for those ideas to be openly criticized, debated, and disproven. A robust system of free speech is what actually ensures bad ideas are not given a free pass but are subject to critique and debate
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas". Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results. You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, but in reality bad ideas very often smother the discussion when people adopt a stance of "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge". By the way, you applied a suspicious change of rhetorical focus when the original terminology was "vile ideas" and you switched that to "challenging ideas". I'll consider that an accidental slip instead of malice.
        d4v3 1y ago
        > Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas". A century ago, mainstream society openly embraced racial hierarchies as scientific fact. Three centuries ago, slavery was not only legal, but morally justified by churches and universities. In 17th-century New England, people were executed for witchcraft based on superstition and mass hysteria. Well into the 20th century, eugenics was considered respectable science across Europe and North America. So I don't think these current times are any worse than they were before in terms of bad ideas existing in the mainstream, at least from a historical perspective. In fact, I'd probably argue it's better. > Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results. This is true of any society. The key difference is that they are easier to challenge in a place with strong free speech protections. Bad ideas will always exist, but it's better to test them out in the open rather than let them fester in dark. > You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, ... You're right, I am. I believe in a marketplace of ideas because it's better than any alternative that involves gatekeeping truth. The notion that "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge" is a cultural problem, not a legal one. I trust free speech over any system that relies on a sanctioned arbiter of truth. And I think that protection of people from bad ideas often backfires (see European history and the Catholic Church, McCarthyism, Nazi propaganda, Soviet censorship, etc.)
    - int_19h 1y ago
      Let me give you an actual real-world example. At one point, Russia decided to enact anti-extremist legislation similar to your enlightened European hate speech laws. It criminalized hateful speech directed at "identifiable social groups". Then we found out that "identifiable social groups" include the corrupt police and members of parliament.
      - surgical_fire 1y ago
        Which is a terrible comparison. This is not what Ireland is being required to implement.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- voidspark 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    > So you are against the First Amendment. Thankfully I don't live in the US. No such cancer here. > Authoritarian control of the narrative. North Korean style. Nice false dichotomy there.
    - voidspark 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - surgical_fire 1y ago
        By your standard, every single country that is not the US is authoritarian, because no other country is extremist in their interpretation of what freedom of speech means. I want people to have freedom to criticize the government and question those in power. I don't want people to have the freedom to say that blacks or jews are subhuman, because the results of that freedom are not good.
        voidspark 1y ago
        [flagged]
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        > You have singled out the most extreme examples Yes, because it is the topic of this thread. It's about Ireland implementing the EU directives on hate speech, such as Holocaust denial. > and yet even with that freedom to say racist things, so many non-whites are trying to move INTO the United States We are taking about Ireland and the EU. I have no idea why people want to move to the US. More power to them, not my problem. > Your limits on free speech are a slippery slope. Yes most of the world is authoritarian. I experienced it during the pandemic in a so called First World country. Ah... I see the problem now. You are one of those people. I won't reply to you any further. Feel free to have the last word. This conversation will never get anywhere.
like_any_other 1y ago
Tangentially, one would expect Irish laws to deal more with their own atrocities, such as British occupation, their near-eradication of Gaelic, or denial of England's role in the Irish potato famine.
- danaris 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    Gaelic was the majority language in Ireland until the 19th century. Now only 4% speak it daily. They have real problems with their own culture being erased. Given this dire state, one would think that would be their priority, but it doesn't rate so much as a mention.
- donohoe 1y ago
  To be fair, that was over 100 years ago at this point.
  - ImJamal 1y ago
    And the Holocaust was 80 years ago?
    - donohoe 1y ago
      As someone who is Irish and learned all about colonialism in my history class on the centuries of British rule in Ireland, I would never lightly make a comparison to the holocaust like that.
defrost 1y ago
It pushes them torward defending their "truth" in multiple courts of law where it falls apart for lack of evidence. David Irving had a great opportunity to make his case .. he failed several times over: The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". Hardly generic "great ammo", just very specific ammo for those that want to rail against courts and law in addition to picking fault with recorded history.
donohoe 1y ago
It’s neither heavy-handed nor draconian, hate speech is hate speech.
- voidspark 1y ago
  In the US that is free speech which is allowed under the First Amendment.
  - ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
    Pretty important too since now all you have to do to silence someone in Europe is argue it's hate speech. There was a time the lab leak covid theory was hate speech, people were calling people racists for mentioning it. Sometimes simply stating statistics can get construed as hate speech. I'm sure there's other good examples, but at the end of the day it just creates a bar for those trying to silence a topic to reach.
    - voidspark 1y ago
      Yes. “Hate speech” has a specific legal definition in the US. Holocaust denial is not hate speech. People should be allowed to question a historic event. People should be allowed to think.
      - mdhb 1y ago
        The rest of the world just watched you jail someone for writing an op-ed. Free speech is dead in the US and those who screamed the loudest about it the past decade turned out to be absolutely full of shit and shouldn’t ever be listened to moving forward.
        voidspark 1y ago
        I live on the opposite side of the world from the US. I’m not American. No freedom of speech in my country. I think you got the facts mixed up. The person who wrote the op ed was not an American citizen and they were not jailed, they were ordered to return to their home country. They were on a student visa which is conditional and it is a privilege, not a right. They raised some flags and the student visa was revoked.

surgical_fire 1y ago

Eh, it gives them more ammo to allow them to spread their bullshit without any law forbidding it. I would rather them having imaginary ammo by being punished for it.

d4v3 1y ago
That's shortsighted. Today it's the holocaust. What is it tomorrow?
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  "what will be of us if we can't call black people monkeys anymore? RIP freedom".
  - d4v3 1y ago
    Once you open the door to criminalizing ideas, even vile ones, you risk that power being misused later in ways no one intended. Defending the principle of free speech isn’t the same as defending the content of the speech. It’s about protecting the framework that allows us to challenge bad ideas rather than bury them.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      And once you open the door of vile ideas being treated as valid information, you risk them becoming the norm. "Your knowledge is as valid as my ignorance" is a scocietal disease every country is facing right now to varying degrees of severity because bad ideas spread fast. The thought that bad ideas can be challenged fairly in an open marketplace is a utopia. Most people are not interested in truth. They would rather touch themselves.
      - d4v3 1y ago
        Vile ideas are not automatically accepted as 'valid information'. You're assuming that society can't handle challenging ideas while ignoring the possibility that free speech is what allows for those ideas to be openly criticized, debated, and disproven. A robust system of free speech is what actually ensures bad ideas are not given a free pass but are subject to critique and debate
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas". Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results. You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, but in reality bad ideas very often smother the discussion when people adopt a stance of "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge". By the way, you applied a suspicious change of rhetorical focus when the original terminology was "vile ideas" and you switched that to "challenging ideas". I'll consider that an accidental slip instead of malice.
        d4v3 1y ago
        > Hard disagree, and I wonder how you can say that when we live during times when society in general is definitely is unable to handle "challenging ideas". A century ago, mainstream society openly embraced racial hierarchies as scientific fact. Three centuries ago, slavery was not only legal, but morally justified by churches and universities. In 17th-century New England, people were executed for witchcraft based on superstition and mass hysteria. Well into the 20th century, eugenics was considered respectable science across Europe and North America. So I don't think these current times are any worse than they were before in terms of bad ideas existing in the mainstream, at least from a historical perspective. In fact, I'd probably argue it's better. > Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results. This is true of any society. The key difference is that they are easier to challenge in a place with strong free speech protections. Bad ideas will always exist, but it's better to test them out in the open rather than let them fester in dark. > You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, ... You're right, I am. I believe in a marketplace of ideas because it's better than any alternative that involves gatekeeping truth. The notion that "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge" is a cultural problem, not a legal one. I trust free speech over any system that relies on a sanctioned arbiter of truth. And I think that protection of people from bad ideas often backfires (see European history and the Catholic Church, McCarthyism, Nazi propaganda, Soviet censorship, etc.)
  - int_19h 1y ago
    Let me give you an actual real-world example. At one point, Russia decided to enact anti-extremist legislation similar to your enlightened European hate speech laws. It criminalized hateful speech directed at "identifiable social groups". Then we found out that "identifiable social groups" include the corrupt police and members of parliament.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      Which is a terrible comparison. This is not what Ireland is being required to implement.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
voidspark 1y ago
[flagged]
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > So you are against the First Amendment. Thankfully I don't live in the US. No such cancer here. > Authoritarian control of the narrative. North Korean style. Nice false dichotomy there.
  - voidspark 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      By your standard, every single country that is not the US is authoritarian, because no other country is extremist in their interpretation of what freedom of speech means. I want people to have freedom to criticize the government and question those in power. I don't want people to have the freedom to say that blacks or jews are subhuman, because the results of that freedom are not good.
      - voidspark 1y ago
        [flagged]
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        > You have singled out the most extreme examples Yes, because it is the topic of this thread. It's about Ireland implementing the EU directives on hate speech, such as Holocaust denial. > and yet even with that freedom to say racist things, so many non-whites are trying to move INTO the United States We are taking about Ireland and the EU. I have no idea why people want to move to the US. More power to them, not my problem. > Your limits on free speech are a slippery slope. Yes most of the world is authoritarian. I experienced it during the pandemic in a so called First World country. Ah... I see the problem now. You are one of those people. I won't reply to you any further. Feel free to have the last word. This conversation will never get anywhere.

like_any_other 1y ago

Tangentially, one would expect Irish laws to deal more with their own atrocities, such as British occupation, their near-eradication of Gaelic, or denial of England's role in the Irish potato famine.

danaris 1y ago
[flagged]
- like_any_other 1y ago
  Gaelic was the majority language in Ireland until the 19th century. Now only 4% speak it daily. They have real problems with their own culture being erased. Given this dire state, one would think that would be their priority, but it doesn't rate so much as a mention.
donohoe 1y ago
To be fair, that was over 100 years ago at this point.
- ImJamal 1y ago
  And the Holocaust was 80 years ago?
  - donohoe 1y ago
    As someone who is Irish and learned all about colonialism in my history class on the centuries of British rule in Ireland, I would never lightly make a comparison to the holocaust like that.

defrost 1y ago

It pushes them torward defending their "truth" in multiple courts of law where it falls apart for lack of evidence. David Irving had a great opportunity to make his case .. he failed several times over: The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". Hardly generic "great ammo", just very specific ammo for those that want to rail against courts and law in addition to picking fault with recorded history.

donohoe 1y ago

It’s neither heavy-handed nor draconian, hate speech is hate speech.

voidspark 1y ago
In the US that is free speech which is allowed under the First Amendment.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
  Pretty important too since now all you have to do to silence someone in Europe is argue it's hate speech. There was a time the lab leak covid theory was hate speech, people were calling people racists for mentioning it. Sometimes simply stating statistics can get construed as hate speech. I'm sure there's other good examples, but at the end of the day it just creates a bar for those trying to silence a topic to reach.
  - voidspark 1y ago
    Yes. “Hate speech” has a specific legal definition in the US. Holocaust denial is not hate speech. People should be allowed to question a historic event. People should be allowed to think.
    - mdhb 1y ago
      The rest of the world just watched you jail someone for writing an op-ed. Free speech is dead in the US and those who screamed the loudest about it the past decade turned out to be absolutely full of shit and shouldn’t ever be listened to moving forward.
      - voidspark 1y ago
        I live on the opposite side of the world from the US. I’m not American. No freedom of speech in my country. I think you got the facts mixed up. The person who wrote the op ed was not an American citizen and they were not jailed, they were ordered to return to their home country. They were on a student visa which is conditional and it is a privilege, not a right. They raised some flags and the student visa was revoked.