5 ms·

The UK is a bit more nuanced with free speech than the US, it can be illegal to make an offensive joke on twitter for example.

by jiggy2011 12y ago

therealdrag0 12y ago
Sheesh!
bshimmin 12y ago
"Nuanced" is a good word for this. It feels like there has been a gradual shift over the last few years - and the Twitter rulings (of which another just today) exemplify this - towards less freedom, supported by vague ideas like "incitement" to "terrorism" and "racial hatred". For anyone old enough to remember the wild west of Usenet a decade or two ago, the sort of stuff we see people being imprisoned for posting on Twitter now seems extremely tame. But hey, celebrities didn't really get into Usenet too much...
- ZoFreX 12y ago
  There is nothing new or special about the Twitter rulings in the UK. Whether you agree with it or not, if you wrote similar messages to someone via letter 20 years ago you could get in trouble. Simply changing the medium hasn't changed the legal ramifications.
  - bshimmin 12y ago
    Aside from the fact that there have been actual changes to the law (mentioned in my "vague ideas" clause), what's changed is that people used to post obscene and threatening things on usenet, and whenever the police were involved, nothing ever came of it. With Twitter in the UK, in 2014, people now go to prison for posting such things. Of course Twitter is more popular than Usenet ever was, but I'm not sure whether that's more the point than a gradual erosion of freedom of speech in the UK which I personally think we've seen.
gojomo 12y ago
That 'nuance' to 'free speech' where certain speech is punished by the government is actually 'not free speech'.
- vacri 12y ago
  The US also has restrictions on 'free speech'. It's strange that the US is so passionate about protecting hate speech, but is similar to other places when it comes to libel or slander (which are similar to hate speech, in that they're about defamation). Similarly things like Free Speech Zones: 'you can say what you want, but you aren't allowed to say it in this public space'. There are a lot of nuances to 'free speech', it's not the black-and-white affair that many say it is.
  - gojomo 12y ago
    If in one jurisdiction you can legally say everything you can say in another, and then also say other things too, then the first jurisdiction unambiguously has more free speech. There's not a lot of nuance, just a total ordering, from more free speech, to less. 'Hate speech' restrictions aren't primarily "about defamation" or even threats. Those are already handled by actual defamation and assault law, with stricter standards of harm. 'Hate speech' rules add extra penalties based on motivation or message. They aim to penalize when listeners are simply offended, and even when the speech is trivially true. For example, most verboten slurs against group X, when unpacked, simply mean "I see you as X and I dislike X" – which is almost always a self-certifying utterance, and reveals more about the speaker than the target. So let them speak. Phrases like "Free Speech Zones" are a lot like saying that free speech is a 'nuanced' matter. Such words are a hint that something that's actually censorship, and unfree speech, is trying to pass itself off as 'free speech'.
    - vacri 12y ago
      most verboten slurs against group X, when unpacked, simply mean "I see you as X and I dislike X" No, they don't mean just that. Most slurs against group X are "I see you as X, and I dislike X, and I want to prejudice people against X, reducing their opportunities". Hate speech is maligning a group to diminish them, and slander/libel is maligning an individual to diminish them. There's not a lot of nuance, just a total ordering, from more free speech, to less. This implies that 'free speech' is a sliding scale. It's not - it's polyvariate. Hence, nuance. Edit: example: "You can say anything, you just can't criticise the king" versus "You can say anything, you just can't copy a company's mascot". Which of these two is "less free speech" than the other? How do you measure that? Does the king have more power over your life than companies do? Do you want to criticise the king more than you want to make a derivative work of Mickey?
yarrel 12y ago
s/nuanced/restrictive/

The UK is a bit more nuanced with free speech than the US, it can be illegal to make an offensive joke on twitter for example.

therealdrag0 12y ago

Sheesh!

bshimmin 12y ago

"Nuanced" is a good word for this. It feels like there has been a gradual shift over the last few years - and the Twitter rulings (of which another just today) exemplify this - towards less freedom, supported by vague ideas like "incitement" to "terrorism" and "racial hatred". For anyone old enough to remember the wild west of Usenet a decade or two ago, the sort of stuff we see people being imprisoned for posting on Twitter now seems extremely tame. But hey, celebrities didn't really get into Usenet too much...

ZoFreX 12y ago
There is nothing new or special about the Twitter rulings in the UK. Whether you agree with it or not, if you wrote similar messages to someone via letter 20 years ago you could get in trouble. Simply changing the medium hasn't changed the legal ramifications.
- bshimmin 12y ago
  Aside from the fact that there have been actual changes to the law (mentioned in my "vague ideas" clause), what's changed is that people used to post obscene and threatening things on usenet, and whenever the police were involved, nothing ever came of it. With Twitter in the UK, in 2014, people now go to prison for posting such things. Of course Twitter is more popular than Usenet ever was, but I'm not sure whether that's more the point than a gradual erosion of freedom of speech in the UK which I personally think we've seen.

gojomo 12y ago

That 'nuance' to 'free speech' where certain speech is punished by the government is actually 'not free speech'.

vacri 12y ago
The US also has restrictions on 'free speech'. It's strange that the US is so passionate about protecting hate speech, but is similar to other places when it comes to libel or slander (which are similar to hate speech, in that they're about defamation). Similarly things like Free Speech Zones: 'you can say what you want, but you aren't allowed to say it in this public space'. There are a lot of nuances to 'free speech', it's not the black-and-white affair that many say it is.
- gojomo 12y ago
  If in one jurisdiction you can legally say everything you can say in another, and then also say other things too, then the first jurisdiction unambiguously has more free speech. There's not a lot of nuance, just a total ordering, from more free speech, to less. 'Hate speech' restrictions aren't primarily "about defamation" or even threats. Those are already handled by actual defamation and assault law, with stricter standards of harm. 'Hate speech' rules add extra penalties based on motivation or message. They aim to penalize when listeners are simply offended, and even when the speech is trivially true. For example, most verboten slurs against group X, when unpacked, simply mean "I see you as X and I dislike X" – which is almost always a self-certifying utterance, and reveals more about the speaker than the target. So let them speak. Phrases like "Free Speech Zones" are a lot like saying that free speech is a 'nuanced' matter. Such words are a hint that something that's actually censorship, and unfree speech, is trying to pass itself off as 'free speech'.
  - vacri 12y ago
    most verboten slurs against group X, when unpacked, simply mean "I see you as X and I dislike X" No, they don't mean just that. Most slurs against group X are "I see you as X, and I dislike X, and I want to prejudice people against X, reducing their opportunities". Hate speech is maligning a group to diminish them, and slander/libel is maligning an individual to diminish them. There's not a lot of nuance, just a total ordering, from more free speech, to less. This implies that 'free speech' is a sliding scale. It's not - it's polyvariate. Hence, nuance. Edit: example: "You can say anything, you just can't criticise the king" versus "You can say anything, you just can't copy a company's mascot". Which of these two is "less free speech" than the other? How do you measure that? Does the king have more power over your life than companies do? Do you want to criticise the king more than you want to make a derivative work of Mickey?

yarrel 12y ago

s/nuanced/restrictive/