Let's assume that you don't care about anything other than getting to power and staying in power. I have to make this assumption, because otherwise it's not that clear cut. Nevertheless it's a good assumption, because humans don't live forever, so they tend to maximize their individual returns during their lifetime. The assumption leads to the following rules:

1. You should be against free speech if you are convinced that your arguments aren't good enough to convince the majority in the next election.

2. You should be pro free speech if you are convinced that your arguments are good enough to convince the majority in the next election.

In practice 1) usually applies to optimists, while 2) usually applies to pessimists. The reason is that optimists usually fail to reach their goals, because if it was so easy it would have been done before, while pessimists usually provide the reasons why such projects are likely to fail. I call them optimists and pessimists, you could call them liberals and conservatives or democrats and republicans, it all comes down to the same.

Optimist: Let's create Utopia, where you get money for nothing and chicks for free!
Pessimist: Your Utopia cannot work, because nothing comes from nothing, dumbass!

Which posters do you think should be put in jail?

Few points on this.

1) As usual, I don't think turning the discussion into personal attacks on posters is a productive idea. I wont be doing that.

2) I'm always against jail unless absolutely necessary and most hate speech can be dealt with in a better way than jail. I'm also against finding people guilty without trial so the most you will probably get from me, unless they have been prosecuted, is that they should be prosecuted.

3) I do think it would be very interesting to consider some real life cases of people being prosecuted for hate speech when discussing this subject. Both to discuss UK/etc law which is still very young and to contrast with how it could be dealt with in the USA. Had been planning to do that in Pv7.0 when I had more time, now might well do it here.

Here is an example from last year where a black man in Pennsylvania was charged under the state's hate crime statute with "ethnic intimidation" for calling the police officers who arrested him for shoplifting "Nazis," "skinheads," and "Gestapo."

Democratically accountable government. It's always the least worst answer as far as I can see.

The current UK law is:

and a good example of how the law is changed via democratically accountable government is the removal of the word insulting in 2013
None of which should be taken to mean that I consider the law as perfect. I expect it will evolve and become more refined as time goes by - as laws need to imo.

To clarify one item in the OP.

According to the official protocol surrounding the US flag, worn and tattered flags cannot be displayed, they must be destroyed. The only acceptable means of destruction is burning.

Thus, burning the flag as a protest cannot be punishable since act itself is legal, so in the case of a protest you would be punishing the thought behind the act.

Citation: https://www.military.com/flag-day/fl...and-donts.html

Well, according to kerowo’s definition of racism (as he outlined in the Trump thread) context doesn’t matter so this is clearly a hate crime.

I would argue context does matter and this is misapplication of any reasonable hate crime law, although he might be guilty of some other law pertaining to traetment of police officers while being arrested.

I am curious what the district attorney elected to do with the case.

Free speech is how to loudly proclaim what’s happening. It’s an influential thing to do. Communication itself is influenced by the freedom to express within free communities.

Limiting free speech for behavioral influence purposes defeats a function of free speech. It seems unavoidable.

How to disrupt influences of misinformation and disinformation is a matter of free speech being least limited. Giving widest potential for what’s really happening to be proclaimed at any volume.

I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that the majority of people prosecuted under hate crime statutes in the US were minorities.

I can't attest the how true that is, though.

Even given that this is a misapplication of the law, one of the main arguments against hate speech legislation is that it will be consistently misapplied in favor of those in power.

So you think speech should be limited by the whims of the majority? Would have hated to be gay, black, etc. in the 1860-1980 version of this world.

Even without the word insulting this law would not pass constitutional scrutiny in the states. It is both exceedingly overbroad and vague. I'm sure it is limited by relevant UK case law...but yikes!

Guy could sue in federal court and have this thrown out in like 2 seconds. I'm assuming he was never charged for this unless the county likes to light money on fire.

This came up in the other thread so I happen to know recent #s off hand

51% white
21% black
19% none specified
rest is various minorities

https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/h...ime-statistics

No I don't think whims of the majority is a good description of a parliamentary democracy. It's a risk but no more (significantly less I'd argue) than in a USA type constitutional system - something that always seemed obvious but has maybe become more apparent in the last few years to many of those those who disagreed.

Yes being gay, black etc was awful in the 1860-1980 version of both our world. Under the veil of ignorance I'd take the UK in a heartbeat over the USA but both were bad. Both are a bit better now but I would strongly suggest that a parliamentary democracy is better for liberal progressives than a constitutional one.


Fortunately we are not burdened by this constitution so can actually change the laws and have laws that develop. We like a bit of vagueness when appropriate - see pornography.

It may be overboard. As with the 'insulting' point, political pressure will grow to change procedures or amend the law if it's OTT. And conversely if it's found to be inadequate.

I think you will struggle incredibly hard to show it's remotely the case in the UK. There are some cases of concern but it's overwhelming used against those being hateful to ordinary people/groups on the basis of race, religion and sexual orientation.

The difference my be where in the USA they have these hate speech rules. Might go better in somewhere like California. Or it may be down to the sheer abusiveness of the USA system is in general. Or something else - I think it's very difficult to see how the USA system is improved by changing one bit.

Looks like FB is rethinking who they give a platform to.

Thank you.

That is pretty interesting, because it is almost identical in Germany. The problem in Germany is that only germans violate this law. Migrants cannot violate it, because it is "intendened to protect the minority". That's why a president of a turkish organization who called germans a "dog-race", didn't get prosecuted.

Basically the law in Germany is a one way street directed against germans while they are still the majority in their own country. With demographic change this will change or course, but at the same time nobody knows if by then this law will still exist. Once the majorities change, the laws usually change as well. The Romans introduced Freedom of Religion, but once the Christians came to power it got revoked of course. This is how it goes when the sheep trust the wolves. They get slaughtered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Thessalonica

It is also pretty interesting where Germany is coming from. In 1872 the very same law was originally directed against communist agitators who were heating up crows to start a riot. This doesn't mean that Germany had absolutely free speech though. You were not allowed to insult the head of the state and the country of course, but it was the same in every country.

This is the original from 1872:
This is the current version from 2015:
You don't need to speak german to see the difference.

with trump being dumb about free speech again yesterday/today and not understanding anything at all, i always wonder why if conservatives really think they are popular (#silent majority b.s.) why dont they make their own social media platform.. i mean if their ideas are so popular and wide reaching im sure they could support their own platform

Isn't that called Gab?

I really do think there's a very important and complicated discussion to be had about tech giants and free speech with social media. It is such a powerful tool that it can't be ignored. The concentration of power and ability to shape societal and political outcomes goes well beyond individual rights. It's incredibly complicated and shouldn't be taken lightly

there is no conversation to be had about free speech and any private companies.

I mean, yes there is, obviously. "Free speech" as it is used in a legal context is usually used to refer to governmentally enforced limits on speech. I assume this is what you mean by your statement here. However, (1) we are familiar with government interventions into commerce to preserve people's autonomy for other rights - eg non-discrimination laws. Similar considerations could apply for speech rights as well. (2) Some people have argued that some large tech companies with natural monopolies like Facebook should be regulated like utilities, in which case they might have to face a higher bar in protecting speech than other companies. (3) If Shame Trolly or microbet was here, he'd remind you that governments are not the only large entities with power to affect people's lives. Corporations can also limit people's freedom to speak as they want, even if they do so in less overtly coercive ways than the government.

its always free market free market until crappy conservative ideas are called crappy, then its protect our right to push propaganda..

i'm fine with breaking up tech monopolies, that very likely needs to happen but that still doesn't give any credence to the argument that they shouldn't be allowed to de-platform racists and bigots off their private servers.

and if we are going to make up definitions for "free speech", then sure we can have a conversation about anything i guess.

Presumably the ideal of "freedom of expression" and the reasons for it predate the 1st amendment and are larger than just the legal interpretation. Other people in other countries also claim to value the ideal. Referring to the political philosophy apart from the law doesn't seem like making things up to me.