EU Moving to Ban Online Hate Speech 452
WED Fan writes "Several members of the EU Parliament are moving to ban online hate speech. 'The draft of the declaration, which heise online has seen, calls on providers in somewhat vague language to make provisions against "hate pages" part of their standard terms and conditions.'"
Yeah, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is Hate Speech? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a bad thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the beginning of a slippery slope that ends up where web pages, emails, documents, or speech that is anti-establishment becomes illegal as well. It's important to set precident with the less-obvious things early on so this slope is avoided altogether.
Hate speech banned eh? how much do you bet... (Score:5, Insightful)
But here's the proof, imho : in the US, where you can pretty much say any old darn thing short of direct calls to violence, neo-nazi, KKKs and other white supremacist groups exist, express themselves (much to the dismay of the local populace around them) and... they look like a small group of retards. On the other hand, in Europe, where you can't say something even remotely critical of the jews, and where naziism has become taboo to the point where it's not even possible to discuss the official head count of the holocaust without landing in the pokey, antisemitism, racism and extreme-right groups are growing at an alarming rate. Why? because these people stay hidden, embedded in the general population, by force of law, instead of coming out and showing themselves as the numbskulls they are like in the US.
So in short, banning hate speech will do nothing but promote hate. Well done EEC, some insight...
Anything that removes the liberties of thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Prohibition doesn't work. (Score:3, Insightful)
Alcohol
Drugs
Guns
Bad speech/thoughts
All attempts to enforce prohibition result in oppressive government, reduced civil liberties for all, and greater dissemination of the originally prohibited contraband.
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or expressions of religious belief?
This is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by the EU to outlaw religion (both Muslim and Christian religions believe homosexuality to be immoral; the reasoning goes that even condeming immoral behavior (as opposed to people)is sufficient to trigger the statute.
IIRC, a similar law has been passed in the Netherlands, with pastors being warned that there are certain sins they are no longer allowed to mention in public.
Even if you are an atheist, the premise is troubling. I would be likewise disturbed if questioning the existence of God was made illegal - certainly this development is not going to expand and enlighten public discourse on sensitive subjects.
Truly a troubling development.
Re:Hate speech banned eh? how much do you bet... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you can pretty clearly define hate speech (Score:4, Insightful)
To me hate speech is a severe form of slander and libel which is pushed upon one entire ethnic group or race. I think laws for hate speech are possible as long as you put strict requirements on it. Should I be able to walk down the street and call you a N*****? Legally, yes I should be able to. Should I be able to create a book detailing with no real scientific proof, that african americans are an inferior race of stupid people who should be shot an hanged on site for merely existing? Absolutely not. To me it's an extention of the same slander and libel laws. I could walk down the street and call you an asshole if you cut me off, but if I cook up some lies and speak about them publically or write an article on the web about you just to damage your reputation and make it harder for you to keep or find a job, then that should be illegal.
No society is absolute. Americans hold up the constitution as the ultimate black and white definition of what should and should not happen, but as time marches on, people evolve and grow ever more savvy about how to game the system.
And to those who think that the hate speech would evolve into squashing all free speech are offering up a red herring. Libel and slander as they are now are laws that limit your freedom to speak your mind, because in those cases you are hurting someone else. Same with yelling fire in a crowded theater. Freedom of political and social speech can been preserved just fine. Free speech is not a simple black or white philosophy and we forget exceptions and how we frame them when look at the freedom of speech.
The EU countries already have bans on hate speech, as does Canada and probably others. Different countries deal with different problems differently, and the US, while it has a strong protection of freedom of speech, also has problems with evil reactionary groups who are allowed to exist and spread what I consider the most evil of lies under the banner of free speech. I don't see the EU collapsing now because they crack down on hatemongers and I don't see it happening any time soon either.
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think you can pretty clearly define hate spee (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Absolutely. End of story.
Why this is a problem ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, freedom to choose is the freedom to make bad decisions; there is no controversy in making good decisions.
Re:Hate speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey Slashdotters, which is better, Linux or BSD? How's about emacs vs. vi? PS3 vs. Wii? Gnome vs. KDE? Best distro out there? Gun control: good or bad? What's hands down the very best language out there?
There, that should do it.
Re:I think you can pretty clearly define hate spee (Score:5, Insightful)
So you can define hate speech.
And we could probably agree on what is acceptable and not.
But, the effect of an a priori prohibition speech based on its content damages society as a whole.
The battle over free speech isn't merely about public statements. It is also a battle over how best to address the problem of troubled individuals, who, while not criminal (yet), exhibit pathological tendencies. Without freedom of speech, we would have to wonder if everyone was out to get us. With freedom of speech, I have a reasonable assurance that I'm on good terms with others because they are free to let me know if they hate me or love me, or are merely indifferent. Hence, our collective sense of security and civil stability is very much tied to our freedom of speech.
Re:Can't really call it "godwinning" (Score:3, Insightful)
Sound familiar?
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Godwinning this Topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Prohibition doesn't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone actually does you harm, by all means call them a criminal.
If the actions of someone hurt your feelings, gross you out, strike you as immoral, or irrationally frighten you: get over it, ignore them, and mind your own business.
Re:I think you can pretty clearly define hate spee (Score:5, Insightful)
Euope vs. US Hate Comparisons unfair (Score:4, Insightful)
With Napoleon's conquests, the idea of people as citizens took hold, but it was culturally foreign, and integration never happened. Combine this with relatively small areas with different languages and religions, and you have homogenous countries that have been reared to hate the other because one was often at war with them.
Indeed, the initial efforts of the Nazi's were not the extermination of the Jews (although that was the end goal, they took stages), the first effort was to separate the assimilated Jews out of German culture, restoring their status as "others" to be distrusted by the people. Before they rounded my ancestors up into camps, they prohibited inter-marriage, and forced them to be separated from the culture. This was an important first step, because in Germany, the Jews were highly assimilated into the local culture, indeed the Reform movement was born in Germany setting the goal to assimilate, which is why so much of Reform cantorials and other German Jewish customs are borrowed from Lutheran protestant Curches through the assimilation there. In order to rile the people of Germany up against them, they needed to draw a line between Germans and Jews, which naturally made Jews the enemies and ripe for being attacked.
Europe's problems of racism and xenophobia stem from a culture of being at was with other groups and having them nearby. In contrast, in the United States, the former Slave and Jim Crow states, which have had a much shorter history of integration, suffer from more severe attitudes towards different races. It's not that racism and persecution doesn't exist in former Union States (it does, and may often be more severe), but the portion of the populace that would support race based laws is more minor.
I don't think that one can simply point to the US's First Amendment and Europe's post-War speech regulations and attempt to show that the latter causes growth of neo-nazism and the former stops it. I think that we have yet to see Europe get 3 generations from killing people for being "other" and Americans outside of the deep south haven't fought over the matter in 150 years and even in the deep south the civil rights movement was accomplished with relatively minor violence. Sure their were showdowns over integration of schools, but no pogroms. Even the worst abuses of people by the KKK pale in comparison to the European's behaviors, including wars over churches, kidnapping Jewish children if someone claimed the child was baptized, prohibitions of land ownership, etc.
There is a massive cultural gap between the US and Europe in these regards, the Europe's cultural elites are so removed from it they don't understand it. While the gulf is smaller in the US, our elites understand it enough to make fun of those that hate others, which is probably better than ignoring it... call someone an idiot or wrong, they fight back, just mock them, and they get embarrassed...
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many political parties in europe are banned, which I think is a travesty.
I can't talk for all those parties and all members of the EU, but here in Germany a party is going to get banned when it doesn't accept the democratic basis of the country's society.
Why should a democracy allow and even support a group with the declared aim to destroy that democracy?
You shouldn't assume that parties get banned lightly.
A lot of people call for banning two right-winged (and I mean _right-winged_, not just 'very conservative') parties here in Germany. But because they don't openly talk against democracy and because their actions stay within the limits of the law, they are free to do their political work.
Every freedom hast limits and has to have limits.
Re:Godwinning this Topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Societal disapproval is not the same as illegal.
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:2, Insightful)
The exact same spirit applies to free speech. Anyone should be able to deny the holocaust openly. It's up to society at large to consider and then dismiss such claims with their own free thought, research, and insight, rather than be protected from this kind of speech by censors. That's how one learns about things, and many governments are blocking it out.
Re:Hate speech banned eh? how much do you bet... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, hate laws in Europe are the results of a fascist government exterminating six million people and ruining a continent.
Believing or not that banning hate speech is the right solution to stop fascism attaining state power is one thing, but please remember what Europe has gone through and why these laws were created in the first place.
At some point europeans had to say "never again", and that's why most countries in europe have some form of "hate speech" law.
we need REAL tolerance (Score:5, Insightful)
This law will become the equivelent of the UnAmerican Activites Committee. Welcome to the Witch Hunt.
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:3, Insightful)
If by religion you mean "a personal relationship with one's creator", I don't think any law against hate speech is going to have a negative effect on people of faith. Most of the faithful Christians, Jews and Muslims I have encountered seem to be able to practice their faith without spewing venom.
I'm tired of people using religion as a screen to hide their ugliness behind. As a believer, their hate is an embarrassment.
Re:Hate speech banned eh? how much do you bet... (Score:3, Insightful)
So Fred Phelps thinks that God hates fags? Fuck him. Let him say what he wants. Let more enlightened Christians point out his doctrinal shortcomings, and let the general public ridicule him.
So David Irving wants to sue against claims that he's a Holocaust denier? Fuck him. Let the courts decide on the facts, not the motive. Truth wins [wikipedia.org]. When we begin criminalising unpopular speech [wikipedia.org], however wrong, we begin to rally support for these obnoxious little fucktards even from people (like me) who oppose pretty much everything they say. And more importantly, we deny them a fundamental freedom that we assume for ourselves.
What's next? Publishing a paper with a flawed methodology is a criminal offence? Should Climate Change deniers (or proponents) be outlawed? Is this really the kind of society we want to live in?
Generally I'm proud to be European. Not today.
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you actually *that* brainwashed?
Because maybe there is possibly a better form of government than a democracy? Or, more clearer, a more pure, direct form of democracy than the present government?
I'm a minority. Sort of. Rather, I'm perceived as a minority. I'm half "Asian." I live in the US, where hate speech is generally not prohibited. The best thing about free speech, in my view, is that it helps me identify people that I, in turn, probably should stay away from, e.g. people who are bigots, rascists/"one-blood" purists.
When you ban *speech* of a group, or the peaceful assembly of that group, *I* can no longer protect myself and must depend wholly on the government for that protection. When everything is hush hush, that's bad for me to identify those I associate with, because it's illegal for them to say anything. If you give people a freedom, they will exercise it, rightly or wrong, and it's the wrongly I want to know about so I can address, question, and/or avoid as the situation deems fit.
When these groups march, I look at the crowds to measure my society. When you ban such marches, I no longer have an idea, *at all*, because such participation is wholly illegal, versus distasteful.
I should also point out, most of those rascists, bigots, and ignorant asses are employed by some government entity; in my area, it's about 50% of the local police. Strange how governments tend to protect against that they define need protecting and disabling self-protection.
What ends up happening is that the hate speech goes purely underground, it lives on strongly, never addressed; the pure act of banning that speech *makes it true to some point* to some since there is no longer any debate, confrontation, to show that the opposite is/may be true (i.e. that you should not be a rascist).
Also, a standard becomes established, fix in law. How often have we seen laws not keep up with the times? What is now hate speech can change; in the 1910s and 1920s, "Jap" simply was short for Japanese (you see it on product labels, i.e. Japanese enamel). Now it's considered a slur by most (I don't personally). In turn, having a law cover some speech but not others, does it mean the uncovered speech is NOT hate speech, although may clearly be so? You're going to find cases where some people are talking about crackers in a supermarket aisle when some oversensitive white dude walks by and complains; quite frankly, this is NOT what we need government for or to get involved with (besides being petty, governemnt also screws it up when it makes a socially regulated issue a legal one).
Re:Godwinning this Topic (Score:5, Insightful)
No contest. The one where you can actually end up in jail for something you've said.
Stupid idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway one mans hate speech is another's fight for freedom.
Re:Contradiction! (Score:3, Insightful)
(rant coming) That's what this is. And it's ridiculous -- I have friends, lots of them, that belong to various groups that are maligned by other groups for ridiculous reasons. Everything from sexual preference, to religion, to skin color (and in one special case, all three, the poor bastard, he's got like eight groups hating him). But I still think banning any sort of "hate" speech is stupid.
It's a band aid. Most forms of hate speech come from ignorance. Fix that, you fix the people buying into the hate speech. At least, the ones that can be saved. The rest are fucking idiots. And banning hate speech won't fix it. It'll just push it under ground, and like marijuana in the United States, give it a "cool" status. Forbidding something naturally creates curiosity. Let the morons rant and rave and expose themselves for the fools they are so we know who to avoid.
I'd rather know who the racist/sexist/religionist/homophobic assholes are, than not. It makes life a lot easier for me when someone says "well you know how 'those people' are" and nods at me knowingly. No, asshole, I don't, and you can take your baseless hate elsewhere.
I LOL'ed (Score:5, Insightful)
How many years has the US *not* been at war? 10-20, in it's entire history, maybe?
Re:wait a minute (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, and... (Score:2, Insightful)
Thoughtcrime and Speechcrime (Score:3, Insightful)
Given crime == 5 years in jail
Given crime + hateful thoughts == 8 years in jail.
Then following through...
hateful thoughts == 3 years in jail
The fact that you have quantified a pattern of thought as being punishable by 3 more years in jail is far FAR too Orwellian for my tastes. It's the legal equivalent of venial sins, not bad enough to be a sin on it's own, but definitely bad enough to increase your penance for a mortal sin.
Something which is free , by definition, is something which has no restrictions placed on it. Freedom of speech means freedom to say things which aren't popular opinions. The EU is futher taking away free speech with this. (It was already not really free with the current laws in place)
Here's a question, since the Quran tells Muslims to kill the disbelievers wherever they find them (Q. 2:191), to murder them and treat them harshly (Q. 9:123), slay them (Q. 9:5), fight with them, (Q. 8: 65 ) even if they are Christians and Jews, humiliate them and impose on them a penalty tax (Q. 9: 29). (quick and dirty google for that.. http://www.sullivan-county.com/x/sina.htm ) Does this mean the Quran is a "hate text"? Would reading those passages be "Hate Speech"?
Whereas I don't agree with those things, I respect the right of someone else to think and believe them. Now, if they act on those beliefs then they are transgressing against the rights of others to things such as life and liberty. At that point it's punishment time. But not punishment for believing it, punishment for the act expressing it.