EU Anti-Hate Laws On The Web 589
coupco writes "The European Union's Council of Europe passes a measure that would make hate speech on the web illegal, and subject to banning and filtering. A story on Wired News explains the How and Why."
Just curious... (Score:3, Interesting)
Gender/sexual orientation? (Score:5, Interesting)
The quote nicely omits these. Now, provisions for that may be elsewhere in the amendment, but it belongs in that sentance; seperating it is poor writing.
Is the EU is telling its citizens who they can hate?
There's something very wrong here.
Blame the left (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gender/sexual orientation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I hate people that have red hair or something... and I start a group of people that also hate people with red hair, and we make sure that none of those kind of people can work for any member of my group that owns a business, etc...
It's all or nothing. Once you butt into private industry, private speech, and start mandating tolerance, it's all over.
Hate "crimes" are inherently though crimes. They punish you additionally for what you think, rather than only based on what you do. Soon we will be able to harness the rotational energy from Orwell's grave to solve all world energy problems.
Hmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gender/sexual orientation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Typical binary thinking by someone who doesn't have to have his philosophies tested in the real world.
The fact is, laws that "mandate tolerance," such as civil rights legislation, have done much to remove the artificial barriers that kept Blacks and other minorities from succeeding in the workplace.
We here in the US might gripe about the dissolution of "free speech." Our European friends may gently remind us that it's a luxury to debate philosophy when they have some pretty hard evidence that the "hate speech" websites help violent government dissidents to organize.
The US recently arrested a citizen who was making a website for Al-Qaeda. Is this occassion for the melodramatic libertarians to trot out the "1984" FUD again? Or is it possible that this person may have some valuable information? Don't forget, it's (at the very least) selfish to tell others how to run their life when you can't even get your own together.
It's a cultural thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one case where there isn't an overall right or wrong. This law would be wrong in the US. The US is (suposed to be) all about individuals and free speech. In Europe, this law is right. Europe is (suposed to be) all about society and community.
As the article states, this law is nothing new, it basically just restates existing laws and adds the word 'Internet' to the text.
Kill all people who wear glasses! (Score:3, Interesting)
The 9th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is brilliant on this topic:
Jefferson refused to put his name to the Constitution until it had his 10 Amendments. One of them, the 9th, was to prevent the Government from explicitly listing the things you're allowed to do -- then using that as a way to restrict what you *can* do.
The language in the EU's law:
The people who wrote up the current legislation in Europe (and many US politicians, for that matter) fail to understand the lesson here:
It's useless trying make laws via ad-hoc enumeration.
I grew up in a semi-biggotted family. (Score:5, Interesting)
"You know, I hear they eat cats and dogs!"
This is but a small sample of what I heard from the men in my family. Every derogetory racial slur you could imagine. Funny thing is, despite only being 4th gen american, the older men in the family were always trying to get people to drop the idea that we were "dago wop Guinni Italians" for the cowboy white bread image they were trying to portray..
It would have worked too, if my parents wouldnt have been such fuckups.
Around 12 or so, the problems with my parents escalated to the point where I had to spend as little time as possible around them. The other white kids didn't really want to hang out with the kid from a broken family (divorced)
My first mexican friend manny and his family helped me get through a lot of stuff, even though they lived in an apartment, and dad was dead, his mom was so supportive of letting him be who he wanted, something my parents never even considered.
My second education into non-white culture was with my surrogate japanese family. When my mom kicked me out at 16, my japanese friends and their family would let me take showers at their house, feed me, give me clean clothes to wear. I gained culinary insight with sushi, and learned eating raw fish with a sake bomb could be quite tasty..
Doesn't really have a lot to do with the article does it? I read the topic was on EU adopting anti hate laws for the web, well ok here's my insight into the article.
I think everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how wrong it is. Despite all the bad opinions I learned early on, later in life I learned the truth about people for myself. I don't need parliment acting as the thought police for me.
It's human nature to question everything.. No matter how a person is brought up, eventually they'll find their own truth.
Abomination. (Score:4, Interesting)
All viewpoints have something to offer, and none is totally correct; as humans, we are incapable of perceiving absolute Truth. That truth lies somewhere between the viewpoints, and by censoring any viewpoint -any viewpoint- we permanently cripple our ability to get closer to that Truth, whatever it may be.
Thoughts do not go away sinply because we forbid people to speak of them. The only valid way to stop hate has always been, and will always be, education, not legislation.
"Inciting" (Score:1, Interesting)
Ignoring the free speech issues (speech Prohibition makes it more desirable like alcohol), the portion above is key:
The problem is that some speech may **incite hatred** in me, but not you. Is it an objective standard or is it subjectively determined by its results?
For example, CNN may carry a news story about the terrorists and mention their race or religion. It MAY INCITE hatred of them by ME. But if my friend Ali reads it, it wouldn't in him.
The question is who decides, and why should it be limited to those groups. Why doesn't it ban hatred against anyone? the rich, gender, Microsoft?
Who decides who should be protected and who decides what is a bad thing? It is a slippery slope to "1984" and "Animal Farm".
Free speech is the best way of debunking idiots who hate (and I hate people who hate, btw).
As usual... (Score:2, Interesting)
However, since it's not the U.S., I see subtle defenses of what amounts to censorship and attempted mind control. Hate speech is still speech and if you think censoring or punishing hate speech isn't repressive, you are dead wrong. This is a very right-wing move for Europeans who frequently love to argue that they are so much more liberal than the U.S. and are far more evolved in terms of human rights.
Apparently not.
This really isn't a troll or flamebait, but this kind of double-standard annoys the hell out of me. When we see repressive moves by the governing bodies in Europe, it's necessary "for a better society and world" whereas when it's the U.S., it's just "more typical American ignorance." Well, allow me to be the first to call bullshit on this and point out that a really liberal society would fight this kind of Big Brother-ism tooth-and-nail. Rationalize it however you want, but it's still censorship, repression and a strikingly right-wing move for a supposedly liberal part of the planet.
Holocaust - separating fact from myth (Score:3, Interesting)
I advise reading the book "The Holocaust Industry" (written by a Jew), which details much of the seedier side of the Holocaust, including people who claim to have been in concentration camps - but who were later proven to have spent the war in Switzerland, of misdirection of funds intended for Holocaust victims.
One good example is that this law makes it illegal to suggest that less than 6,000,000 Jews were murdered, might it have been 5,999,999? Oops, you just broke the law.
There are many who think that the number was actually lower than 6 Million based on census information and other data at the time. Now, some would have you believe that even thinking that less than 6 million Jews might have died during WWII is disrespectful to the memory of those that died, but how much more disrespectful is it to censor the truth, to misuse funds intended for the families of the real victims, or to pretend that you suffered when you didn't?
Re:Censorship (Score:2, Interesting)
In contrast to you Americans, we don't see free speech as the ultimate right. Instead it might be limited by the rights of other people. You are for example (in general) not allowed to insult people, because it might hurt them.
OTOH, in Europe you have the right to have a lawyer even if you are a foreigner...:-)
So to sum it up, while the US is probably more liberal, the European laws are IMHO more social.
Sebastian
Re:CoE != EU (Score:2, Interesting)
with no power whatsoever. Unfortuently my country (Russia) had the misfortune of joing it. In return for being constantky shit on we had to drop death penalty (so now we cannot execute the terorists who held 1000 people hostage in Moscow). We also have to put up with conctant Checnya inspections by likes of Lord Judd.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I didn't realize it was my job to solve all the world's problems this week.
So teach everyone, all the time?
Essentially, yes. Make it obvious, all the time, that hate is not acceptable behavior.
I don't get it. How can you tell whether someone's been "taught" or not?
We're not talking about getting a diploma. It's simply a concept. Different != bad.
Having a principle for a solution and having an actual solution are two very different things. And that's why we see laws like this.
Ah. "We must do something, and this is something, so we must do this". Sorry, it doesn't make it right.
You want specific ideas? OK. How about producing children's programming that carries the message different isn't bad but hate is? How about public service announcements carrying the same message to adults? How about speaking out against hatred instead of ignoring it?
I may not have the best solution but that doesn't mean I can't see that outlawing hate isn't a good one.
Re:Blame the left (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easiest if you view politics as a circle: at the top, you have Communism and Fascism and other totalitarian regimes. As you move clockwise from that point, you move gradually to Feudalism, eventually to pure Capitalism. If you move counterclockwise, you go through pure Socialism to the Welfare State. In other words, going downwards in either direction increases the number of choices allotted to the individual as opposed to the state. As you progress further down from Welfare and from Capitalism, you eventually come down to the bottom and hit anarchy. I'm not saying that you need to ride the circle around to switch sides; I'd argue that, despite all of the flaws of the USA, we generally speaking alternate between the two sides of the middle, obviously without passing through either the top or the bottom as a result of each election. But I think this shows the positions of the parties much better.
So don't tell me that extreme right always yields to a military totalitarian state and going far left yields bliss. It doesn't. The two in their extreme forms are effectively the same. Our different perceptions of the two is merely proof that a rose, sadly, would not smell as sweet by any other name.