[charlchi]

I remember Jared Kushner was asked about the Russians ads, he said something along the lines of "that's what the GOP spends in advertising in 3 hours". I don't think 99.99% of people understand the scale to which propaganda and establishment bias penetrates into their lives and daily functioning.

"Hate Speech", defined essentially as any form of discrimination whatsoever, has been made illegal in Europe following the growth of the anti-immigration far right. Is this fair towards these parties? Imagine making climate change speech illegal because it hurts the feelings of people who drive cars or eat meat. Would green parties not be discriminated against? How about making speech illegal that suggests increasing taxes on corporations? Where do we stop?

There is always an ongoing political battle to steer our thinking. The world is a political place down to the air we breathe, what we eat, what we wear, how we to talk to each other and increasingly even what people we find in our community.

[timje1]

'"Hate Speech", defined essentially as any form of discrimination whatsoever, has been made illegal in Europe following the growth of the anti-immigration far right.'

Misguided on a number of fronts -> 'hate speech' is defined differently in each country but usually requires an incitement to violence, or direct violent threats, before a prosecution takes place.

Hate Speech wasn't made illegal as a result of the recent rise of the anti-immigration far right, these laws have often been in place for decades and were initially aimed at neo-nazis. e.g. 1986 in the UK. 1985 in Germany (initially).

And "in Europe" is a fucking stupid grouping when it comes to these laws as each country is completely different - what you can do in Romania is vastly different to what you can do in Germany.

[charlchi]

> Misguided on a number of fronts -> 'hate speech' is defined differently in each country but usually requires an incitement to violence, or direct violent threats, before a prosecution takes place.

This is very untrue and you clearly have not researched what has happened in the actual written law or in the correspondence between various EU governments, NGO's and big tech companies the past few years.

And I'll add just in case this isn't clear, inciting hateful action against people should(edit: whoops) be illegal. But banning all forms of discrimination whatsoever is going too far.

[pjc50]

> actual written law or in the correspondence between various EU governments

You could cite it yourself, you know.

[charlchi]

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEG...

> ... hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined on the basis of race, colour, descent, religion or belief, or national or ethnic origin;

Define "hatred". This is extremely vague. Again, I suggest you to do some of your own research in this regard. There are thousands of documents freely available on UN, EU or related organisations websites that very clearly outline what the goals are of these types of laws and what has been done in this regard.

I will refer you though, to one such document, in which there is an interesting section that quotes someone as saying that the only way for migrants and minorities to be integrated into European society will be through "forced assimilation" and what I would define as a complete destruction of European national identities:

> first and foremost the notion of what it means to be the member of a certain European nation (e.g. being French, German, Spanish, etc.) has to change. Europeans cannot define themselves anymore through the colour of their skin and/or their religion. They have to realise the excluding nature of these signifiers and come up with others that can really work as umbrellas that all can fit under. European values could be a great starting point. The respect for human rights, democracy, liberalism, secularism, etc. are all ideas and ideals that are inherently inclusive and independent of ethnic background, religious beliefs or skin colour. Obviously, immigrants and members of minority communities also have to subscribe to these ideas and - due to cultural differences - that will also be hard work on their part (and on the part of European societies). However, there are hardly any other options to create healthy and unfragmented European societies through integration that is not forced assimilation.

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about what "forced assimilation" means.

Edit: Document in which this phrase can be found: http://www.inach.net/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Report-2018-1...

If you are unfamiliar with this environment I suggest you read the entire document and not just the part I quoted.

[pjc50]

That statement stands specifically in opposition to "forced assmimilation", which is a term that normally refers to things the minority are forced to do to conform - mandatory conversion of Jews to Christianity, that kind of thing.

The important bit has to be "Europeans cannot define themselves anymore through the colour of their skin and/or their religion" - that is, something like the American ideal. It is not necessary to be white or of a particular religious denomination to be American; the whole point of the "melting pot" is that it's open to everyone who chooses to have that identity.

What they are arguing is that "French" can no longer continue to require "white, Christian" for someone to be considered French.

[La1n]

You know the second part you are quoting isn't actually published by the EU? It's published by two people who got funding by the EU. This program supports many things in the domain of Rights, Equality and Citizenship, including;

Analytical activities (studies, data collection, development of common methodologies, indicators, surveys, preparation of guides…)

When researchers are supported by a group, that does not mean it was approved by them or made by them. It seems you are trying to spread misinformation to me, or do not look into the sources you provide.

[charlchi]

> you know the second part you are quoting isn't actually published by the EU

What's your point? Firstly, it's still EU funded, which by the way, many of these parent organisations like the UN and EU do some of their most important work through child organisations exclusively so I don't see your point. Secondly, if you look at the list of the people involved, there are actors from Facebook and the SPLC:

http://www.inach.net/wp-content/uploads/9.BIOs-conferentie.p...

> It seems you are trying to spread misinformation to me, or do not look into the sources you provide.

I'm confused.

If I was an EU taxpayer, I would want to know that my tax money is going towards funding these types of organisations and conferences where people say the type of things they do.

[Alma_Elma]

> inciting hateful action against people shouldn't be illegal.

excuse me?

edit: apparently it was a freudian typo and got fixed.

[jacobush]

Saying it was a freudian type is sort of a jab at him anyways..

[cat199]

> usually requires an incitement to violence

Realize we are talking about EU here, but witness recent SF government acts against NRA in the USA for a clear example of an actual slippery slope.

[jascii]

No, you can not equate laws against inciting violence against minorities with censoring political debate based on a vague and unsubstantiated redefinition of the term "hate speech"

Hate speech laws have been around in various forms throughout Europe since the end of WW2. And yes, it is fair to expect a party to stick to the same laws as other parties and not incite violence, be it physical, verbal, or otherwise, to minorities.

[La1n]

>"Hate Speech", defined essentially as any form of discrimination whatsoever, has been made illegal in Europe following the growth of the anti-immigration far right.

Source? This is not true in my experience.

[jsonne]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-court-upholds-ruling-aga...

There was no incitement to violence here in so far as I can tell and this woman was found guilty not only in Austria but in the ECHR

[zajio1am]

You are mixing up hate speech laws and blasphemy laws. While hate speech laws are pretty common in EU, blasphemy laws are vestige of the past, and in just few EU members (e.g Austria and Germany).

[jsonne]

I mean what is the functional difference between a hate speech law and a blasphemy law? Seems it's just a subset of hate speech and is relevant to the conversation.

[La1n]

But legally they are two different things. Just because you feel it's a subset of hate speech that doesn't mean it is.

In a lot of countries with hate speech laws, but no blasphemy laws, this would be allowed. She did not say anything about the people following Islam but about a religious figure, these are not the same thing.

[zajio1am]

They have distinct targets. Hate speech laws forbid speech against groups of people, not against ideas and religious characters. Verbally attacking christians or muslims may fall under hate speech laws, while verbally attacking Christianity, Islam, Jesus or Mohammad does not. But it would fall under blasphemy laws.

[charlchi]

In this case it is useful to carefully read what I have said and to take stock of the definitions. "Illegal hate speech" is currently defined as inciting violence or hatred against specific people based on some characteristics. In the larger context which I have mentioned, there is a correspondence between various EU multi-national and national governmental agencies, hundreds of NGOs and "The IT Companies"(Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, etc..) that establishes more specifically how these rules are implemented in the context of "hate".

[Synaesthesia]

In many countries “hate speech” is illegal, the US is one of the few with truly free speech. Pro Nazi and racial incitement speech is illegal in France, Germany and Austria AFAIK. Here in South Africa too. Even though I’m for free speech, I feel this is understandable and defendable.

[La1n]

I know there are quite a few European countries with laws against hate speech, I was mostly referring to the following two parts:

>defined essentially as any form of discrimination whatsoever

>has been made illegal in Europe following the growth of the anti-immigration far right.

[solinent]

Even in the states, there are plenty of exceptions to free speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

The US definitely has the most free speech, but you're still restricted in various ways.

[jsonne]

I mean not that I'm a big Jared Kushner fan but he's right. I'm a nobody in digital advertising land and I regularly spend more than the Russians did in total for clients on a weekly basis. Take from that what you will, and not to downsize election interference, but it really is a negligible amount they spent in the grand context of advertising.

[jfengel]

And indeed, it's not clear to me how much of a difference those ads made against the background of that total advertising budget. Such things are hard to measure, but at the very least those ads came after decades of campaigning that primed people to believe them.

Personally, I suspect they moved the needle by at most a point or two. Given the closeness of the election, that was all they needed -- indeed, they may not have been needed at all. But they do make a very good focal point for the broader question of whether it was worth it to win elections under those circumstances, with their opponents presented in such negative terms that political cooperation is almost impossible and they can achieve almost nothing legislatively.

[hos234]

It won't stop, but will reduce over time, as people realize the return on investment. Right now its just mindless red queen dynamics. Everyone is running on treadmills going nowhere, producing no great outcomes, but continue to do so cause the "enemy" is doing it.