[skissane]

The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is worded as an absolute, there are no exceptions in the text.

However, no functioning society could allow unlimited free speech. There are many exceptions to the First Amendment – fraud, perjury, defamation, death threats, "shouting fire in a crowded theatre", speech in violation of privacy or duties of confidentiality, etc.

I don't think the original authors of the First Amendment meant it to be unlimited. They didn't intend it to legalise fraud or perjury or defamation.

But, given they didn't leave any guidance in the text as to which exceptions are valid and which are not, it is basically up to SCOTUS to decide. And which exceptions SCOTUS accepts as valid change as the moods of its majority changes – and will likely continue to change in the future.

The equivalent provision in the European Convention on Human Rights is Article 10, which says: "The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary".

I think that's better than the First Amendment in that it acknowledges in the text the reality that exceptions are necessary, and makes some attempt to outline what the exceptions are. However, there is still a lot of room for interpretation by the European Court of Human Rights as to the proper scope of all those exceptions, especially regarding what is "necessary in a democratic society" and what isn't. Few would claim the Court always gets it right. But, at least, the European Court of Human Rights is arguably a far less politicised institution that the US Supreme Court.

[stale2002]

Countries in Europe have some pretty huge restictions on speech that go far behind things like making death threats and fraud illegal.

Even the line that you quoted demonstrates this when it says things like "for the protection of morals".

I really do not want the government infringing on speech rights, due to something as overly broad as "morals".

[dependenttypes]

> Countries in Europe have some pretty huge restictions on speech that go far behind things like making death threats and fraud illegal.

So does the US.

[stale2002]

> So does the US

Not in comparison to the EU.

Most people can agree that restrictions on speech in the US are much less strict than those in the EU.

[dependenttypes]

Who are these "most people"? I am not aware of any such person myself.

Most (if not all) EU countries protect the freedom of speech in their constitution. In addition ECHR protects the freedom of speech as well.

[stale2002]

> Most (if not all) EU countries protect the freedom of speech in their constitution.

Not particularly well, as it seems when compared to the US.

You can just look at some of the laws that they have regarding speech, on their books, to see how there are definitely more things that are restricted that you can say, in comparison to what it restricted in the US.

[skissane]

You object to one of the specific exceptions in ECHR Article 10, not to the idea of making the exceptions explicit. The point I was defending was that the exceptions should be explicit, not that the particular list of exceptions in the ECHR is the right list