[charia]

Do you genuinely believe that laws that try to separate criticize versus insult can work?

I can't see anything other than laws like that being abused by politicians and government officials to quell speech and create a chilling effect amongst the populace.

[Retric]

Dueling used to be acceptable in the US and that didn’t prevent free speech. As long as it’s limited to reasonable fines simply requiring civility is unlikely to significantly quell free speech even if it did get abused by government officials.

[kook_throwaway]

>As long as it’s limited to reasonable fines

This will only result in those not living paycheck to paycheck being willing to speak out.

[jdavis703]

If this were true, then low-income people wouldn’t speed or run red lights. (In reality they still do it, they just wind up in debt trap.)

[jdavis703]

It seems to be working fine for Germany. In general I believe the chilling effect is often moderated by the Streisand effect.