[naasking]

Does the law explicitly specify that dry facts would be excluded? Or is it sufficiently broad that dry facts could be included if some over-zealous bureaucrats get it in their head that some speech or people are problematic?

I am interested in the letter of the law, because that's what matters, not how it's being applied while the winds are blowing in a particular direction.

[Defletter]

Okay, so just to be clear, you don't have even a single example of someone being prosecuted under hate speech laws for stating facts in the 40-odd years since its passage? Why is this not just concern trolling?

As to the general question, no, a statement being true does not immunise it from an accusation of it being used to stir up or incite hatred, or at the very least such a defence is not defined within the Public Order Act 1986. We do have the Human Rights Act which protects Freedom of Expression, but whether you could use it or other defences is pure speculation on my part: I would need to see some actual caselaw.

I've attempted my own searches but have only encountered the usual suspects: holocaust deniers and their ilk. Please let me know if you find such a case because I genuinely think that would be interesting to debate, but debating over pure speculation and innuendo is very boring.

[naasking]

> Okay, so just to be clear, you don't have even a single example of someone being prosecuted

To be clear, I haven't even looked, but being a recent topic of debate, it seems important to clearly establish the letter of the law.

> Why is this not just concern trolling?

Because the law-as-written is what matters, like I said, not the law-as-it-has-been-exercised-so-far. Unless you think people inclined to abuse the law will never be elected.

> I've attempted my own searches but have only encountered the usual suspects: holocaust deniers and their ilk

Depending on the specifics, that already seems problematic. There are also chilling effects that are not clearly visible until after the fact. How long have some people wanted to discuss the over representation of some ethnicities in sexual assault clusters, but couldn't because of these laws?

[Defletter]

> How long have some people wanted to discuss the over representation of some ethnicities in sexual assault clusters, but couldn't because of these laws?

I don't know, perhaps you should give some examples of this actually happening rather than relying solely on implication.

[naasking]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/child-rape-scandal-dominati...

[Defletter]

Yeah, I'm failing to see how this is an example of "people [wanting] to discuss the over representation of some ethnicities in sexual assault clusters, but couldn't because of [hate speech laws]". The article makes no mention of hate speech laws or anyone being prosecuted under them for discussing the representation of various ethnicities in sexual-assault statistics.

What the article does mention is that local officials and other agencies were "wary of identifying ethnic origins for fear of upsetting community cohesion, or being seen as racist", which is mere cowardice. In fact, I am somewhat surprised you are not using this to argue that government officials are too scared of free speech to do their job: that the implied threat of some people using their free speech to call the local government racist is enough to paralyse its function.

No, to me, what this article shows is how unfettered speech actually functions: a foreign billionaire with the loudest megaphone in history is dredging up a decade-old stain in our country's criminal history to aid and abet our domestic right and far-right political parties. And I think the fact that those parties immediately jumped on this in the media shows that it's very much not something that'll get you thrown in the gulag for discussing.

[naasking]

> The article makes no mention of hate speech laws or anyone being prosecuted under them for discussing the representation of various ethnicities in sexual-assault statistics.

Consider the counterfactual: if hate speech laws were not in place, would the probability of a whistleblower in the police, or a journalist picking up the story from one of the victims go up or down?

> What the article does mention is that local officials and other agencies were "wary of identifying ethnic origins for fear of upsetting community cohesion, or being seen as racist", which is mere cowardice.

Yes, not openly resisting improper application of hate speech laws (or any law) is always cowardice, but cowardice is common, and that's exactly what all unscrupulous officials bank on. Most people respond to even subtle incentives, like implications of racism, and hate speech classifications are even less subtle.

Hate speech laws don't have to involve a gulag to have chilling effects and cause real harm, as this case shows quite well I think. That the possibility of being called racist was even remotely effective as a threat is a downstream effect of accepting the legitimacy of hate speech laws IMO.

> And I think the fact that those parties immediately jumped on this in the media shows that it's very much not something that'll get you thrown in the gulag for discussing.

It's hard to be censorious once something has achieved enough public exposure.

In any case, this all seems to be somewhat besides the point, because how a law is applied in practice is less compelling than how broadly it can be interpreted by future officials who may be less compassionate or scrupulous. As I've been saying all along: what does the letter of the law say?

You keep saying that I shouldn't rely on implication, but the law is all about implication. What could possibly matter more than the implications of how the law is written?