[Zancarius]

> Are you trying to say that laws against hate speech are a bad thing, or that they are abused in France?

I may regret this, but I'll step out on a limb and say yes. I know nothing of French politics, but I think hate speech laws are counter to the notion of free speech. Either you allow all speech or you allow none. Obviously, France may lack the protections citizens of other countries enjoy, and perhaps supporting such limits on free speech then becomes a matter of personal pride, making it a rather contentious issue.

Hate speech laws are almost Orwellian in a sense: Free speech is good, but some speech is baaaaaaad. In my opinion, free speech is lost the instant you start eroding it with heinous laws that limit it. Here in the US at least, anti-hate speech proponents tend to use the "fire in a crowded theater" argument time and again as proof of limits on free speech rights, in spite that it's out of context and incorrect [1]. The other problem is that everyone generally agrees that free speech is fine, but there's a certain disagreement on what parts of speech should be considered taboo or outright illegal.

The question then, in my mind, isn't whether or not governments should ban certain types of speech. I don't think they should, because it's counter to free speech protections. However, the messier question is whether social sanctions should be imposed upon citizens by non-government actors whenever hateful or potentially offensive speech is used. For instance, should an employer be allowed to fire someone because of public racist remarks? What if that employer is the government? What if the remarks were offensive to the government (think anti-war)?

The point to free speech (generally, at least in the US) is that it enables one to say what they wish without government intervention. It doesn't, however, protect them from consequences of their speech imposed against them by other citizens (boycotts, firing, etc.).

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time...

[mercurial]

> In my opinion, free speech is lost the instant you start eroding it with heinous laws that limit it.

I don't know about heinous, but, say, incitation to murder shouldn't be protected free speech (see, eg, Rwanda). So you have to live with limitations in a civilized society, the debate is only on where to set these limits.

> However, the messier question is whether social sanctions should be imposed upon citizens by non-government actors whenever hateful or potentially offensive speech is used. For instance, should an employer be allowed to fire someone because of public racist remarks?

In my mind, employers should abide by the law. Otherwise, it's just as easy to fire somebody for expressing political opinions you disagree with. This shouldn't be a ground for termination.

> What if that employer is the government? What if the remarks were offensive to the government (think anti-war)?

French civil servants are supposed to be neutral in terms of politics, just like soldiers give up a number of rights during their time of service.

[Zancarius]

> I don't know about heinous, but, say, incitation to murder shouldn't be protected free speech (see, eg, Rwanda). So you have to live with limitations in a civilized society, the debate is only on where to set these limits.

I think you're moving the goal post a bit. In the post I was responding to, you were specifically calling out hate speech. Inciting murder and using hateful, racist language are often separate. Yes, I realize the two can be conflated (e.g. racist language inciting violence), but generally, hate speech laws attempt to limit speech that is construed as hateful, typically against a specific racial, ethnic, or other minority. Of course, I suppose I have libertarian leanings that wire me in a manner that make it very difficult to understand why government intervention is seen as a panacea

That said, I'm not precisely sure your example is quite as clear cut in terms of free speech as there are other laws which deal with matters of public safety, premeditation and the sorts, and calling for someone's murder could easily fit into categories outside free speech, depending largely on the circumstances. But, that's a matter for the courts and has been debated ad nauseum for centuries.

[mercurial]

> I think you're moving the goal post a bit. In the post I was responding to, you were specifically calling out hate speech.

Sure. But in your response, you expressed the following:

> In my opinion, free speech is lost the instant you start eroding it with heinous laws that limit it.

That's much stronger than a disagreement about hate speech.

> That said, I'm not precisely sure your example is quite as clear cut in terms of free speech as there are other laws which deal with matters of public safety, premeditation and the sorts, and calling for someone's murder could easily fit into categories outside free speech, depending largely on the circumstances.

I'm no lawyer, but if you don't yourself act on it or participate in planning murder, it sounds like very shaky grounds to send someone to jail.

[Zancarius]

> That's much stronger than a disagreement about hate speech.

I'll grant you that, but you have to admit: The more laws you draft limiting the definition of what construes free speech, the more you're eroding it. Hate speech laws are an example of such.

> I'm no lawyer, but if you don't yourself act on it or participate in planning murder, it sounds like very shaky grounds to send someone to jail.

Well, I'm glad that we're reaching common ground (that actually excites me--please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!). I do agree that sending someone to jail for making questionable threats makes very little sense, but it has been used to some success the world over. In particular, abuse of tactics like that is at least partially to blame for the US jail population being so high. Perhaps not literally, but if you're the wrong color or in the wrong neighborhood, it doesn't take much convincing to be sent away for a few months...

[mercurial]

> I'll grant you that, but you have to admit: The more laws you draft limiting the definition of what construes free speech, the more you're eroding it. Hate speech laws are an example of such.

To be sure, they have to be finely drafted.

> Well, I'm glad that we're reaching common ground (that actually excites me--please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!).

Ah. I'm afraid this is solely a consequence of a lack of clarity on my part. I did not mean "shaky" as in "it would be morally dubious to convict a person", I meant "shaky" as in "it would legally difficult to convict a person". I absolutely think that publicly calling for somebody's murder should be punished, especially if it is part of a sustained campaign, or targets a large group (hence my bringing the Rwanda example earlier - I was thinking about Radio Mille Collines in particular [1]). Please note that in this example, there is nothing vague about the threats.

> In particular, abuse of tactics like that is at least partially to blame for the US jail population being so high.

I'm afraid my expertise is once lacking, but my understanding was that the most common motive for enjoying such comforts as provided by the US taxpayer is a conviction for drug possession.

> please don't take my arguments against your points negatively!

While we disagree, I have been known to enjoy a good discussion, especially if thought-provoking points are raised. Even if we should not reach an agreement, agreeing to disagree is not necessarily a bad conclusion, as long as each party has made a reasonable effort to understand the other's point of view.

A thought recently crossed my mind. We are able to hold a pleasantly well-mannered exchange of view, in part due to the limitation on freedom of speech enforced both by moderation and downvoting. I'd argue that these limits make Hacker News a much more pleasant forum than, say, Youtube.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Mille_Collines

[Zancarius]

> Ah. I'm afraid this is solely a consequence of a lack of clarity on my part. I did not mean "shaky" as in "it would be morally dubious to convict a person", I meant "shaky" as in "it would legally difficult to convict a person".

I don't think so. I took your point to mean precisely what you intended, that is to say that it's of questionable legality to arrest someone simply because of an opinion not immediately exercised as a threat. Morality hadn't entered my mind.

Although now that you mention it, the morality of arresting someone for committing no more harmful an act than simply opening their mouth is another point of interest, but somewhat unrelated to this discussion. The state of affairs abroad in non-Western parts of the world is generally such that arrests made against such horrid perpetrators of free speech are commonplace. It gives me pause for thought to be thankful that we can have this conversation without immediate fear for our lives.

> I'm afraid my expertise is once lacking, but my understanding was that the most common motive for enjoying such comforts as provided by the US taxpayer is a conviction for drug possession.

While that is certainly true, in cases where a suspect is not found with such paraphernalia and they're especially noisome or talkative, you have other amusing tools at your disposal such as "resisting arrest." A skilled DA could contort those into drug charges, I'm sure, but my point was that it can take very little to wind up behind bars if you're in the wrong neighborhood, the wrong color, dressed the wrong way, or simply seen as a belligerent public nuisance.

I count my lucky stars that I live in a predominantly redneck area in the country where law enforcement generally knows all the townsfolk and is quite friendly and helpful.

> We are able to hold a pleasantly well-mannered exchange of view, in part due to the limitation on freedom of speech enforced both by moderation and downvoting. I'd argue that these limits make Hacker News a much more pleasant forum than, say, Youtube.

The hilarious part about this is that I don't completely agree, because we're 1) exercising our freedom of speech and 2) are sufficiently well-disciplined to hold a mutually respectful discourse (therefore, such limitations on speech are not in danger of being invoked). I suspect that if the HN audience were as broad and numerous as Youtube, we'd have the same problem here, so I'd argue that it's not so much limited free speech (or limitations placed thereon) as much as it is the advantage of a niche community that grant us such fortune. Someone on HN made a comment yesterday or the day before relating trends of the sort to the transformation of Reddit from a reasonable place to hold programming-related discussions to one of the biggest sources of cat pictures and memes on the Internet.

Though I do get the point you're raising, and I understand the use of it as an example, even if I am in disagreement. ;)

[kybernetikos]

Your argument seems to suggest that you think that speech should be entirely unrestricted. I don't know of any country in the world that has ever had such a policy. Even though it may be one of the countries in which speech is most protected, there are still a fair few limitations in the US [1].

So I'm not clear whether you're arguing for a radical position of no limits at all to speech, or if you're trying to put forward your own particular view of which parts of speech should be considered legal and which illegal (which as you rightly point out is problematic unless the distinctions and reasons for them are made very clear, which you don't seem to do).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

[Zancarius]

I'm using the extremist position as illustrative rather than prescriptive, because my personal conviction is that hate speech legislation can ultimately be more harmful toward public dialog, particularly if it is abused. That's not to say hate speech isn't without its consequences. I suspect you understood that given the remainder of your comment.

What ultimately bothers me most is the knee-jerk "ban all hate speech" approach as a solution for deeper societal problems that aren't simply going to be fixed by censoring words, which is what started this thread.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia link you shared addresses points I didn't have in mind when I posted my comment (namely obscenities, child porn, etc. that have all be attempted in some form or other to be protected under "free speech"). Specifically, I had in mind the written or spoken word rather than necessarily depictions or offense (but then that leads us to the debate of what is "art" and whether or not specific artwork could be construed as free speech or otherwise--it's a broad topic).

The curious thing with regards to obscenity is that cultural restrictions on it have loosened over time. Larry Flint's success before SCOTUS in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell [1] comes to mind as an example. This is why "free speech" is a contentious issue, because it seems that no one can generally agree on what should or shouldn't be protected and what should or shouldn't be censored by the government or by governmental agencies.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell