Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by darklajid 4215 days ago
That example (Nazi symbol) gets old.. [1]

Can I burn the American Flag or (in your case, if I'm correctly understanding that you're in London) the Union Jack in a public place?

What about nudity (no clue in the UK, but I'm still laughing hard about 'nipplegate' to this very day) on TV?

Every culture probably sets acceptable limits in what you can show/express/say or do (even the US free speech isn't protecting you from being sued for libel/hate speech or similar things, as far as I can tell). Yes, Swastikas/Nazi related symbols might be unpopular and even forbidden here. I refuse to consider that censorship, to be honest.

1: Wikipedia even seems to have an english page for this example - guess it's just so popular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

2 comments

There's no censorship laws about burning the Union flag in a public place.

> I refuse to consider that censorship, to be honest.

I did say it depends how you define censorship. Note that I didn't say this was bad!

"Can I burn the American Flag...in a public place?"

Yes.

"What about nudity"

What does nudity have to do with anything? The topic is political speech. Anyway, there's plenty of nudity on cable, on the net...

Note that if the nudity does have political significance, numerous U.S. courts have held that it's protected.