Hate speech is a good start. Go about the place saying “Muslims rape children” or “F-slurs make us lose wars” and you are actively making life more dangerous for people.
Problem is that well-intentioned rules with discretionary boundaries end up with unethical enforcement. See: the bill a few months ago that federally defines “anti-semitism” as including “criticism of the state of Israel”. Actually that’s not even a discretionary boundary, that’s statutory. The reasoning behind the First Amendment in the first place was to avoid authoritarian censorship, including these kinds of games where “reasonable regulation” of speech is used to shoehorn in authoritarian censorship.
Hate speech is not protected by the constitution and is typically a point of proof in hate crime cases. There are also civil remedies for directed hate speech in many states. Also assault is a crime that only involves words.
We allow generalized hate speech because we believe that the appropriate counter to speech is speech.
“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” - Justice Louis D. Brandeis
That is 100% false. Hate speech is absolutely protected speech. The only speech that is subject to criminal penalties is speech that incites people to immediate violence, and obscenity (e.g., child pornography). I’m not going to cite all the case law, but this is a good starting point
We had a decades long problem with Muslim grooming gangs in the UK and this kind of attitude was what prevented the authorities from intervening for so long. In some cases actively covering up the existence of the gangs or casting aspersions on the victims. Estimates of the number of victims are in the hundreds, possibly thousands.
Every day we get another horrifying new detail about historical abuse and in some places these gangs are still active.
“Muslims rape kids” is wrong, bigoted, and a gross generalisation. However if there is a pattern of certain abuser profiles then the general public needs to be informed.
with a country that decides modern online privacy laws based off of 1980s video rentals, any sort of restriction on free speech WILL be manipulated into whatever the people in power agrees with.
This is an actually good one, speaking as an American. I disagree with you, and that makes this a good answer to the question posed in this thread. I disagree with you because to understand why America can’t have nice things, you need to imagine what it would look like if the Republicans were in charge of implementing them (because they basically are, and have been more or less unchallenged since Reagan). So, no, I’m not in favor of censorship, because what we’d get is censorship a la Republican, where you’re free to use the N-word, but criticizing the government, CEOs, Wall Street, or Jesus will get you sent straight to jail.
Ok, so I’m going to do one that’s actually likely to be downvoted by the Americans here.
Sometimes censorship is necessary for a safer society.
Censorship of what exactly? Certain things I’d understand, but there are alot of things that could be censored that wouldn’t be so great
Hate speech is a good start. Go about the place saying “Muslims rape children” or “F-slurs make us lose wars” and you are actively making life more dangerous for people.
Problem is that well-intentioned rules with discretionary boundaries end up with unethical enforcement. See: the bill a few months ago that federally defines “anti-semitism” as including “criticism of the state of Israel”. Actually that’s not even a discretionary boundary, that’s statutory. The reasoning behind the First Amendment in the first place was to avoid authoritarian censorship, including these kinds of games where “reasonable regulation” of speech is used to shoehorn in authoritarian censorship.
Hate speech is not protected by the constitution and is typically a point of proof in hate crime cases. There are also civil remedies for directed hate speech in many states. Also assault is a crime that only involves words.
We allow generalized hate speech because we believe that the appropriate counter to speech is speech.
“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” - Justice Louis D. Brandeis
That is 100% false. Hate speech is absolutely protected speech. The only speech that is subject to criminal penalties is speech that incites people to immediate violence, and obscenity (e.g., child pornography). I’m not going to cite all the case law, but this is a good starting point
Strong disagree, but, you know, this is about things Americans aren’t ready to hear.
We had a decades long problem with Muslim grooming gangs in the UK and this kind of attitude was what prevented the authorities from intervening for so long. In some cases actively covering up the existence of the gangs or casting aspersions on the victims. Estimates of the number of victims are in the hundreds, possibly thousands.
Every day we get another horrifying new detail about historical abuse and in some places these gangs are still active.
“Muslims rape kids” is wrong, bigoted, and a gross generalisation. However if there is a pattern of certain abuser profiles then the general public needs to be informed.
deleted by creator
with a country that decides modern online privacy laws based off of 1980s video rentals, any sort of restriction on free speech WILL be manipulated into whatever the people in power agrees with.
This is an actually good one, speaking as an American. I disagree with you, and that makes this a good answer to the question posed in this thread. I disagree with you because to understand why America can’t have nice things, you need to imagine what it would look like if the Republicans were in charge of implementing them (because they basically are, and have been more or less unchallenged since Reagan). So, no, I’m not in favor of censorship, because what we’d get is censorship a la Republican, where you’re free to use the N-word, but criticizing the government, CEOs, Wall Street, or Jesus will get you sent straight to jail.
(https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2025/01/02/british-journalist-could-face-years-in-prison-for-refusing-to-hand-over-his-passwords-to-the-police/7822432/) This is why you’re wrong