You can still have freedom of speech while implementing moderation to make sure that hate speech, bigotry and fake news don't spread - because if those things spread then they leak into the real world as death. 8chan has been shut down not only because it hosted hate communities, but because it refused to apply any moderation there.
However, the problem is not 8chan alone. It's good to shut down websites where hate speech proliferates without constraints, but a couple of days or weeks later new *chan websites are likely to pop up to replace them, or maybe they'd make a Telegram group. The root problem is Americans. And I'm honestly not sure of how to fix the problem with a whole population that has become so irrational, polarized, ignorant and sensitive to hate speech.
Everything you just said is essentially untrue when it comes to government censorship of speech in the US. Hate speech is certainly protected by the first amendment, with only a few narrow exceptions. Personally addressed, face-to-face insults, if deemed likely to start an imminent fight is not constitutionally protected.
(This is sometimes called the "fighting words" exception, and it's much narrower than you might think. The law is quite clear that just because the words might yield a violent reaction, they're still protected. Cantwell v. Connecticut involved anti-Catholic "hate speech", as we'd now term it, expressed in public in a neighbourhood that was 90% Catholic, enraged many listeners, and almost started some violence. Still protected.)
> You can still have freedom of speech while implementing moderation to make sure that hate speech, bigotry and fake news don't spread
Only if done, as here, by private organisations. Regulating bigotry on message boards is the precise thing type of things that the first amendment prevents.
There is no hate speech exception in the constitution. Hate speech is generally an example of what is most protected.
Simple example: if a person wrongly claims, that some local artisan's business is insolvent, and the artisan can prove that a potential customer withdrew an order for that reason, the person who spread the fake news has to pay for the artisan's loss. Entirely.
Talking someone into commiting a crime is never treated as free speech, either.
So, this is the legal construct in Germany:
- you are free to have any opinion you like ("Meinungsfreiheit") and
- you are free to express those opinions to the public ("Redefreiheit")
Free speech, here, is limited to opinion. There is no such thing as "i am free to lie, blame, insult, taunt, threaten, defame, verbally harass, berate, incite etc..." with the excuse of free speech.
In Germany, if you say: "The president of the United States suffers from narcissistic personality disorder", AND you cannot prove this as a fact, and the POTUS goes after you for that statement, you will have to compensate for the damages of that claim (this will become very expensive, if the POTUS can prove that he lost reelections because of that statement). If you say: "To my conviction (in my opinion/I believe), the president of the United States suffers from narcissistic personality disorder", this would be completely legal in Germany.
And yes, the distinction matters!
"Pres. Reagan: Mr. Brezhnev, in the USA we have free speech- anybody can say in public: President Reagan is a fool!"
"Secretary Brezhnev: Pres. Reagan, in the USSR, we also have free speech- anybody can say in public: President Reagan is a fool!"
The difference is that in Germany, "AlphaGeekZulu is an asshole", while clearly a statement of opinion, will allow you to go after me. Some restrictons to Meinungsfreiheit are right there in the constitution - protecting personal honor or protection the children.
* Shouting fire in a crowded theatre
* False advertisement
* Medical or legal advice (allowed, heavily regulated by the Government)
* Advocacy of force or criminal activity
And I assume, many others that I do not know of.
Unless you are arguing that there is no such thing as free speech in the US, then it must be that you can have "free speech" while still having some limitations.
Yeah, why are you allowed to play tennis but you aren't allowed to kill people? Why can you say John's a good person but you can't say he molests children? Why can you shout "fore" on a golf course but not "fire" in a movie theatre?
There's always a limit. Choosing to stop your for-profit web service from enabling bigotry and murder seems a pretty low bar here. Let me know when it's being used to prevent the discussion of ideas such as Marxism or veganism or solar power or whatever which might upset the current power structure.
Discussion of all of those topics has taken place on cripplechan which MITMflare just terminated business with.
Yes. If the speech isn't terrible it doesn't really need advocating for or protecting does it? Arguing for free speech is inextricably linked to arguing for people to be able to say despicable things.
So you are free to send spam. I'm free to refuse it. I'm not required to transport your junk if I don't want to.
That is a baseless and offensive statement. Very unhappily, this kind of irrational hatred (and polarization) is on the rise in many parts of the West. It is not a problem with Americans.
I live in China, a textbook totalitarian state.
What you say is awfully similar to what CPC puts as their justification of censorship.
The prevailing narrative among the "dotcom" community in the West, and what you have said wrote is very similar to their position.
The dream of the perfect context free golden rule does not exist. We have to pay attention and make hard decisions. None of this is simple.
I doubt that only Americans are the problem in this case. I think what has happened is that hate speech and other undesirable (subjective word but bear with me) content is a hack into human psychology and a small percent of human beings regardless of nationality will always be influenced by hate speech and caste-ism and what not. The problem is that as the internet has reached the masses, the lone fanatic has a very large soapbox to shout and a very loud speaker to listen from.
That's an incredibly offensive and hateful comment. Fortunately for you, in America the first amendment protects your right to say it. Maybe you can see where allowing the government to decide what is and isn't acceptable speech might be problematic.
It's an oddly pervasive delusion that hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.
So do I, but outside essential utility monopolies, I also believe that no one should be forced to facilitate those opinions. That Cloudflare choose not to do so is ultimately an expression of their own opinions and values.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/31/facebook-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/08/it-fe...
The Treason Felony Act 1848 [1] is something that is still technically a part of the law in the United Kingdom even if not actively enforced. In 2001 The Guardian made a legal effort to finally have it officially removed from the books, and failed [2]. The act makes it illegal to call for the abolition of the monarchy within the United Kingdom, even "imagining" such is sufficient to conviction. The max penalty is life imprisonment -- quite progressive as it used to be death. This is a stark reminder of why and where the desire for free free speech came from. Imagine our past without freedom of speech. There undoubtedly would have been numerous states that would have made the mere advocacy for abolition illegal, others that would have made advocating for suffrage of various groups also illegal, and so on.
You may think it simple to demarcate a line between 'reasonable' and 'unreasonable' speech but it's not so easy and ultimately the individuals that get to decide as such are those with the most power in society. The lines end up being drawn as fairly and reasonably as our states draw the lines laying out their voting districts. Laws against free speech invariably end up being exploited to help entrench whatever political ideology happens to get a grip on power within a nation, as the UK laws past and present are a reminder of.
Such laws can even be used to enforced bigoted views. For instance in the UK in 2017 a 19 year old lady was arrested and convicted, forced to wear a ankle monitoring device, abide a curfew, etc for "sending a grossly offensive message by means of a public electronic communications network." Her crime? Quoting lyrics from a Snoop Dog song on Instagram. That conviction was overturned a couple of years later. In another case (again in the UK) a Christian preacher was arrested for stating that, while he was not homophobic, he believed that the Bible taught homosexuality was a sin. Again it was overturned, yet being arrested, let alone convicted, for such "offenses" is hardly a society any should thrive to emulate.
Ultimately, I think people only see things they disagree with as being affected. In reality once free speech goes it will also include some of your views you find in no way unacceptable. In Germany until 2018 it was illegal to publicly insult any head of state. It was revoked only when it became inconvenient to the powers that be. Following a comedian reading an obscene poem about Turkish president Erdoğan, Turkey demanded and lawfully received prosecution which ultimately led to the law's removal. Laws which make it illegal to "defame" the President of the German Federal Republic remain on the books.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Felony_Act_1848
[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/13/calling-abol...
1) In UK law, there is no right to freedom of speech. The only people who are allowed that privilege are MPs in the house of commons.
2) The communications act expressly disallows "grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false" However, the definition of what grossly offensive is based on precedent, and is therefore not fixed.
3) libel
Libel needs reform. It needs to be modified sensibly to allow for quick, cheap & legally binding judgements, in the same vein as the small claims court.
The point still remains, even in the USA, there is no such thing as freedom of speech. You are not allowed to say whatever, whenever. The problem comes when trying devise a set of rules that allows a society to operate freely, but not get derailed by ne'er-do-wells
