5 ms·

Saying things like that the "holocaust" never happened, or preaching against homosexuality (straight from the Holy Bible), is illegal in the EU. http://www.chr

Saying things like that the "holocaust" never happened, or preaching against homosexuality (straight from the Holy Bible), is illegal in the EU. http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/al-mohler/criminalizing-christianity-swedens-hate-speech-law-1277601.html http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/al-mohler/crimi...

adrinavarro 10y ago
I'd say that hate speech being banned is not an issue.
- gcp 10y ago
  What is "hate speech"?
  - espadrine 10y ago
    Hate speech is when someone verbally attacks a person or group on the basis of harmless features of theirs. Just like freedom of movement doesn't grant you the right to get into any bank vault, freedom of speech doesn't grant you the right to harm.
    - gcp 10y ago
      What's a "harmless feature"? What about features where personal harm are traded for societal harm? (i.e. most politics) Can we discuss those?
      - espadrine 10y ago
        A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you. Saying "I hate doctors" is not hate speech, for instance, because doctors want to cure you. It is a case of them causing physical harm (eg. through vaccines) which is socially beneficial. Saying "I hate disabled people" is hate speech, because they're not disabled to spite you.
        gcp 10y ago
        verbally attacks a person or group on the basis of harmless features of theirs...A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you. Ok, so we just banned discussing politics, religion and basically anything that deals with human relations because it's "hate speech". QED
        espadrine 10y ago
        Please read what I wrote again. Saying "I hate the left" is not hate speech, as politics is meant to affect you — it is meant to affect the whole world, after all. Saying "I hate muslims" is hate speech: practicing Islam is not meant to affect you. That doesn't mean you can't discuss it however: a discussion is not a verbal attack. You can even say "I hate the Jehovah's witnesses that knock on my door", as the group you are referring to directly affects you.
        pofjer 10y ago
        What about “I hate the passively aggressive Muslims who give their best to impose Islam and Sharia law through funding/helping/volunteering in illegal mosques, illegal paramilitary organisations, semi-legal Muslim clubs and ‘foundations’ as well as illegal ‘schools’ in Europe where innocent children are taught to undermine Western values and the norms of the society that welcomed their parents and grandparents with open arms with the only expectation that they would gracefully accept its secular values with Christian roots instead of giving extra effort to form ghettoised microsocieties who openly express hatred against them?” – is this a more acceptable way to express it? I won't disclose my personal views, but this is usually what people mean when they say that they hate Muslims, at least according to my experience after talking to them and trying to understand where the problem is. I am yet to see a single person who claims to hate nonpractising moderate Muslims who openly condemn everything listed above – but not only on words, while secretly admiring, liking or even having nothing against any parts of it.
        akjainaj 10y ago
  - rayiner 10y ago
    What is a harmless feature? Does it include the person's religious or social beliefs?
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    What is libel? What is calling fire in a packed theater? It's up to the courts.
- reddytowns 10y ago
  Define hatespeech, and you'll either rope a lot of valid points of view within it or make it too weak to count for anything.
  - SCHiM 10y ago
    In my mind it's always been the difference between saying: <jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem, and saying I _think_ that <jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem. The same goes for insulting police officers. You can report your state of mind, but you can't use a descriptive tense, you need to explicitly state that it is your opinion. I haven't ever been in trouble of this sort of thing, and I also think that almost every human knows when real hate-speech is being bandied about. But I do know that a few years back the courts in the Netherlands ruled that if you tell a police officer: 'you're a fag' you can't defend yourself by saying it was just an opinion.
    - reddytowns 10y ago
      The problem with that is it supports one position over another no matter what the circumstances. What you're saying means that the only correct position is to support ever loosening restrictions on immigration. You can't ever go the other way, can't even discuss it. That is far more worrisome then me then the supposed reincarnation of Hitler in orange form. Christ, if Hitler isn't the new devil, capable of possessing people at random and these aren't the new Salem witch trials, I don't know what is.
gambiting 10y ago
Saying that Holocaust never happened is only illegal in Germany, elsewhere it can be persecuted as hate speech, but that's not explicitly written into law. And if preaching against homosexuality was illegal in the EU, then 90% of Polish priests would be in prison :P My point is - EU does not enforce this. Individual countries do, and they follow their own rules.
- tete 10y ago
  Not only in Germany, but I get the point. Hate speech however is a bit of a weird topic. I am kind of extreme side on anti-censorship and agree that this is a problem (despite it's practical implications are minor - currently). I wished that people could say things like "our democracy is strong enough" and a person claiming the holocaust didn't happen would simply ridicule themselves, just like someone saying the earth is flat. However, one also has to say that the effects of hate speech in the EU (likely to be ruining your career and similar things) are really close to the the effects of certain political statements in the US, like when you openly mention good thing about communism, speak badly about soldiers/veterans, don't act like the American flag is sacred, etc. That said I think a good measure of a society is whether you can make "bad jokes" without fear. Usually actions against those are the beginning of an authoritarian system. I don't talk about actual bullying of non-public figures here. That may be coming close to an attack, when it goes into the direction of driving people to suicide or so, even though that's really far sometimes and people of course also need some skins if they consider themselves to be emancipated. Anyway, I think free speech is way too often attacked for really minor reasons, when it should be withstand even rather good reasons, or else we cannot call it a right of the citizens of a country. Also I think that people should focus on the now, even when they try to learn from the past. Currently action is taken against people that talk like Nazi Germans from 70+ years ago, when people that act in a similar, but maybe technologically more modern way are completely under the radar.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
vertex-four 10y ago
Preaching against homosexuality is definitely not illegal across the EU. There's a group of people doing it on the streets at every damn Pride event in the UK - at quite some expense to the taxpayer too, since they wind up having a number of police officers stationed near them. If you were to read, well, any source posted since then, you'd find that it was found that he was actually protected on appeal by the ECHR freedom of expression (aka freedom of speech) and freedom of religion.
- philh 10y ago
  > There's a group of people doing it on the streets at every damn Pride event in the UK - at quite some expense to the taxpayer too, since they wind up having a number of police officers stationed near them. Not that this is false (I have no knowledge either way), but... spinning it this way, like people are to blame for the costs of protecting them from violent retaliation against their speech, feels distasteful to me.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    Ah, I didn't mean it that way - I merely meant that this is something that the country explicitly puts resources towards protecting, not something that it "puts up with", as a direct rebuttal of the argument that the EU as a whole is strongly against the rights to expression and religion.
    - philh 10y ago
      Fair enough, I appreciate the clarification.
rmc 10y ago
> Saying things like that the "holocaust" never happened ... I'm kinda OK with that?? That's the hill you want to die on?
- pc86 10y ago
  The problem is being imprisoned for simply stating a stupid, incorrect belief. Being imprisoned for such a trivial reason is wrong to its very core.
realusername 10y ago
I think there might be few small historical reasons why you can't say that...

adrinavarro 10y ago

I'd say that hate speech being banned is not an issue.

gcp 10y ago
What is "hate speech"?
- espadrine 10y ago
  Hate speech is when someone verbally attacks a person or group on the basis of harmless features of theirs. Just like freedom of movement doesn't grant you the right to get into any bank vault, freedom of speech doesn't grant you the right to harm.
  - gcp 10y ago
    What's a "harmless feature"? What about features where personal harm are traded for societal harm? (i.e. most politics) Can we discuss those?
    - espadrine 10y ago
      A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you. Saying "I hate doctors" is not hate speech, for instance, because doctors want to cure you. It is a case of them causing physical harm (eg. through vaccines) which is socially beneficial. Saying "I hate disabled people" is hate speech, because they're not disabled to spite you.
      - gcp 10y ago
        verbally attacks a person or group on the basis of harmless features of theirs...A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you. Ok, so we just banned discussing politics, religion and basically anything that deals with human relations because it's "hate speech". QED
        espadrine 10y ago
        Please read what I wrote again. Saying "I hate the left" is not hate speech, as politics is meant to affect you — it is meant to affect the whole world, after all. Saying "I hate muslims" is hate speech: practicing Islam is not meant to affect you. That doesn't mean you can't discuss it however: a discussion is not a verbal attack. You can even say "I hate the Jehovah's witnesses that knock on my door", as the group you are referring to directly affects you.
        pofjer 10y ago
        What about “I hate the passively aggressive Muslims who give their best to impose Islam and Sharia law through funding/helping/volunteering in illegal mosques, illegal paramilitary organisations, semi-legal Muslim clubs and ‘foundations’ as well as illegal ‘schools’ in Europe where innocent children are taught to undermine Western values and the norms of the society that welcomed their parents and grandparents with open arms with the only expectation that they would gracefully accept its secular values with Christian roots instead of giving extra effort to form ghettoised microsocieties who openly express hatred against them?” – is this a more acceptable way to express it? I won't disclose my personal views, but this is usually what people mean when they say that they hate Muslims, at least according to my experience after talking to them and trying to understand where the problem is. I am yet to see a single person who claims to hate nonpractising moderate Muslims who openly condemn everything listed above – but not only on words, while secretly admiring, liking or even having nothing against any parts of it.
        akjainaj 10y ago
- rayiner 10y ago
  What is a harmless feature? Does it include the person's religious or social beliefs?
- kalleboo 10y ago
  What is libel? What is calling fire in a packed theater? It's up to the courts.
reddytowns 10y ago
Define hatespeech, and you'll either rope a lot of valid points of view within it or make it too weak to count for anything.
- SCHiM 10y ago
  In my mind it's always been the difference between saying: <jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem, and saying I _think_ that <jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem. The same goes for insulting police officers. You can report your state of mind, but you can't use a descriptive tense, you need to explicitly state that it is your opinion. I haven't ever been in trouble of this sort of thing, and I also think that almost every human knows when real hate-speech is being bandied about. But I do know that a few years back the courts in the Netherlands ruled that if you tell a police officer: 'you're a fag' you can't defend yourself by saying it was just an opinion.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    The problem with that is it supports one position over another no matter what the circumstances. What you're saying means that the only correct position is to support ever loosening restrictions on immigration. You can't ever go the other way, can't even discuss it. That is far more worrisome then me then the supposed reincarnation of Hitler in orange form. Christ, if Hitler isn't the new devil, capable of possessing people at random and these aren't the new Salem witch trials, I don't know what is.

gambiting 10y ago

Saying that Holocaust never happened is only illegal in Germany, elsewhere it can be persecuted as hate speech, but that's not explicitly written into law. And if preaching against homosexuality was illegal in the EU, then 90% of Polish priests would be in prison :P My point is - EU does not enforce this. Individual countries do, and they follow their own rules.

tete 10y ago
Not only in Germany, but I get the point. Hate speech however is a bit of a weird topic. I am kind of extreme side on anti-censorship and agree that this is a problem (despite it's practical implications are minor - currently). I wished that people could say things like "our democracy is strong enough" and a person claiming the holocaust didn't happen would simply ridicule themselves, just like someone saying the earth is flat. However, one also has to say that the effects of hate speech in the EU (likely to be ruining your career and similar things) are really close to the the effects of certain political statements in the US, like when you openly mention good thing about communism, speak badly about soldiers/veterans, don't act like the American flag is sacred, etc. That said I think a good measure of a society is whether you can make "bad jokes" without fear. Usually actions against those are the beginning of an authoritarian system. I don't talk about actual bullying of non-public figures here. That may be coming close to an attack, when it goes into the direction of driving people to suicide or so, even though that's really far sometimes and people of course also need some skins if they consider themselves to be emancipated. Anyway, I think free speech is way too often attacked for really minor reasons, when it should be withstand even rather good reasons, or else we cannot call it a right of the citizens of a country. Also I think that people should focus on the now, even when they try to learn from the past. Currently action is taken against people that talk like Nazi Germans from 70+ years ago, when people that act in a similar, but maybe technologically more modern way are completely under the radar.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

vertex-four 10y ago

Preaching against homosexuality is definitely not illegal across the EU. There's a group of people doing it on the streets at every damn Pride event in the UK - at quite some expense to the taxpayer too, since they wind up having a number of police officers stationed near them. If you were to read, well, any source posted since then, you'd find that it was found that he was actually protected on appeal by the ECHR freedom of expression (aka freedom of speech) and freedom of religion.

philh 10y ago
> There's a group of people doing it on the streets at every damn Pride event in the UK - at quite some expense to the taxpayer too, since they wind up having a number of police officers stationed near them. Not that this is false (I have no knowledge either way), but... spinning it this way, like people are to blame for the costs of protecting them from violent retaliation against their speech, feels distasteful to me.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Ah, I didn't mean it that way - I merely meant that this is something that the country explicitly puts resources towards protecting, not something that it "puts up with", as a direct rebuttal of the argument that the EU as a whole is strongly against the rights to expression and religion.
  - philh 10y ago
    Fair enough, I appreciate the clarification.

rmc 10y ago

> Saying things like that the "holocaust" never happened ... I'm kinda OK with that?? That's the hill you want to die on?

pc86 10y ago
The problem is being imprisoned for simply stating a stupid, incorrect belief. Being imprisoned for such a trivial reason is wrong to its very core.

realusername 10y ago

I think there might be few small historical reasons why you can't say that...