In the US you can stand on the street and deny the holocaust or preach hate against some part of the population and it's covered by free speech, isn't it? I think everybody should be allowed to say whatever they like even if it's hate speech but then again laws are in place to exclude hate speech. I hope that if any lunatic is allowed to say what they like we have to face them and evolve as societies but I may be too naive in expecting people to adapt to that. The rationale for disallowing certain speech is supposedly to limit offending people or luring the gullible into their hate mindset. However even with limited free speech hate mongerers on all continents manage to impress the young and ship them to ISIS-land.
Would it be best if there's total free speech and we'd have to adapt and learn to ignore "trolls" like on the internet?
Or are the lawmakers right in limiting free speech?
At least in the case of libel I'm of the opinion that you should just shrug off what someone says about you. Haters will be everywhere. I mean we all know where contesting someone's public opinion of him got Mr Wylde in ye olde England. Had he listened to his friends and ignored the accusations he might have lived longer.
Libel is often misused like the patent system and not used for its original intention. That might show we better get rid of libel as well while at it.
Many people say bad things about me or you and I want more to do it so that I can grow a thicker skin.
Opinions welcome as I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
European views on "hate speech" and in particular inciting racial hatred against minority groups are very much informed by the Holocaust having happened.
One person saying hateful things can be ignored. A whole mob cannot.
But it's not 1934 any more. Germany can ban hate speech. But ISIS, or Iran, or some nutjob in America can crank out the exact same speech, in German, on a web site that Germans can freely access. Now what does the German ban do? It prevents Germans from saying such things, but not from reading them.
The only way to stop Germans from reading such things is to have a Great Firewall of Germany. But that has consequences too...
I don't see that limiting free speech if going to be good if it is implemented with the same hypocrisy and biased way as our society is (including media and people) now.
It's always funny to see Americans complain about the "lack of free speech" in Germany (Nazism, Scientology), when all those laws and the relevant legal structure around it was not only accepted by the US after WW2, but basically forced upon Germany by the US.
One person saying hateful things can be ignored. A whole mob cannot.
I've ignored mobs of people saying hateful things plenty of times (pro-lifers, 12 tribes, unions). Sometimes I stop to make fun of them, but as long as they don't get violent there's no problem.
Would it be best if there's total free speech and we'd have to adapt and learn to ignore "trolls" like on the internet?
Or are the lawmakers right in limiting free speech?
At least in the case of libel I'm of the opinion that you should just shrug off what someone says about you. Haters will be everywhere. I mean we all know where contesting someone's public opinion of him got Mr Wylde in ye olde England. Had he listened to his friends and ignored the accusations he might have lived longer.
Libel is often misused like the patent system and not used for its original intention. That might show we better get rid of libel as well while at it.
Many people say bad things about me or you and I want more to do it so that I can grow a thicker skin.
Opinions welcome as I've been thinking about this a lot lately.