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Comment by Asbostos | Hacker News Reader

How is it hate speech? Are there people who would start killing Jews if they discovered it didn't really happen? Serious question, maybe Germany has people who are ready to commit violence but are held back by the thought that the holocaust probably happened? I can't think of the chain of causation from saying "It didn't happen" to someone killing someone else.

The closest I can find on Wikipedia's definition of hate speech is "...disparages ... a protected individual or group." Who is that group? Is it "people who believe the holocaust happened"? Surely belief in an arbitrary claim doesn't count for defining a "protected individual or group". Is the group Jews? How does it harm Jews?

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Genocide denial is extremely insulting to the victims and the survivors.

Jews have been murdered in europe for centuries as a vent for fear and political impotence.

We've had enough. The fact that the germany that produced so much culture and science was the culprit of the last genocide in western europe is an absolute horror on so many scales.

Yes, the horrors went on elsewhere but the only way for us as a species to move ahead of our bloodspattered history is to take a stand against fear and brutalism. whitewashing history is a dangerous thing because it gives the signal that political leadership could have a way to escape history's judgement.

In essence, it's a matter of accountability that we must uphold vigorously.

>Genocide denial is extremely insulting to the victims and the survivors.

And? Nobody here denies that. But that is no reason to punish denialists. Just ostracize them from society.

Damaging untruths are widely punished, either as civil offenses, criminal offenses, or both, in the US and elsewhere; countries differ in details of where the burden of proof lies in truth/untruth of harmful statements, what the standard of proof required is, what degree and kind of harms are covered, and whether and how those kind of rules vary for different categories of harmful statements.

In general, these punishments reflect the common belief that infliction of harm without consent of the harmed is improper, and warrants either punishment or compensation or both.

And, anyway, ostracism is a punishment (historically viewed as a fairly severe one.)

> Genocide denial is extremely insulting to the victims and the survivors.

So? So is calling people "rapists" (without proof or conviction), but we don't outlaw it.

> We've had enough.

I don't care. I've had enough of people who believe in God. So? Why should the state criminalize it just because I've had enough?

> In essence, it's a matter of accountability that we must uphold vigorously.

I'm all for upholding the truth. I just think we should do it by logical arguments, not by government fiat.

> So? So is calling people "rapists" (without proof or conviction), but we don't outlaw it.

Yet we do: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stg... http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stg... http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stg...

Hm... either I'm reading this incorrectly, or this only applies to

> a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins

Can you clarify why insulting someone with "rapist" is outlawed?

If you publish it, it's libel. There's a difference between "so-and-so is an asshole" (not a fact, haha), and "so-and-so committed a crime" (a fact). Whether it's a civil or criminal matter depends on the jurisdiction. The UN is against criminalizing defamation because it limits freedom of expression.

> Can you clarify why insulting someone with "rapist" is outlawed?

In case the second link did not lead you to the correct section:

    Section 186
    Defamation
    
    Whosoever asserts or disseminates a fact related to another person
    which may defame him or negatively affect public opinion about him,
    shall, unless this fact can be proven to be true, be liable to
    imprisonment not exceeding one year or a fine and, if the offence
    was committed publicly or through the dissemination of written
    materials (section 11(3)), to imprisonment not exceeding two years
    or a fine.

OK, thanks. So free speech is limited even more than I thought :) But at least you're consistent, I'll give you that.

> So? So is calling people "rapists" (without proof or conviction), but we don't outlaw it.

Falsely calling someone a rapist is unlawful and subjects the person doing it to legal consequences many places (including most jurisdictions in the US); where the burden of proof is on demonstrating the truth or falsity of the statement, whether and in what circumstances a good-faith mistake of fact will excuse the offense, etc., vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it is certainly not a matter on which it is some widely accepted principal that people are free to make false claims without consequence.

Hm... plenty of men have been publicly accused of rape by women (Duke lacrosse case, the Mattress Girl, Rolling Stone "Rape on Campus", to list a few). I don't recall any legal repercussions for those women. I'm guessing that's because it's really hard to prove they're lying (even though in many cases there is very obvious evidence that they were), but this fact doesn't really support your claim that calling someone a rapist ever results in legal consequences (let alone criminal consequences).

For one rather well-known case of non-criminal legal consequences: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegati...

Discussion of criminal recourse (and considerations involved in pursuing it, from prosecutors' perspective) is here (starting on p. 8): http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/the_voice_vol_3_no_1_2009.pdf

Holocaust victims can't feel insulted because they're dead. Survivors can but they're few in number and will soon be extinct. Are you sure these are the main groups of people who would be hurt by legalized holocaust denial? I find that hard to believe, especially since we allow denial of most other large scale killings - even those bigger than the holocaust.

Survivors are few and will soon be extinct, but what about their children and grandchildren, who kept hearing their stories and were raised feeling their trauma and terror?

Dignity exceeds lifetime.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10770153

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