Considering that these rules don’t apply to governments, and that European governments generally seem to be slipping towards jailing people for thought crime, I’m skeptical as to how serious they are about privacy and control of personal data.
European countries draw a slightly different line than the US does (for instance including hate speech in the list of banned speech), but it's a difference in degree, not in kind.
There is also a trend, even in the US, towards keeping some prisoners behind bars for thinking certain thoughts. Sex offenders in many US states can be held long after their sentences based on mental health determinations, determinations that turn on their response to questions: their thoughts. Whereas expression of thoughts can be clearly illegal (ie hate speech) simple consumption, reading, of such thoughts can land the reader in jail too. Governments aren't yet crawling into people's heads, but they are certainly willing to criminalize the communication of illegal thought.
Thought crime = the thought itself is a crime, i.e. simply having the thought. Expression is a totally separate thing, and using “thought crime” this way is just announcing that you didn’t actually read 1984.
Governments aren't crawling into people's heads just yet, but they are certainly willing to criminalize the communication of thought.
No shit. Communication has been subject to government intervention and overreach since th dawn of recorded history. The 1st Ammendment in the US was created for a reason.
Azhar Ahmed, a British Muslim, was charged with treason, and ordered to pay a fine and complete community service because of a Facebook post he made wishing "All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL"
Herve Eon was convicted in France for insulting former French President Nicolas Sarkozy by holding a sign that said “get lost, jerk”
And, despite your narrow definition, I posit that all of these are thought crimes in the common parlance, and even to your narrow definition, the first example showcases the assumption that being pro-Palestine is automatically anti-semitic, whether or not it actually is.
Seriously, if you don’t know what something means, don’t use the the damned phrase.
“For insulting” “For wearing” are not thought crimes. A handy rule to detect a thought crime is this: unless someone was jailed just for thinking it wasn’t a thought crime.
Please, actually read 1984.
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Document...
You seem to be under some mistaken impression that you can say whatever you want whenever you want in the United States. You can't. There are many categories of speech that are banned in the US as well: if I think to myself "Tom Smith is a liar and a drunkard and he's cheating on his wife", that's perfectly fine, but if I communicate that to a large group of people in order to stain his reputation, that's illegal.
See the difference? In neither the US nor the EU is thinking things illegal, but in both countries, expressing stuff can possibly be illegal. It's true that the US and the EU has slightly different categories of banned speech, but that's a difference in degree, not in kind. but neither region has anything close to "thoughtcrime". You have a poor understanding of these issues if you think that is the case.
Here's my question: under your definition, how could "thoughtcrime" possibly be detected, let alone punished?
This is one of the central themes of 1984, that Ingsoc ("the Party") tries to control not just the speech and actions of their subjects, but their very thoughts. Literally: in 1984, having thoughts that goes against the party is illegal. That is why it's called "thoughtcrime", because it's the thought itself, even if it goes totally unexpressed in any way. Such crimes are punished by the "Thought police", who quite literally police thoughts. When a dangerous thought presents itself, you're supposed to use "crimestop", a technique for ridding yourself of that thought. Here's a quote from 1984:
> The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.
Oh, and yes: Newspeak! The language developed by the party with restricted vocabularies and grammar so that some thoughts will be literally unthinkable.
I took that quote from the wikipedia page on "thoughtcrime", which helpfully begins like this:
> A thoughtcrime is an Orwellian neologism used to describe an illegal thought. The term was popularized in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, first published in 1949, wherein thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question Ingsoc, the ruling party. In the book, the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects.
Feel free to look in any other dictionary or reference work, they will all say the same thing, some variation on "a thought that is illegal". I could go on with many more examples of how 1984 talks about thoughts (you should google "doublethink"! or maybe just read the book), but you get my point.
Your reaction, "how could 'thoughtcrime' possibly be detected, let alone punished?" is what the book is about. Every reader of 1984 reacts that way in the beginning, and the book is an exploration about what that very concept means, and what the implications are.
Look, the argument you are making is something like "European hate speech laws are an unacceptable abridgment of free speech and democratic rights". Which is a fine argument to make: I personally don't think so, but reasonable people can disagree on it and discuss it. What it is not is "thoughtcrime". It's just not what the term means.
I am not making any argument about European hate speech laws whatsoever. My issue is solely with the pedantic definition of the word "thoughtcrime" that is at odds with how it's actually used.
Comparing this to libel/slander is just absurd. It’s not a slightly different category, it’s such a massive difference that Europe has essentially outlawed aspects of political speech, which is the most important aspect of freedom of speech to begin with.
You’re right that Robinson was in the wrong on this one and that he did commit a crime; I wouldn’t have used him as an example had he not been brought up specifically.
Even in the U.S., there are people actively lobbying to use the government, usually state governments, to restrict the BDS movement. In my opinion there’s been a lot of media attention around silencing right wing speech in order to get the left to comply in undermining the underlying legal principles. But at the same time, quieter work is being done to restrict left wing speech as well. This has already been put in place in Europe and there seems to be bipartisan support for it in the U.S.
He's not being silenced because he's right wing. He's being silenced because he's jeopardising trials and threatening witnesses.
That action put the trial at risk of collapsing.
He was caught, and given a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court. That judgement is available here: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications/committal-for-cont...
Here's the judges words:
> The sentence, therefore, that I pass upon you, taking into account all of those matters that have been placed before me and your admissions entered via Mr. Kovalevsky, is one of three months' imprisonment which will be suspended for a period of 18 months. That will be suspended. There will be no conditions that need to be attached to that suspended sentence, but you should be under no illusions that if you commit any further offence of any kind, and that would include, I would have thought a further contempt of court by similar actions, then that sentence of three months would be activated, and that would be on top of anything else that you were given by any other court.
> In short, Mr. Yaxley-Lennon, turn up at another court, refer to people as "Muslim paedophiles, Muslim rapists" and so on and so forth while trials are ongoing and before there has been a finding by a jury that that is what they are, and you will find yourself inside. Do you understand? Thank you very much.
What did he do after beign given this very clear instruction to not interfere with criminal trials? He did exactly the same thing again, and so his suspended sentence was activated, on top of the new sentence.
Note that he only highlights trials of child sexual abuse involving muslims. He kept very quiet when a senior EDL member was similarly prosecuted.
Here's a decent write up: https://thesecretbarrister.com/2018/05/25/what-has-happened-...
Interfering with ongoing trials and making threats of violence is as far from hought crime as you can get.
[1] There's been an element of "this would never happen in the US", so here's a video of someone being tased because they try to take a camera into court. https://youtu.be/A7U5eJN3hLI?t=2m0s