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Comment by maym86 | Hacker News Reader

> If you greet someone and smile, and they interpret your greeting or your smile as sinister, does this law make you a criminal?

No that's not harrasment. You're reducing a clear issue that women face daily to your concern about being falsly accused over a smile.

https://youtu.be/b1XGPvbWn0A

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I think the issue is the idea that we should continue to carve out exemptions to what most would consider a basic human right (free speech) because of people’s feelings.

Are you entitled to feeling safe? Yes, without infringing on the rights of others. Are you entitled to not being offended? No, that is not a right. You cannot legislate civility and decency in a free society. You cannot legislate emotional well being and fortitude.

Disclaimer: American, supporter of unrestricted free speech

If someone is following you down the street and shouting sexual comments at you the whole way, even after you let them know that you want them to leave you alone, is the person receiving the comments just being offended? If this person does this every time a person passes how should they be dealt with? Genuine question for someone coming from your POV. This kind of stuff happens daily.

The problem I see here is that any law to help someone to feel safe is an infringement on someone elses's freedom. We have laws against murder for example, that obviously infringe people's freedom, but we way it up and decide it's definitely better to have such laws. The "unrestricted free speech" arguement tends to have so many exceptions "calling fire" etc. that I feel you can't really argue against this.

Disclaimer: Brit, supporter of reasonable speech

Right. We already draw lines.

The following wouldn't be a strong argument for removing the laws against robbery:

What if I accidentally get accused of robbery because I pick up someone's belonging to return it to them when they had left it somewhere.

I would rather have robbery laws and deal with these cases as they arise than not have robbery laws at all. Same goes for harrasment.

Hi, American here, supporter of (almost) unrestricted free speech (more the free exchange of ideas than speech itself).

However I do not support unrestricted harassment. I'm a guy. I have a dick between my legs. I think it's easy to forget that if you DON'T have a dick between your legs, you often times are verbally abused, followed, and otherwise harassed, even if you're pre-pubescent.

It's all fine and dandy to say "If I don't support someone's speech, I'll just ignore it!" until a person twice your size is following you down a dark street at night talking about the sexual things they want to do to your body.

Someone talking about a political opinion making me feel "unsafe" is a stretch, and I wish people wouldn't confuse exchange of ideas with safety. However, someone following me around harassing me and verbally sexually abusing me isn't free fucking speech. It's harassment.

Granted, I don't know what this law will do about it, because I'm assuming harassment is illegal already in France, but I just wanted to point out that the speech you are arguing in defense of is not an exchange of ideas, it's threatening and bordering on sexual violence. I also want to point out that unless it has happened to you personally, it's easy to say things like "just ignore it."

The issue is when you say “almost” unrestricted free speech. Someone’s going to have to make the call what the line is. In the US, that’s already been decided thankfully (imminent harm, not “harrasment”). France, I think, will end up walking this back depending on the political repercussions.

It’s enjoyable to get other perspectives, but at the end of they day, I support candidates and judicial nominees who maintain rights as freedoms as unrestricted as possible (speech, firearms ownership, etc). Because you never know who is going to be in power next, and how they will weaponize the exceptions to fundamental rights.

There is a cost to a free and democratic society.

> Someone talking about a political opinion making me feel "unsafe" is a stretch... the speech you are arguing in defense of is not an exchange of ideas, it's threatening and bordering on sexual violence.

People don't follow people through streets decrying "oh baby do you know about the 1st amendment". This isn't a big problem.

Anyone making this about political speech is not arguing the actual issue of harrasment. Derailing the conversation to discuss some imagined "what if" scenario that isn't real.

If these laws were used to stop legitimate protest then that would be a problem but that isn't even close to happening in France where people protest as a national past time.

> It's all fine and dandy to say "If I don't support someone's speech, I'll just ignore it!" until a person twice your size is following you down a dark street at night talking about the sexual things they want to do to your body.

So a person twice your size following you down a dark street at night not saying anything is OK?!

No that's not ok either. That was not said or implied in the post you are quoting.

It's a slippery slope... One could argue that catcalling is also not herassment then. After all it's just a way to tell women that you find them pretty, right? Isn't a greet and a smile something similiar, although less obvious?

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