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Comment by hadrien01 | Hacker News Reader

They can have their own website, but only promoted through organic means.

> Limiting speech like that sounds dystopian

Europe, with its vastly different past, has a very different view on free speech compared to the US. We don't allow unlimited free speech, but we don't view that as censorship. Nazi symbols are banned in Germany. Hate speech is condemned through most of Europe (one of our far-right politicians in France has been condemned, and I think rightly so, for dismissing Holocaust as a 'detail of history').

You see that as a dystopia. I see that as a better political and social environment.

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>We don't allow unlimited free speech, but we don't view that as censorship.

Speak for yourself. I certainly think blasphemy laws are certainly way past their due date, and more extreme restrictions (e.g. like in Germany, but notably not everywhere in Europe) definitely at least borderline on the dystopian side.

And as to what an average citizen might think: perhaps an average Chinese considers their “free speech” laws, or their closest equivalent, quite reasonable after having been taught so all their life. Europe could certainly do with freer speech.

It's still censorship, by definition. You have just decided that it's worth it, but let's be clear about what it is.

Funny thing is, for all your hate speech laws, far right parties don't seem to be much frustrated by them, and are quite successful at competing for votes lately. All they have to do is wink and nudge without spelling things out bluntly - everybody still knows what they mean and what they stand for.

> You see that as a dystopia. I see that as a better political and social environment.

The question then is...should YOU be the one to decide what is "better"? Who should be given that kind of power?

In an ideal world, a benevolent philosopher king would have that power. In the real world, maybe it's best no one has it.

Maybe it's better to cast the ring into the fire.

This sort of argument is the ultimate dead end. Shall we have no legislation on anything which isn't universally considered beneficial?

Besides which, choosing no legislation is a choice in itself. Having no law on speech isn't a middle-ground, it's an extreme. It's an understandable extreme, and though I disagree with it in limited fashion I don't think it's an unreasonable case to make. But it is nevertheless not the balanced middle-ground choice you're presenting it as.

This sort of argument is not a dead end but the very essence of government. Asking how much power should be given to a government is vitally important to the citizens and is certainly not a dead end.

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that speech legislation should be debated. I'm disagreeing with the conclusion that, since there is no consensus, it's best that there is no legislation at all.

Well now you've raised a very deep point. We need some laws and regulation, but not too much. How do we decide? We have a Constitution and a political system, including judiciary where we can all fight it out.

Conservatives are more on the side of limited government power. Progressives think the government should do more. And on and on it goes...

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