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Comment by znaji | Hacker News Reader

I am not happy with these new services because they are all hosted in the EU where there is no right to free speech, so to me they are not an improvement over what they are supposed to replace.

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Here you go: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-cou...

The most comprehensive survey on various freedoms in the World that I know of ranks Germany at 94, ahead of France at 90 and the US at 86. (100 is the perfect score)

Freedom of speech is also a guaranteed right in the German constitution, as it is in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In every jurisdiction there are limits to the freedom of speech. This applies to the US as well as everywhere else:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

Op doesnt understand what free speech is.

You probably wan to look at Voat, then. It's the go-to home for white supremacists and people who really dislike fat people, but it provides you with a free-speech zone, if that's your thing.

Try writing left-leaning comments and see how long Voat respects your right to free speech.

So it's basically the opposite of US services, where conservatives are hushed.

If you see everything from a binary perspective, then yes. If you have a shred of rationality, no.

Oh you mean like Reddit and T_D? Oh wait...

Ever look at /r/politics?

“where there is no right to free speech“

Yes, there is. At least in my experience as a happy EU citizen.

So want to cut the hyperbole and substantiate your claim?

Which country in the EU?

Free Speech, in the USAmerican sense, seems to be strongly curtailed in the UK.

"Free speech, defined as the law and culture that exists in the U.S., is better in the U.S. than any other country"

You do see the flawed reasoning, don't you?

Responding to the sibling re: censoring pornography. The 1st amendment prevents the government from interfering with the free exchange of ideas (among other things). We generally believe that letting the government regulate this kind of thing is a dangerous slippery slope.

Obscenity laws are constitutional in the US. Obscene speech is not protected by the 1st Amendment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California

There are myriads of other exceptions to 1st Amendment protections (including, even if people often don't think of it that way, intellectual property rights):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

The whole idea that "Free speech is protected in the US but not in Europe" is just an (libertarian?) meme with no basis in fact.

The Netherlands. And in what way is US freedom of speech with puritan censoring of anything sex related better than a system in which we prohibit something like holocaust denial? (something that actually hurts people, as opposed to someone's nipples)

How about unhappy EU citizens :)?

Are you allowed to deny the Holocaust?

Are you allowed to slander in the US? Are you allowed to publish Child pronography? Are you allowed to publish Obscene materials (as judged by the average citizen)? Are you allowed to utter words that might incite someone to fight you? [1] Some of it depends on state law, but the 1st amendment does not protect any of those [1].

Bottom line: No country has absolute freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is one of the basic liberties, and it's balanced against others. Different countries come to different conclusions on the balance. Generally speaking Germany tends more towards Freedom than the US according to comprehensive surveys [2].

Specifically When it comes to denying history, citing the US Supreme Court: "[There is] no constitutional value in false statements of fact".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-cou...

If you can provide scientific proof that it didnt happen, yes. Otherwise no

You can't do that, it's impossible.

You'd have to go with something like "show that the massive decline in the Jewish population of Nazi Germany was by means other than genocide".

Which is also impossible, but due to truth instead of poor epistemology.

Ehhhh, you're "not even" allowed to investigate it, so this one doesn't really work

This is false. I personally know academics who study genocide who do serious research on the Holocaust in Europe.

It's just that these people are dingbats who have decided ahead of time to deny the Holocaust and desperately search for any shred of broken evidence for this claim.

No, most EU countries have laws in some form that prohibit Holocaust denial. But as with any country that has the rights to freedom of speech, these rights are inevitably balanced and restricted by other laws.

This is a good thing, because while freedom of speech is important, the general wellbeing of the population and preventing people getting hurt is important as well. It is my belief for example that allowing racist remark under the banner of free speech, hurts more than it helps. It leads to an overall negative impact in the wellbeing of the population. I think the same balance was considered when prohibiting holocaust denial.

Question: why use a throwaway account?

I'm aware of this. You may think it's a good thing, and I'm inclined to agree that for a peaceful and civilized society, this balance is definitely a necessity. However, there may be many amongst us who think it's not a good thing. I don't prefer one over another anyway, but just pointing out that absolute free speech isn't a thing anywhere. I suppose the US comes as close to it as possible. This is my regular HN account.

I disagree, the US has plenty of restrictions on free speech, and the constitutional guarantees are no stronger there than in other places.

It's an image of itself that the US likes to project though.

There's very little speech that's actually illegal in the US. You can't tell outright lies about someone with the intention of hurting them professionally (although it's still a civil matter, and when I say "lies", I mean specifics, e.g. you can't claim in an article that someone dropped out of college if they didn't) and you can't say anything that has a high probability of causing immediate physical harm (e.g. you can't order somebody to shoot someone). That's basically it. When you start talking about publishing photographs or recorded audio, things get a bit more complicated because of copyright laws, and obviously CP is illegal, but strictly in terms of speech, online or off, there are almost no restrictions here.

On the other side of the argument, I think many would ask where do you draw the line? And who draws that line? It seems like the majority of the people I know feel like it's better not to draw that line at all and instead focus on teaching people why these arguments are wrong. The failing of our education system is another (bad) problem entirely.

Ex: what if the government one day decides that criticizing the government is too offensive?

This is what I'm concerned about too. Where I'm from, offending those in power/religion/etc will get you into a whole lot of trouble. When I was young, maybe two decades ago, there was an inkling of hope that perhaps one day my people would follow the Western ideal(at least to an extent), when it comes to free of speech, human rights and so on.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening anymore. I don't want to sound gloomy, but the web back in the day had a completely different feel to it. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I can feel it's vibrancy dying. Maybe it started a while ago.

Anyway, there's still hope with decentralization and such. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

> the general wellbeing of the population and preventing people getting hurt is important as well

I fail to see how speech does hurts anyone. Would you mind elaborating? Should it not be solely the responsibility of whoever hears said speech to decide on whether to act on it? Does censorship of any shape or form not actually hurt the ones that wanted to listen to said speech the most?

Sure. UK crackpot David Irving has been denying the holocaust since the 80s. There’s a drama on Netflix about him called Denial

Perhaps you forgot about this?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/20/austria.thefar...

Well I didn’t know. But now I do, so thanks.

> At least in my experience as a happy EU citizen.

If you're happy with the status-quo, you're hardly a good test for your society's freedom of speech, no?

Freedom of speech means the freedom to say unpopular things.

While you're not wrong, there is no answer that will make everybody happy.

In greece you are not allowed to criticise the president, nor are you allowed to insult the church. In germany it was illegal (not sure if it still is) to publish games that had nazi imaginary (such as wolfenstein). In the UK and France you are not allowed to produce certain pornographic drawings. To me these restrictions show that in the EU there is no free speech.

>In germany it was illegal (not sure if it still is) to publish games that had nazi imaginary (such as wolfenstein).

Since that comes up from time to time...

In germany games with nazi imagery are as legal as books or movies containing nazi imagery. Legal through the art/science/research/teaching/reporting exception §86 StGB (3) [0]

What has recently changed is that the organization that does the age ratings for games changed its stance. Now they consider the exception rather than treating it as a show stopper.

[0] https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/86.html

Isn't the point of Diaspora that you can take a copy of the software and install it anywhere you like?

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora

I won't entering the troll feeding game, but basically:

It doesn't matter, Diaspora is decentralized. You can host your own instance. You can enter an instance _living_ in your country of choice.

What are you talking about that there is no right to free speech in Europe? You are completely incorrect.

There is no right to free speech on Facebook. That amendment applies only to the government. A surprising number of people seem to forget that.

True, but get a few bots involved in speech snd watch people want it regulated by government.

You don't even need bots. Just disagree with them and they are all to happy to go down the censorship route.

As long as you aren't a nazi, you're pretty much good to go.

No country in the world gives you right of free speech on someone else's platform.

There is no free speech in Germany, so chances are that someone will say something on Diaspora that the government of Germany won't like. Then, if the owner of Diaspora refuses to delete the "illegal" post, he will be thrown in jail, so he doesn't really have a chance not to censor whatever the government forces him to censor.

People can't say 'fuck' on tv in the US or say 'fire' in a crowded theatre so I guess there's no free speech there as well

And don't get me started on the puritanism

the fire one makes sense though. You're not neccessarily directly forbidden from shouting fire, you're forbidden from creating mass panic which can lead to injuries and death

Of course it does, I'm just pointing out the 'free speech' people's complaints are not much based on practicality.

What are you basing these claims on? Any recent events in german history you could point to?

>There is no free speech in Germany

You might want to read Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I'm sure somewhere in the Chinese constitution it says Chinese citizens have a right to free speech too :-)

There is no practical right to free speech in the EU, this happened a few weeks ago: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6316567/Woman-corre...

What's up with the absurd absolutism? Absolute free speech does not exist anywhere in the world, including the US. That's not the same thing as "no free speech".

BTW, the decision you linked to is about Austria, not the EU. The ECHR merely held that Austria is allowed (not required) to ban certain kinds of speech. Other Council of Europe member states are free to permit them.

Indeed, Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution is a snowclone of the First Amendment.

I get the impression that Diaspora pods can be anywhere on the planet, so you can pick one in not-germany, if you're truly concerned.

And where would you propose as an alternative, in terms of better rights to free speech than europe?

Surely not the US? Right?

As a non-US and non-EU person, I can confidently say that the US has better free speech laws than anywhere else on this planet. I am open to being educated on this though.

The US only ranks 45th place on the Freedom of Press Index for instance, so it appears there are actually quite a few things not even the press is allowed to write about, much less your ordinary person.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

You seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom of press.

Generally freedom of press is greater in areas where it matters. When the press can't speak about a thing, oftentimes your ordinary person can't either.

Treating freedom of speech as completely disjoint from freedom of press is wrong.

That is quite irrelevant. We're talking about freedom of speech here. Not the freedom of the press. When I think of freedom of speech, I have a simple question. If I say something that one finds offensive, am I committing a crime and will be prosecuted for my words? That's the only criteria I have. Now, the consequences that come from saying what you want, for eg. losing a job, or business - those have nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Obviously there are exceptions, in the form of breaking contracts. Can't go around leaking classified information or industrial secrets - contracts you agreed to when you signed up for the gig.

You can't even report on snowden revelations in the US without the government coming after you. I don't need to tell you to what lengths the US government went going after Snowden himself.

If you can't even exercise free speech where it really matters in regards to your democracy, you hardly have total freedom of speech.

Also Snowden is hardly the only example of whistleblowers from within a branch of a democratic government speaking out. However the US is an extreme outlier in how it handled the matter.

Another thing many western democracies manage to do without is an equivalent to the US's National Security Letters, which are also a form of the government policing speech where it might matter.

So apparently you have to be afraid to speak out when it really matters, but at least you can deny the holocaust I guess.

All places have some limits on free speech. EU places some exceptions, just like USA does, on the freedom of speech.

In the USA things like defamation, incitement to riot or lawless action, speech covered by copyright, terrorist threats etc. may land you in big trouble. In the EU same thing for for example holocaust denial. And in other places, such as for example Russia, the constitution might grant you the freedom of speech, but the system enforcing the constitution does not.

It is difficult to compare countries directly because of different laws and legislative systems. The use of some form of proxy metrics like the Freedom of Press Index might be useful, but then the question becomes which metrics should be used, and when presented with several metrics, there is a danger to select only those metrics which enforce existing viewpoints.

Europe has a conditional right to free expression which is balanced with other rights:

"Article 10 – Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary"

Yes, that's a lot of caveats, but if you have a substantive true idea or non-extreme politics you're fine. What you're not free to do is make calls for genocide etc.

> for the protection of morals

that's the bit I don't agree with. it leaves room for a lot of interpretation. there was a woman in Austria who was fined for saying that mohamed was a child rapist (which you could argue it is true given that he slept with underaged girls).

I don't agree to people being fined if they say something about Mohamed or God. That is not free speech IMO.

There we agree. I think freedom of speech should fully cover anything religion related because religion is by definition not provable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_10_of_the_European_Con...

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