It's very sad to see the path the EU has chosen to follow in regards to speech and the free flow of ideas.
Free speech is not unconditional in the US; there are many things that an American could say that would see them brought before the courts. European nations have simply drawn the line in a different place, for entirely understandable historical reasons.
Such as when government is given too much power over it.
I'm sure sympathizing or trying to understand a terrorist's motives (perhaps their home country is being occupied by the US?) can fit under the terrorist content umbrella.
Edit: Let's not leave unaddressed the farcical idea that Europe prior to World War I was some bastion of free speech, and that this somehow led to the wars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#German_E...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingd...
Judge Holmes came to regret his support of speech suppression, but a lot of people still seem to miss the point.
Censorship is a technique used by any person in power so far in history (at least as far as I know), no matter the government type.
It has little to do with the "fear of committing the same mistakes as they did years ago".
Consider how logically meaningless the term "conspiracy theory" is. A great deal of US law is specifically written to address conspiracies.
They are forms of psychological warfare.
Have they learnt the right lesson though? What's the alternate history theory here? You toss Hitler in jail after he makes an inflammatory speech to a large crowd, but before he's elected and that prevents WW2?
None of this solves the underlying issue of there being deep political problems in any country that ends up with this kind of leader getting into power. The hope of free speech supposedly being that someone will eventually put their finger on the real cause of the problems and get people on board with it, rather than an unfortunate group being scapegoated.
That probably works better if you don't let him out 9 months into a 5 year sentence.
And speaking of our own political landscape, last thing I want is a right wing populist government that has been handed laws to crack down on "hate speech" by my fellow progressive do-gooders. If such laws were to pass and found constitutional, I'd expect BLM and BDS to be the first targets in all red states (and Europe has ample precedent for persecuting BDS as "hate speech", so it's not like you'd have any moral high ground on calling them out on it).
Unless it's libel (i.e. intentional or neglectful causing of actual harm to a person) or speech connected to specific lawless action (like saying "let's whack this guy" to a contract killer) - no, there's not. Which things do you mean?
> Germans in particular are acutely aware of the disastrous consequences of allowing incitement to go unchallenged
Germans problem was not just "incitement". It was putting Hitler in charge of the government. That wasn't done by "incitement", that was done by actual German top politicians, who thought that putting a strong leader in charge and suppressing opposition (Ermächtigungsgesetz and so on) will solve their stability problems. They did it for security, to keep the tranquility and peace in the nation, so they had the troublemakers arrested and the people who can right the course of the nation assigned the power instead. Too bad those people turned out to be the Nazis.
I think the lesson from here is that no opposition voice needs to be suppressed, no group should be excluded, and nobody should be given absolute power over others. Somehow some people in EU think that the lesson if that right people just need to suppress the right things instead. After all, we have so good record in choosing who are the right people and what things they should be suppressing, don't we? We won't make any mistakes again there?
It's quite a long list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
The big one he missed was obscenity, but that's somewhat understandable given the frequency with which "obscenity laws" get struck down rather than upheld.
And the others aren't categories of speech. You can't use someone else's copyrighted work, but you can convey the exact same information in your own words. Government employees et al can't say certain things, but anyone else can say the same things.
Only limitations on obscenity somehow approach free speech restrictions, but even then they are "place and manner" restrictions, not outright bans - as you might be perfectly aware, there's a lot of porn of most obscene varieties around, and it's completely legal - as long as it is not presented in specific venues in specific manner.
All these things are radically different from what EU is trying to do. They try to ban certain things completely, based on their content - not ban publication of X because it's copyrighted, or because they want to only be transmitted by cable TV and not public broadcast, or not shown in public places where kids may see it, or not being told to government officials if this can interfere with their functions. No. They want it to be banned because of its content, totally and absolutely. There's no connection to any other crime required, there's no other harm or action required - the speech content itself is a crime. That's the fundamental difference.
The reality is, contemporary German government was not shy at all at suppressing freedoms. They had special exception in their Constitution to do just that when the government needs. But they were more afraid of Communists than they were of Nazis, so they gave the suppression machine to Nazis to fix the things. The conclusion from this fail should be "don't build suppression machine out of government", not "give it to Communists instead next time, maybe it'll work better".
I reckon on the whole people have fought more to protect free speech than to limit it, although both have indeed occurred, fascism being the main example of the latter.
And yet, if you seriously brought that argument forth, I suspect people would be more disgusted than if you applied it to freedom of speech. What makes religion so much more important than speech? The main difference I can think of is that freedom of speech is primarily a more individualistic kind of right, while religion is inherently more collectivist.
The dangers that come from suppression of speech trump the dangers of free speech by far. And your 'historical analysis' is laughably shallow. Frankly, your comment reads like regurgitated propaganda.
European countries ban those forms of speech, and also ban other forms of speech based on subjective non-criminal harm that is perceived to be a potential result of such speech. For example, denying the Holocaust could lead other people to think it didn't happen, which may cause them to view Jewish people more negatively.
The US simply doesn't engage in that kind of subjective interpretation of speech. Speech has to be a component of a criminal act, or a clear precursor to an imminently criminal act. You can't play association games like "he said this, which could lead other people to think X, which could lead people to say Y, which could lead to some form of violence", which most (all?) European legal systems seem to do.
I do understand the need for certain limited restrictions on speech in times of war and martial law, and perhaps for brief periods after wars end, but the EU hasn't had a major war in a long time. I get banning swastikas and banning Holocaust denial in the 50s. But I'm an American Jew, and I've been to Germany a bunch in the past decade. I don't care (in a legal sense) if someone denies the Holocaust, and in fact think that banning Holocaust denial greatly empowers them and their cause, not just in Germany but globally. I've seen this firsthand, many times.
A black man mouthing off to a police officer for example would be very likely putting himself in a dangerous situation and anything the officer does would end up 'justified' in the court of law. Or you'll be arrested if you laugh at someone powerful, like what happened with the Jeff Sessions incident [1]
The great irony of our rabid belief in freedom of speech is that it simply doesn't exist in America. It's a nice platitude, but 'freedom of speech' has always been used as a tool and weapon for those in power to suppress minorities or to bolster their own voices. All you have to do is tie it to some other bogus law or rationale, and you get freedom of speech for me but not for thee.
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-laugh-congressi...
And the issues you mention happen in European countries, too, just with much lower risk of being shot, and usually with different minority groups (though I'm sure black people face problems with police in European countries as well). And the Congress laughing incident is certainly ridiculous - but you'll also find many similarly ridiculous stories in Britain, for example. Don't get me wrong; I have many problems with the US, and think most European countries do a lot of things better than we do. I just think the freedom of speech laws are one thing we usually do better than they do.
In the US, you aren't going to be arrested for a tweet (unless that tweet threatens violence), regardless of your ethnicity or sexuality. This is something that does actually sometimes happen in other countries. No, that's not necessarily a huge win when you consider real, everyday situations like black men having to be far more cautious with police than other people, often risking their lives, but I think you kind of just have to tackle freedom and liberty issues as they arise. We should appreciate where our system works well and vehemently dissent where it fails.
The issues you mention are major and do definitely need to be dealt with to achieve a state of real freedom for everyone in the US. But I also think those problems aren't insurmountable, and that practical freedom of speech is an eventually attainable goal. I also think we're slowly getting better over time, even though the problems remain immense. A lot of people in the US are dedicating their lives to ensuring laws and standards are applied fairly.
And even that's not particularly true either, considering how the US has placed an uneven focus on Black Identity Extremists over the group actually causing real and daily harm to individuals. Which goes back to my point of freedom of speech not really existing in the US: It's more acceptable to be a white supremacist (and in turn, your rights to 'freedom of speech' strongly defended) and express extremely violent views under the protection of the police and government.
Which is why you see an increasingly strong reaction to any form of white supremacy.
But I would dearly like to hear how freedom of speech is used to suppress minorities. Note that in my own country (or the region that became my country), censorship was used to suppress the growing independence movement. A movement of a minority of the population. Perhaps if we had had free speech, they would have instead used that to suppress us... somehow?
For example, when a city attempted to block the march of the Unite the Right rally, they were met with a strong resistance under their right to freedom of speech. Yet Black Lives Matter was treated with far more disdain and had a considerably stronger and disproportionate response to their activism. Freedom of Speech can be a bludgeon to allow movements filled with hatred to further their own causes, while it's conveniently ignored for minorities or said to be 'at the wrong place'.
This is why the ACLU has started to shift their position on an absolutist view of freedom of speech. Because in defending Unite the Right they directly caused harm to minority populations.
I'm not sure what outcome you would have wanted from the situation - the government should have further tried to supress people against BLM? Who's the minority power in your scenario again?
And in this case the city didn't 'break the law', they were attempting to move the rally to another location (rightfully) believing that it would pose a severe security risk. Which led to the challenge by the ACLU on the grounds of the first amendment and an emergency injunction being put in place to allow the rally to occur at the original location.
Unless you honestly believe that black identity extremists are somehow more dangerous than white supremacists at this time, it's obvious that one group benefits a lot more from 'freedom of speech' than another.
What makes you believe censorship laws won't also serve those in power?
When was this?
That would be illegal.
> Or you'll be arrested if you laugh at someone powerful, like what happened with the Jeff Sessions incident
That didn't happen.
> The great irony of our rabid belief in freedom of speech is that it simply doesn't exist in America.
As you can see from the very public arrest of Louise Mensch. Which totally happened in a different universe.
You're going to have to expand on what you mean if you're going to say something didn't happen in the face of evidence that it did.
I’m not sure that current hate speech laws would have been effective at countering Nazi propaganda.
The Nazis were not openly advocating their most extreme policies before the war. Even during the war, the worst atrocities were mostly kept quiet.
Evidently not, as that would probably mean we would not be on the road to make at least some mistakes again.
We also had hate speech laws in the 19th century...
But the real curious argument is that the state was lacking oversight and control over public content. It almost makes you angry thinking about it.
Germany had a laisser-faire approach to recent content control. That worked brilliantly. That changed and suddenly we have some really angry people wanting to change some things.
Additionally, the far right people want content control as much as everyone. I don't want to see a smug smile while they implement hate-speech laws like in Austria.
Using the german experience to justify content control is infantile.