To save free speech, we have to destroy free speech.
In the future, some historian is going to write the seminal work on the decline and dissolution of the United States - and there's going to be an entire chapter dedicated to social media.
In the future, some historian is going to write the seminal work on the decline and dissolution of the United States - and there's going to be an entire chapter dedicated to social media.
You will find that Holocaust denying specifically has been banned by law from a number of European countries for a very long time. And free speech is still doing just fine.
This might not be the slippery slope you believe it is.
The US is somewhat absolutist relative to the global average on this topic (and even the US isn't complete freedom of speech---pornography law exists, as do various extremely tight constraints on pedophilia imagery).
Has the criminalization of such hate speech helped at all with solving the problem?
That being said, a lot of countries in Europe do not have the concept of "free speech" as is it defined in the US.
European countries were never a bastion of freedom. That's why nazi germany existed in europe, not in america. I love people bringing up europe as some example that we should follow. They most definitely are not.
> And free speech is still doing just fine.
No it's not. That's the point.
Free speech exists to defend offensive/fringe/hateful speech. Popular speech doesn't need free speech protection after all. If free speech exist to protect anything, it is holocaust denial. Think about it. What good is free speech if it can't protect the most offensive speech?
I have absolutely no idea how someone can be so childish as to not see that rights have their limitations to be preserved. Yes, to protect truth and the ability to speak freely we need to put limits on the damage someone can do by abusing free speech, in the same way we have highway speed limits, have a police that can do arrests and sometimes can use violence to stop other violence.
If our ministry of foreign affairs actually would look at the big picture, maybe they wouldn't have inspired autocratic governments worldwide to extend content controls.
Pretty much only Germany and bordering countries actually. Democracies outside of Europe pretty uniformly do not ban Holocaust denial. See e.g. India.
"Whoever (a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, or (b) commits any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquillity, . . . shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both."
That is without a doubt very explicit and much further reaching than any European legislation. And from the cases actually given in that article also practised as such.
Just to take one example, but there are many more in that very article
In 2007, R.V. Bhasin's Islam - A Concept of Political World Invasion by Muslims was banned, and house raided, in Maharashtra on grounds that it outrages the feelings of Muslim section of society.[12][13][14] In January 2010, the Bombay High upholds the ban imposed by the Government of Maharashtra.[15]
>On 20 September 2016, a blogger named Tarak Biswas was arrested for criticising Islam under Section 295A and 298, besides 66, 67 and 67A of the IT Act after a complaint about hurting religious sentiments was lodged by Sanaullah Khan, a Trinamool Congress leader.[39]
On 25 February 2018, two people were arrested for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and Hindu gods. Four people were booked under section 295-A.[40]
Contrary to what you seem to believe a single decision in 2014 has shockingly enough not upended India's entire framework on legislating hate speech, that is not how the law works.
Plus it's worked in many country: less hate speech, less hate. Everyone saying "people are going to get more angry" are just wrong.