Sure enough, plenty of well-reasoned critiques exist from Jewish groups, Noam Chomsky (hardly an anti-Semite), Christopher Hitchens, and others.
Are these armchair critiques? Or are these people/groups putting in serious effort to change things? That indirectly indicates their priority for the issue for them.
1. ephimetheus: The only people who have a problem with these laws are bad people with evil intent
2. me: I just looked and there are a lot of people voicing problems with these laws who are good and have noble intent
3. you: But are they prioritizing the issue enough or are they just saying stuff?
...Uh, what is the argument you're trying to make here? That if people aren't making enough of an "effort" in some way, that their critiques should not be taken seriously? Maybe you're serious, but it sure sounds like an extreme moving of goal posts to me. Presumably I would then link to you some activist group or other pushing to change these laws -- I expect you'd then come back with some variation of "oh well, that's not really trying /hard enough/, look at all the /other things/ they care about more." Just... very strange.
If you don't think sticking your neck out as a prominent intellectual like Chomsky or Hitchens to defend neo-nazi's right to lie in the public square.. if you don't think that constitutes a "serious effort" in and of itself, then YES I guess you can go further and look at Human Rights Watch's statements or whatever else.
I doubt you will. But maybe other readers of this exchange will leave better for reading my comment here.
It’s like allowing someone to claim something that is an absolute fact like the existence of the sun was a lie. But that’s ok because it doesn’t invalidate the unspeakable suffering of millions at the hands of industrialized slaughterers.
That’s also why the slippery slope doesn’t apply. The line is clear as can be.
Most just argue that people themselves should be the ones to cast the judgement, not Facebook. These are very basic comprehension issues and your insinuation on those that disagree are fairly similar to reasoning you see in plain fascism.
The line is also pretty clear, at least as far as the German law is concerned, so the danger (see slippery slope argument) is well worth the risk. The slippery slope argument is more applicable the other way round: if you tolerate this, it normalizes or rationalizes the Holocaust, and that’s the first step towards another genocide.
That if they are not putting in some serious effort then "That indirectly indicates their priority for the issue for them."
Seeing how I am uninformed on what they have said as of yet I was interested in getting insight into their position and priorities.
> That if people aren't making enough of an "effort" in some way, that their critiques should not be taken seriously?
They have to prioritize, there is nothing wrong with that. I have to prioritize too. Knowing their priorities is useful information while evaluating their critiques.
> If you don't think sticking your neck out as a prominent intellectual like Chomsky or Hitchens to defend neo-nazi's right to lie in the public square.
There is definitely a difference between writing a critique and working consistently towards changing a law. It has no bearing on the seriousness of their crtique, but it does on the seriousness of their commitment and priorities.
Because it's banned, it's impossible to know how well it works.
I'm reminded of Iran's leader claiming they have no gay people. Of course he would think that, because if they were openly gay they would be jailed.
> Some scholars get labeled denialists because they have different estimates for the number of Jews killed in concentration camps.
I am not aware of any case where a legitimate scholar was convicted as a holocaust denier, so there is a proven track record that renders that point mostly moot.
> I'm reminded of Iran's leader claiming they have no gay people. Of course he would think that, because if they were openly gay they would be jailed.
Sure, it forces the people that deny holocausts into hiding instead of eliminating their belief, but that's also not the intention of those measures. The goal is that they can not openly spread those beliefs and create more holocaust deniers in an uncontrollable fashion.
Iran's leader has the same idea regarding gay people, just that it's a stupid idea, because contrary to holocaust denial, being gay is not a chosen belief (though in their mind they might think it is).
The Weimar Republic did have hate speech laws, that were vigorously enforced and similar in spirit to modern-day Germany's laws.[1] Not only did that fail to stop the rise of the Nazi party, but the legal machinery was actively co-opted post-1933 to censor anti-Nazi groups.
In contrast, in the 1930s the most ardent pro-free-speech countries were the America and Britain. (Contemporary British hate speech laws not being created until well after the war.) Yet unlike almost all of continental Europe, any nascent fascist movements in the US or UK remained extreme fringe groups that never gained any political traction.
The historical record is pretty clear. At best hate speech laws, do nothing to disarm extremist groups. America's 250 year history of free speech absolutism, with virtually no extremist groups gaining widespread traction is evidence of this. At worse hate speech laws are a dangerous single-point of failure for liberal democracy.
[1] https://www.cato.org/policy-report/mayjune-2015/war-free-exp...
So no, their censorship did not even attempted any meaningful limitation of nazi. Also, in 1933 Hitler gained complete power, was also supported by veterans who worked in civil service and talking about "co-opting" censorship is almost absurd. At that point, first concentration camp was created and political opponents were put in. The censorship machine was not that much important at that point, violence was.
Also, German censorship was quicker against communists then right wing groups, because right wing groups were seen as patriotic.
Ku Klux Klan?!? QAnon? There are plenty of extremists groups with varying number of members and activities.[1]
The US has also plenty of domestic terrorism [2] the majority was committed by right-wing or religious (christian + muslim) extremism.
Most 'modern' terrorists are also self organized+radicalized. Social media and access to more and more extremist content plays a crucial role in their radicalization process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism_in_the_Unit...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
Not in America, it does not. You folks have "hate speech" laws, banned symbols, banned words, banned expressions, and used to have banned video games, music, and movies. The core of your legal system has the concept of "honor"/"dignity", which is inherently subjective.
The justification is always a variant of your thought, saying that it will only affect "bad people", with the very definition of that being heavily influenced by the aforementioned concepts.
Germans tend to defend the concept of filing charges against an individual for the crime of "insulting them" with similar logic - it's generally a nasty thing to do and only "bad people" will do it, therefore, it shall be punishable under the law.
Any limits to free speech are by definition on the famous "slippery slope". As others have called out, once the legal precedent is set, nothing stops politicians to expand it at their will, given that it is based on subjective judgment - history can be a great teacher - and I'd like to remind you that a much harsher version of the current German "social media hate speech" law just made its way through international media earlier this year. This law was justified with "a rise in right wing extremism".
I've said it before, I'll say it again: The ACLU, an arguably left-leaning organization, has famously defended KKK member's 1st amendment rights for those very reasons. They don't argue about the content - as an analogy to the HD topic, it should be easy to debunk with massive amounts of historical evidence - but rather about fundamental human (and, in the case of the United States, constitutional) rights.
Naturally, all those points apply to governmental censorship and not to a private entity. That being said, I don't believe in limits to free speech.
In what way does it "work"? What do you actually gain by silencing those people? It seems like you're lending them credibility. As in "these things that I'm saying are so dangerous that the government wants to shut me up!" You can't control what people actually believe, you can only control whether or not you hear about it. Using the state to do this for you instead of a block button is dangerous and inefficient.
>Free speech has limits.
No it doesn't. Free speech with limits isn't free speech. The simple expression of an idea w/o the intent to cause harm to another party, and the sole intention of discourse should be protected no matter what. No matter how distasteful it is, holocaust denial falls into this category.
The point is Holocaust denial is often used as a foot in the door to spread racial animosity, which has caused harm. It can be hard to determine what's legitimate research and debate versus racist dog whistling. But people recognize it's having a real effect in the world, and the marketplace of ideas hasn't quashed it over the past 70 years.
I'm all for Facebook removing anything like Holocaust denial or debate over it's existence. That's a good trade-off: prevent a gradual acceptance of racism at the cost of not being a good venue for Holocaust history researchers.
But I'm not for the government taking action. Just my anti-establishment American streak.
The German democracy is designed to defend itself, and this is one of its tools.
Interestingly, the American sort of overzealous defense of freedom of speech no matter what misunderstands how freedoms need to work. Every freedom has its limits (you don’t have the freedom to kill someone for example), but they need to be well defined. That’s all.
> The simple expression of an idea w/o the intent to cause harm to another party, and the sole intention of discourse should be protected no matter what.
Right, but the thing is that simply voicing this supposed opinion does harm by invalidating the crime against millions of people. That’s the whole point.
10 years ago they were ignored and we had far fewer problems with them. It was actually funny seeing them trying to connect to groups. Anime fans, gamers, they even draw my little pony shit. But they made little inroads into these communities. Only as those groups were also accused by the self declared inquisition of good is when lines were blurred. Of course they reacted poorly. You don't need science or studies here, it is self evident. Helping a self fulfilling prophecy isn't in my interest.
Look what Germany has caused with its laws to enforce speech codes (NetzDG). 2 weeks later Russia had its version ready to suppress dissent.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/06/germany-online-crackdow...
Being stupid about it can let it happen again. Don't be stupid about it.
It sounds like you're a holocaust denier. If they're wrong, then show they're wrong. (not saying they're right). If they refuse to believe, then ignore them. They are a fringe.
>these people won’t stop sowing doubt that it occurred
Diversity of thought is strictly a good thing. The very thing you are worried about is a lack of diversity of thought. A world where questioning the superiority of certain groups of people is tantamount to a crime. Let them sow doubt, it keeps the marketplace of ideas healthy by giving people reasons to articulate the truth.
>Every freedom has its limits
This is sloppy. Either you embrace free expression as an ideal, or you don't. Anything short of free speech absolutism will decay back down to suppression and censorship. I don't think it's hard to separate out expression from incitement, and I believe the former should be unbounded.