Comment by forest_dweller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by forest_dweller | Hacker News Reader

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Yes it does. In the US free-speech does include hate speech.

Even in countries where there is hate speech, what and what doesn't constitute it is normally broad, subjective and is frequently misused by state to prosecute people that have no ill intent.

The most egregious example is the Chelseas Rusell case in the UK:

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-wh...

Also not only that but it doesn't work. If you stop people from saying certain words they just end up making new ones to get around your censorship. It is already happening online, people will make up new words to get around any speech censorship e.g. "jogger" means black criminal and I will leave it up to you to work out what that is being used in place of.

Also banning certain words doesn't take into account regional dialect e.g. Faggot is a regional dish in England. They recently banned google ads for a restaurant that sold "Fanny's Faggots".

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/cafe-advert-fannys-faggots-...

Or this curious case that I just found while looking for the previous one:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7911927/Meat-lover-...

Hate speech legislation doesn't work and just causes people to start resenting law enforcement and have less respect generally for the laws of the land.

If the USA wants to support local racist terrorist groups, that is your problem.

But exporting that terrorist thread to the European Union should ban Facebook in Europe.

USA here, USA there. There are more countries in the world, Facebook should take that into account or be banned.

> If the USA wants to support local racist terrorist groups, that is your problem.

I don't think the USA supports that at all. They don't prosecute speech which was specifically what I was responding to. Not prosecuting speech is not the same as supporting said speech.

Also I am not from the US. I am from the UK.

> But exporting that terrorist thread to the European Union should ban Facebook in Europe.

You premise is faulty. The purpose of facebook is not to spread any sort of terrorism. It is a social network and communication tool. This would be like blaming the phone company for mafia organising a hit over a phone call.

In this specific example it does seem they were calling to violence which is not legal speech even in the US (IANAL though). So they should be removed.

> USA here, USA there. There are more countries in the world, Facebook should take that into account or be banned.

I agree I am in the UK and I don't like silicon valley trying to impose their set of values on the rest of the world either.

As for banning whole sites who purpose is not anything nefarious because some people do illegal acts on said platform is ridiculous.

>In the US free-speech does include hate speech.

Only in certain situations and there's established case law to this effect. "Free speech" in the US is not a blanket indemnification:

Fighting words are, as first defined by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), words which "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

Fighting words are a category of speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words

I am aware what the caveats are regarding fighting words are. I think that is a sensible concession.

However what most people mean by "hate speech" is protected from what I understand.

Off topic, but is 'fag' still used for cigarettes in England?

Yes

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