Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

We are going to have to acknowledge that the First Amendment right to free speech is not as broad as was set forth in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), and that it is within the government's purview, and the public interest, to curtail hate speech and radicalization with civil and criminal penalties.

View on HN

This seems like a delightful way to set precedent for any manner of disgruntling opinions--whether inimical or simply unpleasant to the status quo--as illegal.

It's already being done -- in countries considered freer and less corrupt than the USA.

And who gets to decide what is hate speech and “radicalization”?

The government.

Bingo. That's exactly the problem.

Sorry. But this will never ever happen in our lifetime. Not a single member of SCOTUS supports rescinding first amendment protections for “hate speech”. On that both the liberal and conservative justices are in complete agreement. There’s not any serious major faction in American jurisprudence that supports such an interpretation. And good luck trying to get 3/4 of state legislatures to sign off on a Constitutional amendment.

https://noqreport.com/2017/11/01/surprising-support-restrict...

>One in four think hate speech is currently illegal

>strong majorities of both African-Americans and Latinos, believe that supporting someone’s legal right to say something racist is as bad as saying it yourself.

>two-thirds of white respondents oppose government bans on “public hate speech,” nearly three in five African-Americans (56%) and Latinos (58%) support such bans

>five in nine (55%) white Democrats oppose the bans

EDIT: I would like to apologize to effingwewt for not linking the original study and simply posting numbers taken directly from the study.

Hahaha wow, right at the bottom of your 'website

>Join fellow patriots as we keep Americans informed and advance the cause of conservatism

At least link the study[1], instead of that piece of shit website, whose' article'btw is no more than some rando's fucked up words on an already stupid 'poll'.

[1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/survey-reports/...

I would need to see some evidence that it's worth the downsides, before I could support something like this.

> curtail hate speech and radicalization

Would truth be a defense? If you're accused of hate speech, but you can show that everything you said is true*, does that make it legal hate speech? Or would truth also be curtailed, in the name of fighting hate?

*Ignoring for now how truth is determined. For the sake of argument, lets say you have reliable, non-controversial mainstream sources for every statement.

I don't think disinformation is an essential component of terrorist propaganda. It's easy enough to stoke hatred and urge violence against almost any group by harping on actual qualities they have, or actions they have taken.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com