Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying
mainichi.jp
mainichi.jp
Also of note, these changes will be reviewed after three years to see if they are too harsh.
There is also an election in three years. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not a coincidence?
The show was called "Hana bagus!" [0]. was always a fan of Kyoko, and even early in her career, Hana was already a better wrestler overall. It's sad to lose such talent so young...
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hana_Kimura_Memorial_Show_2
According to this web page:
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center...
numerous states in the USA have punishments for slander/libel of up to a year in prison or fines of around a thousand bucks or more.
The definition of the wrongdoing varies.
For instance Oklahoma's wording says "false or malicious", which implies that the behavior is libel even the representations made are true, provided they can be deemed to be malicious.
So clearly Japan values different things than America.
In reality, this will be abused to high heaven to punish political opponents. They were already doing this, but it will now become worse.
I find it quite interesting to see Japan's government cause the multi-decade crisis they are in. Instead of fixing the crisis they continue to make terrible decisions that only serve to harm themselves further. Yet I fully support their actions, it's their choice.
No doubt the Japanese government believe that this law is for extreme cases where someone sends thousands of awful messages, or where a mob drives someone to suicide, but this will end up being used to prosecute some poor 14 year old kid who calls someone else a bad name in Call of Duty. Without strict limitations in laws they're always used to overreach. It's a shame there isn't a technically-minded group that governments can talk to for advice about this sort of thing.
Do you see a country that successfully navigated the issue ?
To note, under this law the charges still need to go to a judge to decide how heavy any of it should be.
That's simple. There needs to be a test for what constitutes IRL damage written in to the law.
As far as I know no country has done that.
I’d see it akin to only punishing murders and let go attempts and battering because its too “fuzzy”.
I agree. For example, we created a global flat bidirectional un-gatekept communications network with the altruistic and high-minded belief that if allowed to communicate without the material trappings of class, race, gender, and the various other things that separate us in "meatspace," we'd create a techno-utopia of our best selves through rational discourse and the clear-eyed sharing of different points of view.
Instead, suicides among teens exposed to this firehose are spiking. We should address that.
There was also that time when Mandarake caused an uproar when they opened a porn store right across a clothing store for kids, separated only by a two-metre corridor. The police eventually shut down the store for being within 200 metres of a hospital. That also had a strong whiff of "shopping around for a fitting crime".
tl;dr-- Good for Japan. Politeness rules. It's people that have served in wars that understand this well.
The last thing they need is another bludgeon.
Still sucks, though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate
So, maybe, yes, the Japanese police interrogate you until you confess - I don't know. But other police must do effectively similar things.
Basically, Masayoshi Son won't ever go to jail (he's too important to go to jail), but someone trying to expose his financial crimes will.
This is a gift to the rich and powerful to punish and gag whistleblowers and activists.
Meanwhile, a german talk show thought they'd see how police deal with hate speech being reported by normal people, and found that it was very hard to get anywhere - even stuff like calling for the extermination of specific groups or threatening to rape others hardly led to any reaction. [1] Some police departments basically just said nothing is going to happen, others took the statement and then didn't follow up anymore. To my knowledge none of them led to police storming apartments, although a select few initiated prosecution.
[0] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/hamburg/Pimmelgate-Nach-Durch...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdm8SG8_v0I
(Both sources in german, can't find any in English)
I could not disagree with you more, it is so deeply short-sighted.
Supporters of tyrannical measures are often quite surprised when they themselves are eventually crushed underfoot.
United States values freedom of speech much, much more than any other country around the world does. Both fortunately and unfortunately. I'd expect most of the rest of the world to follow what Japan is trying to do here, or something close.
I don't know how I feel about this personally. I completely agree with you - but defending free speech is hard. When an extremely popular and influential person says (but not threateningly) that you/your family are not entitled to exist and live freely, when your country is not entitled to exist, would you support that persons right to say that?
Bullying is different though. If narrow/specific enough, causing mental and emotional distress online, must have the same level of punishment as it does when it's done in the real world.
Bar needs to be far, far higher. Someone here just said that seeing naked people on a zoom call is akin to a sexual-assault. All you have to do is close the browser window. No really, that's all you need to do. If someone is threatening you with death threats, that's already illegal.
So speech limitations are well grounded in US. It must be some kind of an imminent harm to an individual or a group.
Absolute free-speech isn't a thing and shouldn't be IMO. Giving up that 0.01% of free speech (Yelling "Bomb" in an airplane) keeps the rest 99.9% clause healthy. The bar needs to be quite high and shouldn't be about someone's emotions or mental health. There is no end to subjectivity there and it'd be open for misuse and exploitation. Generally, free speech already includes aforementioned provisions and is accepted by most people living in US or otherwise. I'd even argue to push that boundary to 0.001% but that's debatable.
I commented about one of the most beautiful interpretations of 1st Amendment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31691145
It's ironic you mention politeness.
The person who suicided appeared on a reality TV show called Terrace House.
The bullying occurred in response to what Japanese netizens deemed as her behaving impolitely. To Japanese people, the behavior was unacceptable and why the segment went viral. Add in the fact that the person who suicided is a female wrestler which is unorthodox in Japan. The show producers capitalized on this.
The issue is much more deep-seated than toxic internet trolls and bullies. It's the culture of shaming and expectations. That goes for both the people shaming others, as well as those receiving shame. To receive shame from other Japanese people is possibly the worst consequence a Japanese person can face, more so than death. That's one narrative why there are disproportionately less Japanese prisoners-of-wars.
One of the convicted bullies received an $80 fine. So this headline seems somewhat at odds ( the law already exists, just increasing the penalty). You have also have understand Japan is a classist and hierarchical society, and randos on the internet can subvert that power dynamic. The cynic in me thinks the slippery slope here is in regards to who will become the target of "cyberbullying" next? Politicians and the well-connected?
Or is that not what you had in mind?
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/dont-white-people-man-fatal-12211...
[2] https://karlstack.substack.com/p/his-name-was-seth-smith
[3] https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/waukesha-christmas-parade-vict...
[4] https://nypost.com/2021/06/15/black-suspects-shooting-spree-...
[5] https://www.the-sun.com/news/1129367/jessica-doty-whitaker-a...
[6] https://fox40.com/news/california-connection/im-glad-that-it...
Not sure how I have any control on how people feel. Choosing to feel bad over speech is not really my problem. Words literally have no ability to hurt people unless screamed with such volume as to cause hearing damage. Actions can hurt people. I ought not be able to take an action that causes quantifiable harm on another person. But hurt feelings? What’s the legal standard there? How are hurt feelings provable? It’s ridiculous.
If words inspire an action, it’s quite literally the person committing the action that is at fault.
There are already libel and slander laws that work pretty well: one has to prove both malice and actual damages. But hurt feelings aren’t something that should ever be addressed by the legal system. People really need to get a thicker skin.
This doesn't seem true; it is very possible to cause damage with speech alone, anything from hurting someone in a fragile mental state to the point where they might commit suicide, to spreading rumors about someone with full knowledge of what might happen. I'm reminded about the quote from a professor who said he'd rather break his left leg than have a false rumor begin to circulate about how he slept with a student. Your thesis rests on the principle of mind-body dualism (which is increasingly rejected among philosophers and neuroscientists alike), and that speech isn't itself an action (metaphysically, of course it's an action).
>But hurt feelings aren’t something that should ever be addressed by the legal system.
To say that any effect words can have on another person only amount to 'hurt feelings' is inaccurate. Every human alive knows the anguish and pain, sometimes even causing physiological pain, that words can cause. Mental states also have physiological effects of many kinds, such as mental stress leading to inflammation. The principle isn't alien.
>People really need to get thicker skin
Why doesn't the same apply to literal thicker skin or body plating to prevent being stabbed? Is that really what a civil society looks like?
> professional wrestler Hana Kimura died in 2020 at age 22 following cyberbullying on social media over her remarks on a reality romance show that she had been part of.
Imagine if someone was locked up for a year because they said mean things about Tucker Carlson. This makes more sense if it's narrowly defined to encompass people without public presence, but it seems to include public figures as well.
It already has and is frequently discussed on r/japanlife.
Japan doesn't seem to have these problems with people culturally defecting from civility even when they disagree, and I believe their willingness to not tolerate it to any degree is what keeps the rest of society defecting to low quality behavior patterns.
There are many morally self righteous individuals who think they are doing the right thing and don't realise their counterparts they spew (self righteously) hatred towards are the exact same as them.
I think both groups should receive censure for valuing their personal crusades over the quality of stability and civility of society the rest of us value; who have more nuanced and humble opinions of our own self righteousness. Really glad there's another country that agrees with me!
One can express any proposal for legislative or judicial course of action without demeaning the inherent humanity of another and resorting to profanity, lewdness,and hatred. Learning to express opinions in this way can help contribute to us recognizing ways to solve our mutual problems as a society,ans avoid people feeling so dehumanised that they harm themselves or others.
I do appreciate your concern though for preserving our ability to disagree and express any political belief without censure.
Invariably, those in power will enforce these restrictions against their opponents to their own benefit.
I admit though I can't think of a good way to legislate the nuances of someone expressing an opinion that one ought not to be able to compete in sports of a gender they believe they belong to, without making them feel they are being dehumanized.
----------
On the subject of what led to this law, my girlfriend and I were avid watchers of the show Terrace House as the events that led to this person's death unfolded.
The girl had been quite rude to a foreigner on the show.
This was considered a huge disgrace to the nation of Japan, to have one of their own act so meanly to another, especially on as international of a platform as Netflix, especially to someone from what is considered a partner country, like the U. S..
This led to social ostracization where many Japanese were (civilly) telling her that she was no longer respected in general society, and questioning the extent of her ability to behave with civility.
I believe this (civilly said) cultural censure for her imopliteness likely contributed more to her feelings of worthlessness than any truly hateful and ignorant things said to her. Or maybe because she grew up in Japan she was just not emotionally prepared for hearing some of the hateful things people can say on the Internet (this is the public narrative).
Either way, it's a tricky situation, and many in Japan felt she was actually the one who began the degregation of civility with her behavior on the show, but none the less the resulting way people spoke to her was also not considered acceptable.
How can one balance expressing the idea that she brought shame to the nation while also not making her feel dehumainzed? I don't know. But I'm quite sure in the minds of the Japanese who wrote this law, the main thing they want to avoid is people telling others to kill themselves directly or cursing at them, rather than avoiding expressing judgemental ideas on one's behavior, which is common enough in Japanese society, to be subtly hinting at one disapproving of the behavior of others, while remaining civil.
Noone is debating that. The concern here is about having law enforcement step in to such delicate personal issues. It won't work the way lawmakers say it would, and the abuse potential for such laws are too high.
> Japan doesn't seem to have these problems with people culturally defecting from civility even when they disagree
I assure you that Japanese people are every bit as human as the rest of the global population, for better or for worse. If you need an example, just look into the incident that prompted this law.
We both know this isn't what is being discussed here.
>Americans seem to have very little reverence for the quality and civility of public discourse in general anymore, and often say "the other side is worse" or "I'm intolerant of intolerance" as their justification for personally contributing to the normalization of uncivil ways of speaking.
Certainly interesting to see this. In my experience Americans tend to be rather christian and the love thy neighbour stuff. They are also very extroverted and willing to talk and become friends with anyone and everyone. Their understanding of 'good customer service' isn't the british example of 'help you as fast as possible and get you out the door' but rather talk to you and learn about you. Build a relationship that brings you back. Being uncivil is literally the opposite of what the average american is.
It's super curious how you came to this opinion? Where have you seen Americans being so 'uncivil'? Is it mainly places like Reddit and twitter? Certainly not real life. If you are conflating reddit or twitter with the general populous you missed the target by astronomical scale.
>Japan doesn't seem to have these problems with people culturally defecting from civility even when they disagree, and I believe their willingness to not tolerate it to any degree is what keeps the rest of society defecting to low quality behavior patterns.
What are the consequences to Japan? There is certainly consequences. Japan is in multiple crisis already and this isn't going to help the situation. Japan's situation is going to become that much worse.
>I think both groups should receive censure for valuing their personal crusades over the quality of stability and civility of society the rest of us value; who have more nuanced and humble opinions of our own self righteousness. Really glad there's another country that agrees with me!
I read this and can only come to the conclusion that you don't understand. Worse you seem to exemplify what makes these 'censures' that much worse.
You see this as attempting to maintain civility in society which is great if it were to happen but that's not at all the outcome.
What's your opinion on Hikikomori?
How well do you feel the Minister of Loneliness is doing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsushi_Sakamoto
How about that suicide rate in Japan?
How about that aging population and silver crime problem?
How about that crippling government debt and inevitable collapse of japan?
How about abenomics being a failure?
How about those government slaves? Hard labour and 99% conviction rate? LOL.
How about that population decline they are showing to be around 30% decline by 2050 and 50% decline by 2100?
Japan is beyond screwed. Good thing I am not in Japan because I'd be sent to the gulag for this post.
Due to concerns expressed during the Diet deliberation process that tougher laws could curb freedom of expression, the revised law requires examination by an expert panel three years after its enforcement.
https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbols/search
Looks like they involve discrimination (on race or religion or such). But Japan's new law is more general.
But I don't have a legal definition, while I do have that link.
In other words, unless the person you're replying to is a lawmaker with supreme authority, there is no need for them to speak for what you might have 'hate speech' defined as in law. Most people aren't lawmakers, but they are involved in the process of creating laws.
Then a different bit of writing, predating the "sticks and stones" saying by a couple thousand years, is more accurate. That would be Ecclesiasticus 28:17-18, which says:
> The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword: but not so many as have fallen by the tongue.
Or even older, "The word is mightier than the sword" from 2500 year old Assyrian writings.
I like Shakespeare's version: "many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills".
You see similar things in other crime-adjacent communities. E.g., I've known many taggers who support stiffer penalties for people who tag in national parks, deface uncontroversial monuments, etc but are afraid that those stiffer penalties might result in a crackdown on their own plainly criminal art installations.
Similar with petty theft. Lots of people will say stuff like "I love boosters they are taking care of the common man" while simultaneously going into fits of rage when their own property is stolen.
"I spend enough time around people who commit this crime that I can see how much damage this type of behavior can cause, but I also think my particular flavor of it is harmless."
Criminal harassment isn't a "don't like" thing. It's just a misdemeanor crime. Harassment people isn't "just free speech" even if it is speech. Graffiti isn't "just art" even if it's art. There has never been a time in the USA where you could systematically harass someone without committing a crime.
Prime example is transgender rights activists painting those who question the efficacy of transgender treatments as perpetuating hate speech, even if the concerns are grounded.
For that reason, hate speech laws are a terrible idea. Nobody has the right to not be offended, that's not what modern civilization was ever built on.
... maybe if we somehow knew and trusted the results of whatever computer systems were being used to condemn the guilty -- or had some classical and well known and agreed upon definition for hate-speech that was internet-spanning... but we have neither.
the reality of it is that data moves in a lot of imprecise ways, and you'd better really hope that the hammer never falls accidentally on the innocent , otherwise such policy causes more harm than good.
My opinion : this will become unintentionally weaponized, like DMCA reports -- and worse yet it'll be intentionally weaponized, too. It's too easy to make data look like it's coming from elsewhere -- what happens when your node is the one that's somehow coerced into breaking the law by some malware, bad actor, or kid with abusive remote administration privs?
we as a society should probably get a grasp on data and data flow before we throw folks into a prison for things the data flows indicate; 'computers as witnesses' is too falsifiable and imprecise as a concept at the current stages of things to be used in good faith.
> Personally I feel this is law is a great step forward to stop hate speech and other forms of severe harassment
I can't speak to Japan, but harassment is already a crime in all US states. Using a telecommunications device to harass often carries even stiffer penalties than just harassment.
All US states also have laws specifically about cyberbullying [1]. Although there have been successful challenges (e.g., in Colorado) most of these laws are almost certainly constitutional.
It's hard to form an opinion on this particular law without more details (about both the law and Japan's legal system), but the way it's described in the article is worrying. Publicly insulting someone can be a component of harassment, but on its own is clearly not harassment. There is a distinct difference between insulting someone in the course of a conversation and a sustained campaign against that person.
> but the thought that if you happen to “rage” on someone mid game and receive jail time for that scares me.
"Trolling" in gaming is like "tagging" in certain tagging-adjacent communities. In both cases the crimes (vandalism, criminal harassment) have become so normalized that membes of the community reframe plainly criminal behavior as positives -- "free speech" and "art" respectively.
Criminal behavior has become completely normalized among certain pockets of heavy internet users, most of which are heavily adjacent to gaming.
I'm not talking about being rude or divisive on a forum. I'm talking about things like death threats, doxxing, brigading non-public-figures, messaging people on all social media channels from dozens of obvious sock puppet accounts and continuing for months after being asked to stop (happened to a local teacher after appearing on a 3 minute news segment), etc.
A lot of what passes for "just trolling" among heavily online individuals -- gaming-adjacent communities in particular -- is in fact textbook criminal behavior. A lot of the behavior during Gamergate, for example, should've resulted in restraining orders, fines, and jail time.
I had people offended of some things I said, because they misunderstood.
Free speech is much more important than hurt feelings.
This is hate speech.
/sarcasm
Of course, if everyone died and the last person was able to speak freely, it would be worth it.
Everything else is trading safety for liberty.
Slippery slopes of free speech crackdowns inevitably lead to loss of liberty.
Leave if you don't like it.
Absolutism in free speech is the only justifiable position.
Welcome to debate.
Easy to say when it's not you doing the dying.
In this form, it's easy to show the flaw in this line of thought, because it concludes with literal extermination of the species ("the last person" implies no further people). And if a right leads to extermination of the species, what good was that right in the first place?
All rights have a balance point. Most hinge on where the rights of others begin. The freedom of speech (in the form of criticism of power) has massive value to the formation and maintenance of a free society, which is why some nations protect it so zealously. But even those nations have recognized its constraint in various contexts.
The position described here is a fringe position and should remain one to maximize the value of free speech.
?
Well, that depends on the amount of dying and the kind of speech.
https://daily.jstor.org/wittgenstein-whether-speech-violence...
> The degree to which the effect of the cause is typical matters a lot in designing legislation or making fair decisions that apply equally to everyone.
I think this was added after I replied. I would certainly agree this legislation is overly broad and probably not helpful. At first I thought you were arguing cyberbullying could only be a matter of life and death if you had a "mental disorder".
I actively practice antisocial online behaviors. I disable game chats and rarely use voice, I block or purge things in my news feed that I don't like and at the end of the day my preferences dont impact other peoples' online lives.
There is an intentionality that you are not addressing, and is at the core of this law.
I see myself as a relatively stable person, but there will be topics and angles that touch me more than others. Someone digging through my post history should be enough to come with a general life profile and reasonable attack vectors.
We can keep a thick skin against attacks that are vague and/or indiscriminate, but it becomes harder when it’s more focused and resonates with thoughts we already have. You are right that one or two comments might not be much, but bullying isn’t about one-off acts, and any button that yielded a different reaction will be pushed again and again…
So yes, it’s not a fully random process to look for that “secret password”, the victim is online with an identity, and it comes down to how much effort is invested in trying to hurt them. Even worse when it’s a semi-public figure, or someone that exposed part of their everyday life.
Doing it enough times/for long enough, and there will be some chance to hit the victim during a vulnerable period (professional issues, friend/couple issues etc.). If they lose their place in society (lose their job, or are ostracized in their irl community), effects will compound.
What happens when the culprits are society as a whole?
In this case, there are varying levels of toxicity, but the general sentiment among Japanese netizens was disproportionately against the Hana Kimura.
Generally speaking, pernicious "speech" is not the speech itself, rather targeting the social network of the victim with slanderous messaging.
For a simple example, somebody plastering their ex's nudes into their ex's linkedin network.
For another example, pernicious forms of cancel culture, where pressure groups take pleasure in contacting the employer of the victim and threaten reputational damage (scandal) unless they fire the poor sap.
In these cases is not the "speech" that is a problem, but the targeted malicious slandering.
What if there is a person who was mentally ill and if they hear the word coconut it could cause them to inflict self harm? Now what happens if I'm talking to that person and I say the magic word coconut? Am I liable in the situation, even if I wasn't aware that this would cause them harm?
Now let's take a more real world example, let's take the word rape. Some people may have had traumatic experiences in the past that can cause just the mention of this word alone to act as a trigger that could lead to negative thoughts and possibly self harm, even suicide. What about now?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Being an asshole online is unfortunately normalized among many players, which we can see from your comment.
Microsoft, ibm, hp, intel and the like have been working on removing software ownership from the public purposely. They want a future where all bytes and instructions are encrypted.
From 1960's to roughly the early 2000's, all computers you bought ran local software exe's in plain text , aka you could open up the .exe, .com or .dll file and reverse engineer it and restore missing functions to get older software running on newer systems.
Valve, ms and the rest have been attacking us owning our own shit for over 2 decades now and they are trying to criminalize owning a general computer.
MMO's were rebranded PC rpg's, so that the game industry could steal pc games and not give us the complete files for the game we were paying for to prevent piracy but they really want monopoly profits.
You can find countless games who had their multiplayer networking code ripped out so game companies could disable their games remotely, that can't happen with gmaes in the 90's (quake, warcraft 1-3, starcraft 1 and diablo 1-2) because they were local applications. You got all the files and code to run the entire game locally.
They want to take us back to vendor locked devices of the 60's with IBM mainsframe, the internet is one giant Personal planet sized computer toa software company and our old non hardware drm'd pc's are malfunctioning chips in their desire for monopoly profits.
https://games.slashdot.org/story/22/03/25/0457243/owners-of-...
What microsoft+ big media companies want the future to be:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
Piracy is just a scapegoat the corproate world is mass dispossessing the stupid and ignoring mmo/drm loving masses.
https://torrentfreak.com/esa-reports-game-piracy-file-hostin...
These "pirate" claims are just pro corporate propaganda, they want to eliminate software ownership.
https://torrentfreak.com/major-persistent-video-game-pirates...
Then see down here where tifca (intel, microsoft and the rest) is them cheering the public being so stupid.
AKA they know they got it in the bag from the days of ultima online and everquest in 1999, then we got steam in 2003, all those "software as a service" apps are 100% proof our species are idiots. None of these programs need to be split into two exe's and run over a network, so we're losing our privacy and control of our pc's and computing devices.
So the army of lobbyists is being paid big money to ban regular pc's as they lock down the internet with new 'trusted' hardware that hardware companies in co-operating with intel and microsoft have been working on for over 20 years.
I don't believe this part has anything to do with your conspiracy
Binaries are in this format because it's convenient to store and more optimal to run them in this format. Most users don't really care/want to edit binaries/executables...
Regarding piracy: I'm sure you worked at a company that had a product, which was sold in some fashion. Part of that money went to paying your salary. Imagine there are no piracy laws/protection, and everyone uses your company's product without paying you. Where does your salary come from now? Trees?
You really should stop spreading that falsehood. It was overturned over 50 years ago.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
People feel confident repeating things they've heard often, with a sarcastic smirk, because the ubiquity of the thing they're repeating gives them some security that if they're called on to defend those things, someone more knowledgeable will probably show up and help.
The most depressing and ironic thing is when a self-proclaimed socialist cites the "crowded theater" thing, which was used to jail socialists speaking out against a war.
This is simply not correct. This was a dum analogy by justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in a case about a draft protest. He later overturned his own opinion in that case expanding free speech.
> Libel and slander are already illegal speech, as is inciting violence
Libel and slander mean the same thing. You're thinking of libel and defamation. All of these are extremely narrowly defined in American law.
A popular term from a decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court decades ago.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
Some jurisdictions have criminalized "hate speech", but the implementation and definition of this is haphazard, and the consequences are often negative, rebounding on communities that were originally intended to be protected.
The one you missed which is consistently forbidden across the world is CSAM.
We're starting to see proposals and legislation to include police officers as a protected group under hate crime/speech statutes. That's a hairsbreadth from lèse-majesté.
Protection laws in the US are an absurd and abused mess. I would only be mildly surprised to see minorities prosecuted for hate crimes for attempting suicide.
this phrase will never go away, the fact that it stems from a 100 year old supreme court decision that used it as example why speech in opposition to the WWI draft was not protected free speech under the first amendment is still funny besides the fact that it was later overturned.
It's hard to judge, of course, but the USA is 42nd in freedom of speech from one press/media perspective.
>In 2015, France’s highest court upheld the criminal conviction of 12 pro-Palestinian activists for violating restrictions against hate speech. Their crime? Wearing T-shirts that advocated a boycott of Israel — “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel,” the shirts read — which, the court ruled, violated French law that “prescribes imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000 for parties that ‘provoke discrimination, hatred or violence toward a person or group of people on grounds of their origin, their belonging or their not belonging to an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a certain religion.'”
Or in the United Kingdom,
>In 2010, a militant atheist was given a six-month suspended sentence for leaving anti-Christian and anti-Islam fliers in a religious room of the Liverpool airport; according to the BBC, “jurors found him guilty of causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment.”
[0] https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...
The whole "freedom of speech" story in the US is the most successful brain washing story on this planet. You hammer this into children's brains from young age on, to make sure it becomes the knee jerk reaction to everything that the government does to fuck you over. Having only two political parties with candidates from the elite, detached from reality. Political decisions don't get made on the basis of what's best for the people, just do the opposite of what the other party would do. Working two jobs at minimum wage to feed your family. No health insurance, if you get sick just chew pain killers all day and keep working. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. US Life expectancy on the decline for several years in a row. "At least I can complain about it, so everything is fine. Just imagine I'd live in a country where I couldn't insult and verbally abuse others!"
How do you determine this? If I define a common word to be offensive towards me, how would you argue against it if I really feel that way? Where do you draw the line?
Some of these people were found guilty, some acquitted. All were prosecuted under these laws.
To be clear I don't agree with any of these people. I don't even find the Mike Ward joke particularly funny. It's a throwaway bit meant to be offensive from my point of view. But I don't think they should be able to be thrown in prison, fined, or sued, because someone's feelings got hurt over some words.
Certainly. For example, in Germany it is illegal to curse at the police. There is a rather well-known video where police confront a man at his door but can't do anything more until he calls them cunts, at which point they turn around, force their way in, and arrest him.
The philosophers behind Free Speech even concluded that expression which harms individuals should be prevented, aka harm principle:
> That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
You're missing the nuance of what these words meant:
> the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Mill then set out extremely limited definition of harm that excluded more or less all the incidental, implied and perceived harms that are problematic and open to abuse. In this (Mill's) context harm means harm, like as assault, robbery, imprisonment and so on.
If ever you want to find the canonical example of a "slippery slope" it's the perpetual reinterpretation of this principle to move the goalposts and extend the definition of "harm".
In many ways I think Mill did moral philsophy a disservice by so loosely stating something that, on face value, is so open to misinterpretation.
JSM separated the Harm Principle from the Offense Principle, but still said that free speech should be curtailed when the expression harms individuals.
Nowhere does JSM say freedom of speech is freedom from all consequences.
>"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Japan enacting harsher punishments for cyber bullying is not a slippery slope into free speech infarction, as the harm principle has always been part of the philosophy. GP's stance is based on an increasingly common misconception (these days in the U.S. at least) that free speech means freedom from consequence.
I do dislike people who say "citation?" (and I don't wish to seem presumptuous) but can you give me any further links or prominent examples of that?
Is it a social media thing? I don't use popular SM or trawl the sewers of chans any longer, so is it there? Is that representative of a wider society?
Do people who hold the extreme view that "speech has no consequences" distinguish that idea from "speech can have have bad consequences, but that's better than the alternative of curbing free speech"? Or have we reached a kind of intellectual low point in places where these beliefs are purported to hold?
- Post jan 6 insurrection has left Republicans trying to justify their seditious invasion of the U.S. capital as protests protected by speech: https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/KF_F...
- The "Cancel culture" pejorative has created a double standard where a certain political party cries foul for being censored on private platforms (for violating TOS) and push for government regulation of said platforms to protect their political opinions. They are even trying to redefine private websites as the public square to do it.
- Sacha Baron Cohen also sums it up nicely in his speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM
If you really are genuine with your questions and asking for citations, you can google more topics about any of the above.
I had to look this up. That's a pretty sad accusation off the bat isn't it? One of my opinions I'll share is that I think even HN, supposedly one of the better discussion forums - why I write things here - is also blighted by "toxic internet culture" of assuming the worst in everybody. Also I think the "move fast" design is deliberately not conducive to conversation, so I am wondering if you will see this response.
From a British perspective I think the rioters attempting a coup and then backtracking to calling it "a protest" is laughable. At least one should have the courage of ones convictions. If you're going to try a coup you damn well better know it's going to succeed - as the alternative in every other historical example is getting lined up against the wall. If what you say is true then saying "oops only joking... it was just a fun legitimate protest" makes them cowards. So I simply can't entertain an argument that anyone defending a failed coup as "free speech" is serious.
Mr Cohen has a lot of good things to say, and I think I get what you're talking about after watching the clip you linked, thank you.
> "the age of evidential argument is ending and knowledge is de-legitimised.... by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history."
Couldn't have put it better myself. Pleased that he cited what is the subject of a chapter in my book Digital Vegan; the role of Facebook in Myanmar - which sadly few people will touch. How SBC actually puts it is "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" - a nice turn. But then he flounders a little, not coming right out against Zuckerberg's "bullshit" reasoning as a purely driven by greed, he softens it as the "ideological imperialism" of the 'Silicon Six'. Cohen being accused of anti-Semitism isn't something I'd imagine can't happen these days either.
But in the end, SBC's beef seems to be with the unelected power of BigTech, and unfortunately he isn't a great philosophical scholar, by his own introductory remarks. What is to be done? He doesn't seem to know how to frame those who disingenuously deploy good arguments for bad ends... which is what I think the nub of your "lots of people equate freedom of speech with freedom from consequences" line. Zuckerberg couldn't give a fuck, and Cohen is correct in calling him a "bullshitter" in the strictest sense of Harry Frankfurt's definition. But to suggest that FB or any other company could "purge lies and conspiracies from their platform" is naive. There wouldn't be much left, especially of politicians and business people have to say - and when he hits that Cohen turns it into a damn joke to soften it! That's why comedians can say certain things that other's can't... up to a point. And then they risk losing their platform. So, much as I love Sascha Baron-Cohen he drifts into waters out of his depth. That said, I'm 99% with him (not afraid to be out of my depth).
Thus, when it comes to free speech, while I used to be more of a "free speech absolutist", I think the past 10-20 years have shown real dangers of unlimited free speech, especially that enabled by technology and anonymity. I'm not necessarily arguing one way or the other on any particular case, only emphasizing that I don't think an "absolutist" position makes sense - there have always been limits on free speech, even in the US. It's a hard problem precisely because words can have such serious consequences. I mean, look at the mobs that were whipped up against the Rohingya in Myanmar. Where do you draw the line there on free speech and inciting murder?
That has nothing to do with criminalizing certain behavior, especially behaviors with evidence linking them to increased suicides among young people. And the risk of witch-hunts is much rarer in this context, where the possibly illegal behavior is often auto-transcribed due to the text or audiovisual media that was used to transmit it.
As with every law involving limitation of free speech, it will be easily abused by powerful people against less powerful people.
Also, it appears they already had a perfectly legit punishment:
" ... The penalty applied to the crime under the pre-revised law was "detention for less than 30 days" or "a fine of less than 10,000 yen (roughly $74)" -- the lightest punishments under the Penal Code. ..."
Now I don't know anything about prisons in Japan, but I'm 100% sure I wouldn't want to spend 29 days in any jail for any reason. Wouldn't ensuring any abuser gets that 4 weeks in jail be already a hell of a deterrence?
Note that I'm totally in favor of hard fighting bullism of any kind, but not in a way that could be easily abused; serving jail for "insults to damage one's reputation" seems just too broad and a very handy tool to hit journalists, political adversaries and freedom of information in general.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
For starters, there are no miranda rights.
You missed a possibility. Maybe they put in sufficient effort during investigation and when deciding whether to prosecute to weed out all the innocent people then and build good cases against the actual bad guys.
Very high conviction rights are symptoms of both puppet criminal justice systems that just convict whoever the state wants convicted and of criminal justice systems that only convict actual bad guys and do a good job of getting wrongly or mistakenly accused innocent people out of the system quickly. You need to look deeper to figure out which kind you are dealing with.
It is when a criminal justice system has a low conviction rate that you can be sure something is wrong.
The police and prosecutors must essentially be judges before the real judges who simply rubber stamp. Any lawyer would tell you a jury trial (if they have those) is 50/50 conviction rate and judges being human will have some error rate like there is a stat about judges in general convicting people more before lunch or at the end of the day when they are tired. You can't be that good consistently without something being done wrong, not with multiple human decision layers.
Aside from this, I haven't used Social Media/ Online Dating in about 5 years.
For example, if someone posts something like "Where can I find an apartment in LA , my income is only 35k a year".
And I respond with " Your not going to make it here, you should move somewhere cheaper."
That can be interupted as an insult. On the other end of the spectrum, back when I used social media heavily I'd get called slurs all the time. Never been called a slur in real life.
It was very bad for me emotionally. I'm much happier, and meet great people, social media free.
I'd rather place restrictions on social media companies, many of which encourage negativity vs passing the blame to end users.
> Insult charges apply when an individual insults another in public to damage their social reputation.
"Cause harm" is a heavily subjective term.
If I say you're wasting your time learning Haskell since you'll never find a job, and this triggers a mental breakdowns in you, can you sue me ?
I'd argue the nature of social media actually encourages people to be meaner. If I'm a jerk at my local bar I can be easily banned.
If I'm a jerk on Facebook or a scammer on Tinder I can create a new account in 20 seconds.
My point is why a judge should give different verdicts depending on the medium? Some accusation you made on Facebook with some photos hoped image could make more damage then same accusation made drunk at a bar, the judge should consider the damages not if you used FB, a phone or your mouth.
People interpret this as an insult because statement contains an implicit negative value judgement about the person’s competence - i.e. “you are not going to make it here”.
Contrast that with something like, “It will be very difficult to find an apartment in LA that will be affordable on a $35k salary,” which is conveys the same information without making it personal.
But I agree with you point that social media and online discussion can suppress the better angels of our nature and be mentally unhealthy.
I do not know that the answer is putting restrictions on social media companies by force of law. That seems like it would end up as a total disaster. I think a better approach would be to demolish the moray / expectations that social media ought to be “the public square” where few speech prevails - which is a platitude to justify sacrificing quality for scale and ad revenue. My experience (since the days of BBSs) has been that the tone of the board and quality of discussion has always been dictated by the sysop and their willingness to use the ban hammer. But that won’t get you massive reach and those sweet sweet ad dollars.
I'm just saying LA isn't a good place for anyone making 35k a year. Then I offer actionable advice.
Likewise, I've even applied for YC before. I would of loved to get some feedback like "You aren't going to make it into YC without a business plan". That's better than getting ignored
I prefer real life socializing where something I said 6 or 7 years ago isn't used against me. I would hope most people are more mature at 25 than 19.
Of course not, but we tend to be judged by our words and actions, not our intentions. Understand that people may experience the world very differently from you. They will instinctively pattern match the negative value judgement I pointed out; and to them it seems “obvious” that one should reword the statement. So obvious for them, that they can’t understand how someone with a different experience of the world might not recognize it.
> I prefer real life socializing where something I said 6 or 7 years ago isn't used against me. I would hope most people are more mature at 25 than 19.
Hear hear. This is a horrible side effect of social media. People need to be allowed to make mistakes. There can be no growth without mistakes.
At this point I think people would be well advised to consider their social media profile to be like a resume or personal brand advertisement. Anything but an authentic record of their private lives or thoughts.
Amen.
I will say I'm very optimistic in 10 years or so social media will be seen as another addiction to treat. You have a right to binge drink every night. Likewise you can binge social media.
Nether is particularly healthy.
Not to mention that you can always close your account/make it private.
Aren't major SNS platforms financially succeeding by promoting toxic users that drive engagement numbers through the roof ?
Hate speech laws are dangerous because hate groups are far more dangerous when their true motives are hidden from view.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Louisiana_gubernatorial_e...
"Vote For The Crook: It's Important."
Why on earth would they be able to burn crosses on anyone's lawn? Hate speech is currently protected by the First Amendment by decades of well-settled jurisprudence. Where are they permitted to burn crosses on people's lawns? And please provide a link to where the KKK is given a free hour of television every day.
> We can know what these groups are, who their members are and what they believe while also limiting their ability to spread those harmful beliefs.
How would we know if they aren't allowed to publicly say what their beliefs are? I submit that we know that only because their hate speech is protected.
If it's true that hate groups are more dangerous when their motives are hidden from view, it must also be true that hate groups are less dangerous when their motives are in plain view.
And since the context of this discussion is hate speech, the implication of your argument is that hate groups are less dangerous the more freely they are allowed to express their hate speech (for example, through cross-burning or a weekly television broadcast) as a result of your original claim that hate speech laws make such groups more dangerous.
>(...)And please provide a link to where the KKK is given a free hour of television every day.
You didn't read my comment well enough to understand the context, because it's obvious that i never made a literal claim that the KKK was given a free hour of television every day, rather it was an example of an instance of a hyperbolic example of giving them a platform. You can substitute television for Facebook and Youtube if you like, it doesn't matter.
>How would we know if they aren't allowed to publicly say what their beliefs are? I submit that we know that only because their hate speech is protected.
Because such people try to spread their beliefs regardless of what the laws say, but at least limits on speech can limit the scope of the damage they can do.
Obviously you knew that those things don't happen. So were you perhaps under the mistaken impression that hate speech is not currently protected and were suggesting what you believe may happen if it were allowed?
If that is not the case, then what point were you making with the use of hyperbole that addresses my original assertion that banning hate speech allows hateful people to hide?
> it was an example of an instance of a hyperbolic example of giving them a platform.
At no point did I ever suggest anything about "giving them a platform" so I'm not sure who you're arguing with, but it isn't me.
Australia's NCAB defines it as such:
"Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening."
It would be quite a lot of effort to falsify this, especially since most judges around the world can request the original copies of messages from websites or even get access to the devices of the concerned parties. Japan's defamation and libel laws are already very strict.
I think the cyberbullies constantly dm’ed her with hateful words and there were at least 2 that were apprehended.
Anyways there’s stories about it on the internet you can read more about it.
You’re never going to get rid of it entirely because humans are an inherently hierarchical species and bullying is a method of establishing hierarchy and dominance.
While trying to punish going over board may be a good thing, this whole “let’s all hold hands and sing cumbiyah” and get rid of bullying is nonsense.
No two people are the same, if one is smarter or stronger than the other, the lesser competitor will use tactics like bullying or social engineering to try to establish dominance. Strong competitors use it as well to disinvite challengers. We reward this at every level of our society so to pretend that it’s evil in children is really preparing them for being dysfunctional when they become adults.
The true solution to getting bullied is to:
- fight back ferociously
- get them to bully someone else
- take it and be a loser
I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, I had to learn to be tough
IME bullying -- actual bullying, not power contests or nasty office politics -- isn't even remotely normal in office settings.
> The true solution to getting bullied is to...
...ignore it if isn't serious or tell an adult if it is serious.
> fight back ferociously
Anything physical is de facto serious and should be dealt with via adults and not between children; at least in my bubble, physical violence between school-aged children is rare and taken very seriously. A bully physically harming other children would receive a serious punishment, the parents would be in the loop, and the school counselor would be heavily involved with that child for the remainder of the school year.
Anything systemic and sustained, or targeting immutable attributes, is also de facto serious.
It's possible that things are different in your social environments, but "bullying" as I understood it as a kid is no longer even remotely socially acceptable.