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Comment by kwatsonafter | Hacker News Reader

As I get older I'm more in favor of this kind of thing. Freedom of speech ought (here I go; a terrible Kantian asserting an, "ought") to apply to political speech. Using FoS as a defense against aimlessly attacking others seems to undermine what is a basic expectation of civility (ie. not being made to feel unsafe) in advanced societies. I feel like there's a class of people that would gladly slaughter cows in front of Hindus and intimidate gay people under the guise of, "sociopolitical expression" but if we let this go on it could get to a point where, "talking" becomes, "taking deliberate actions to hurt or disenfranchise others" which is a slippery slope.

tl;dr-- Good for Japan. Politeness rules. It's people that have served in wars that understand this well.

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These rules typically get applied in ways that advantage the already privileged. e.g. privileged people can say mean stuff online to those under them, but those without such power will go to jail for trying to expose the crimes or bad behaviors of those they work for.

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.

> Insult charges apply when an individual insults another in public to damage their social reputation.

This is a gift to the rich and powerful to punish and gag whistleblowers and activists.

That's how defamation/libel law has functioned in the UK.

To give a concrete example for this, here in Germany we have laws against insulting others. These have pretty strict requirements, and almost never get in front of a judge. Last year, some guy in Hamburg called the minister of interior of the state a "Pimmel", a dick, and his house was raided by law enforcement, his and his ex-girlfriends electronic devices confiscated. [0]

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)

Japanese police have a reputation of "interrogating" you until you confess, regardless of innocence. That's the only way to hit their 99% conviction rate.

The last thing they need is another bludgeon.

Forced confessions are unfortunately not unique to Japan [1]. Police will behave like that when you reward them based on the number of convictions and don't hold them accountable for screwing over innocent people.

Still sucks, though.

[1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=obCNQ0xksZ4

I think this conviction rate statistic is out of context. In the US the conviction rate is 93% and, if the US measured conviction rate the way the Japanese do, it would be 99.8%.

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.

So let's throw one of the most important pillars of a free society under the bus because it makes someone uncomfortable? We have a functional justice system where a specific crime must be charged and proven. If it is a serious crime, a randomized group of citizens of the society must be convinced (Grand Jury). This kind of laws have no place in a free society and would lead to oppression and loss of liberty. Malaise would set in and people would use these very sharp tools of law to cut each other any way they wish. Speech crimes and thought crimes are oreweillian and collectivist (Fascist or Communist).

I could not disagree with you more, it is so deeply short-sighted.

> it is so deeply short-sighted

Supporters of tyrannical measures are often quite surprised when they themselves are eventually crushed underfoot.

Interestingly, a close analogy, hate speech, is perfectly legal in the United States. It looks like laws to ban hate speech have been found unconstitutionally. This is in contrast to most of the other countries around the world.

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.

> 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

Politeness can't be enforced by law, sorry. In practice, this kind of tone policing laws produce double standards. OK to show the utmost vitriol towards "woombledores" in the most public manner, but don't even dare question the "mardesmoores", or else jail time for you.

We can't be sure without understanding the actual statute that is being passed and what are its definitions of the wrongdoing, and how it is limited in its scope and power.

> Good for Japan. Politeness rules.

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?

> not being made to feel unsafe

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.

>Words literally have no ability to hurt people unless screamed with such volume as to cause hearing damage. Actions can hurt people.

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?

It's much easier to prove if someone stabbed you than it is to prove they caused you mental anguish. We have very poor tools to accurately measure the direct effects of speech. The law already tries to balance that with libel laws where you have to show the harm done. Maybe you can think of accurate ways to judge these issues, but all I can think about is a glorified equivalent of our pain scales. Point to a face on the scale like we do with pain.

https://www.disabled-world.com/health/pain/scale.php

I’m sure people who’ve severed in wars understand what tyranny and repression look like and it might look like this…

I couldn't agree more. It's about time all the hate speech against whites is brought to a halt. Blaming them for every societal ill under the sun has already resulted in deaths [1,2,3,4,5,6]. If only the US didn't have the first amendment, some of these lives could have been saved. Does your "right" to speak really matter more than their right to life?

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...

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