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.
... 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.
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.
I had people offended of some things I said, because they misunderstood.
Free speech is much more important than hurt feelings.
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.
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.
But I don't have a legal definition, while I do have that link.
This is hate speech.
/sarcasm
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".