Just look at how Indian politicians abuse hate speech laws. A classic example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/india-bbc-office-raid-t...
"Officials had spent three days raiding the spaces following the country’s ban on a BBC documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago. "
"Now ranked between Turkey and Sudan, India dropped eight places to 150 out of 180 nations in last year’s World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders. "
Retroactively applying laws to target your political enemies has nothing to do with censorship laws (except using them as an excuse) and everything to do with corruption and authoritarianism.
Donald Trump promised to prosecute everyone he holds a grudge against if he was elected president again, and the USA has constitutionally enshrined free speech laws.
The GA Republican governor is not denouncing the Atlanta DA
Was the recording of Trump asking a Republican governor to “find votes” to help him win a deep fake?
We could talk about the great national conspiracy that Donald Trump lead in collusion with Russia that made him an illegitimate president, or so said the Media until the Mueller report could not find Donald Trump conspiring with Russians
Was the recording of Barack Obama telling Medvedev that he would give Russia "flexibility" so long as Putin limited aggression until after he was re-elected a deep fake? Was the Subsequent 2014 invasion of Crimea and lack of response by Obama's administration a deep fake or just Obama repaying his half of the Bargain?
And “Hunter Biden” I was never an elected government officials.
You keep focusing on one or two national things and not the 91 indictments including the ones on the state level.
And Obama never had to call public officials to try to “find votes” or to try to convince his VP to not certify the election - he actually won twice.
Again are you accusing Biden who wasn’t an elected official while Trump was in office of having anything to do with the investigations? Are you accusing him of coordinating state prosecutions that even the Republican governor of GA is saying is legitimate?
As far as Obama
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/nov/14/obamas-hot-mi...
I’m sure you’re now going to site evidence that the “election was stolen”
The commissioners are appointed by the EC president in consultation with the member governments, and then the commission as a whole needs to secure approval of parliament. This is similar to the process by which parliamentary governments usually form a cabinet, but with the European Council (representatives of all member-state governments) serving in the role of head of state.
One typically talks about the government in a parliamentary system as being elected, so...
The way they play games with words doesn't make it a democratic system, it is however a very effective tool for the EU to muddy the water and confuse people into thinking it has greater legitimacy than it really does.
Is that appointment process not democratic because its one layer of indirection? It's the same thing that happens for pretty much any minister/secretary in pretty much every democracy. Is the US government not a democratic system because the secretary of state is appointed? Is the UK not democratic because the Cabinet is appointed? Are there any democracies by that narrow definition?
Yes, I know the shit show that “states rights” were in the US
Lots of bureaucratic and political positions are appointed by other elected representatives. We can't elect everybody, that would be too much. So is that really a problem here?
I am not that up to speed on the intricacies of EU governance at this level so I really don't know if this is a real problem or not.
But, the point is, we should always have the presumption of freedom of speech. As a matter of course that means we also must have certain responsibilities for the consequences of exercising that freedom. This last point often gets overlooked.
You can say whatever you want.
But when you take an illegal action (or, grey area, compel someone else to take an action) then you lose free speech protections.
"Fire" in a movie theater is the classic example of the court deciding what sort of speech consitutes compelling action.
This in contrast to other many other countries, where there is no guarantee that speech-that-does-not-compel-action will always be free.
To me, speech vs action is a critical distinction, because it prevents anyone in power from monopolizing the marketplace of ideas by banning an idea itself. While simultaneously preventing the worst societal consequences from actions.
Or, in other words... neo Nazis should be allowed to march peacefully... but so should everyone else. And the latter should massively outweigh the former. (That said, nothing prevents keeping a much closer eye on violence-espousing neo Nazis)
When yelling fire without a compelling reason, a reasonable person would anticipate everyone else's standard reaction, and that in the course of that action injury and/or death might occur.
Which is why culpability in the US depends on the speaker's intent. What if I believed I smelled smoke and yelled "Fire" because of that? But was simply wrong?
Unfortunately, intent is impossible to prove definitively, without actually peering into someone else's mind. Thus, can of worms.
"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is an analogy that was used to justify banning antidraft activism in the first world war. It is very much allowed under current precedent.
"Directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action" is the current standard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
This is a contradiction and makes no sense.
> A society needs to put limits on behavior of its individuals to be sane
But lack of free speech and free politics drives societies insane. Look at all the crazy stuff the USSR and PRC have done in their histories, relative to the free speech and very much not insane USA.
Is that supposed to be a joke or does it just reflect your extreme bias?
You had a failed coup attempt in January 2021; your speaker of the house was just toppled by a few right-wing extremists in congress; government is on the edge of a default every few months; lots of important leaders (Biden, Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, to name a few, not to mention ones that straight up died of old age in office like RBG and Feinstein) are old to the point where one questions their mental acuity, a gerontocracy reminiscent of the last decades of the Soviet Union.
Get back to this thread when the USA has killed millions of its own citizens through enforcing insane policies on them in defiance of basic common sense e.g. the Great Leap Forward or Holomodor. That's what counts as insanity here, not politicians being outside your preferred age range.
I don’t claim to have the answers, but was just pointing out that the world has changed and we will need different policies.
Again, I’m not saying that everything was perfect before but that the rules and norms from the past need to be adjusted for the present. The way we handled hundreds of television stations can’t scale to millions of websites or social media accounts, especially since you no longer have anchors like geographic proximity or business identities.
I'm not saying I know what the solution actually is, but denying that there even is a problem, or that the existing guidelines were designed with the above scenario in mind, is just preposterous to me.
It leads to an oligarchy as the rich are able to use their money as speech to buy control of the government. Oh wait, you meant the US's free speech laws are a good thing.
Maybe the Americans reading this should think about how their opinion on this issue might have been impacted by their American education and American upbringing. People outside the US aren't all stupid. There are reasons other countries have different speech laws and not all of those reasons are bad.
It's not until you get to Enlightenment-influenced thinkers like Jefferson and Hamilton that the whole "liberty" thing really gets a purchase. It's just a shame you didn't have a little more Hamilton and a little less Jefferson in the mix. Then you'd realise freedom is a means, not an end.
Most of our ancestors came after independence, again, for the freedom, to escape your laws. Very few Americans can trace their lineage back to the Puritans.
We believe we are right about this and you're wrong. It's engrained deeply in our culture. Why can't you just respect other cultures? Why does everyone have to think like you do?
Freedom is an end unto itself.
This is flawed logic. Consider:
There are reasons other countries have honor killings and not all of those reasons are bad.
> any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor
which they note is broader than the typical American definition:
> While the above is not a legal definition and is broader than “incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”
[1]: https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/...
The US now seems to have a censorship regime, but it's privatized. "Harvard student groups issued an anti-Israel statement. CEOs want them blacklisted."[1]
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/business/harvard-israel-hamas...
This whole Israel-Hamas saga has really shown how little the general population knows about how many freedoms they have lost.
> These are dissemination of illegal content, negative effects on certain fundamental rights (privacy, freedom of expression, prohibition on discrimination and the rights of a child), and intentional manipulation of the services […]
Source: https://policyreview.info/articles/news/digital-services-act...
If enough countries in the EU shift their moral compass and then elect enough officials in the EU parliament and then change the laws and regulations you could say that it's a democratic decision to change the rules.
But that is impossible because the European Parliament constitutionally is not allowed to change the law. You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe, which is why it's not a democratic system, short of electing a national party that will simultaneously leave the EU and revert to its own currency in one step, something that is widely regarded as logistically difficult to impossible.
This is a really, really common point of confusion. It's well past time to consider the way the EU names its institutions to be propaganda. The EU Parliament is not a Parliament. Write it out 100 times on a blackboard. EU policy does not reflect the will of Europeans, who aren't even close to being culturally homogenous enough to have such a will anyway.
You can. EU law is written by commissioners, which are appointed by national governments. You can change the commissioners by changing the national governments, which happens through elections.
1. Each commissioner has their own dedicated area and portfolio, so if the problematic law is in some other commissioner's area then your vote is worth nothing.
2. Commissioners are appointed by governments only in theory. In practice the President reserves the right to veto any commissioner they don't like, and give or take their responsibilities them at will. This ability doesn't exist in the treaties but Juncker has admitted he did it all the time [1] and explicitly stated that it renders worthless "populism" and "insubordination" (what people like him call actual democracy).
3. Commissioners are required to take an oath of loyalty to the EU and explicitly promise to ignore any instructions from their governments of citizenship [2], so being able to appoint them - even if it actually worked - would grant national governments no real power.
4. Many of the key policies of the EU are decided by people who aren't appointed by countries anyway, e.g. the ECJ or ECB.
So in practice there are no examples of countries meaningfully impacting EU policy by changing their commissioner, and national parties do not campaign on this basis. Again and again this point must be repeated. The EU is not honest about how it actually works. It is not a democracy. It has never been and never will be. Any mechanism or system that looks superficially democratic will turn out to be subtly broken or unusable on close inspection.
[1] “Nobody knows this, but last time I rejected the candidacies of six of the Commissioners presented to me by national governments. Do remember that governments merely propose commissioners. It is the president of the Commission who accepts them and allocates their responsibilities. Whilst certain countries [sometimes]allow themselves a degree of insubordination, depending on who happens to be in power and the stage of the political cycle they are in”, he was “confident that in a few years’ time, these issues won’t be troubling us anymore” (Juncker)
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/eu-president-eurosceptics-blocked...
[2] "I do solemnly undertake: to be completely independent in the performance of my duties, in the general interest of the Communities; in the performance of these duties, neither to seek nor to take instructions from any government or from any other body"
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_10_...
Of course your vote is worth something. It changes another commissioner with another portfolio. Just because every subset of the demos votes for a different official doesn't make it any less democratic.
Similarly, in the US, a senator can be on a committee with a dedicated area and portfolio and you might not be able to influence their election if you live in the wrong state.
> In practice the President reserves the right to veto any commissioner they don't like, and give or take their responsibilities them at will.
This is common in presidential systems. I know for a fact it works that way in the US, but I'm pretty certain it does so in other systems as well.
> This ability doesn't exist in the treaties.
That's not the scandal you make it out to be. Plenty of democratic systems function more by convention than by written down law. Prime example is the UK, where a lot of constitutional law is nothing more than unwritten convention. The very existence of the office of the UK Prime Minister itself is not written down in law anywhere! [0]
> 3. Commissioners are required to take an oath of loyalty to the EU and explicitly promise to ignore any instructions from their governments of citizenship [2]
Of course they are, they're EU commissioners after all. US government officials take an oath to the US, too, and not the state they're from.
> so being able to appoint them - even if it actually worked - would grant national governments no real power.
Who said anything about granting national governments any power? That's not a prerequisite for a democratic system at the level above.
> It is not a democracy. It has never been and never will be. Any mechanism or system that looks superficially democratic will turn out to be subtly broken or unusable on close inspection.
None of your points are indicative of a lack of democracy. It might not be your preferred mode of democracy, but none of your complaints are unique to the EU, they're all features of other democratic systems as well.
Reading between the lines, it seems like your main gripe is the weakening of the nation state in favor of a larger block. I understand that might make you unhappy, but it is not per se undemocratic as long as the larger block is democratic. I also happen to believe it's the right thing to do, Europe has been held back by petty national squabbles for way too long, it's time we finally unify to the superpower we're meant to be.
[0] https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co...
> You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe
Your claim: you can vote for someone who will vote for someone who will suggest someone who can be rejected and who will then swear to ignore the wishes of the original voters anyway, and this is fine.
No it isn't. The EU is a dictatorship that like all dictatorships plays pretend and has meaningless votes for people who don't matter. Your attempts to obfuscate this core truth are impressively high effort, but mixing and matching different aspects of different democracies from around the world whilst ignoring all the ways the EU is different doesn't actually yield a winning argument.
> it is not per se undemocratic as long as the larger block is democratic
In fact placing a same-sized parliament under the control of a much larger number of people would be less democratic, as each individual has less influence over the results. But the EU isn't democratic anyway, so this point is moot.
> it's time we finally unify to the superpower we're meant to be.
And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different!
Note how you haven't addressed any of my arguments.
> And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different!
What exactly is authoritarian? You can't just use bad words against arguments you don't like, you have to actually back up your points.
All you have done is make wild claims, which I've refuted, as a result of which you've then called me an authoritarian and the EU a dictatorship without any substance to back it up.
You can't vote for anyone who has actual power: not a problem, that's democracy. The people you try to indirectly appoint to the Commission are rejected on ideological grounds: not a problem, that's democracy. The people who end up with power literally take an oath to ignore your vote: not a problem, that's democracy.
As for what is authoritarian? This whole thread is literally about the EU establishing a China style censorship regime.
You aren't engaging with the substance of the objections, just playing silly word games in an attempt to deny what you're supporting. You want a unitary superpower because it makes you feel strong, you feel you're "meant" to have power and feel the EU is staffed by people just like yourself. You will continue to throw dust around to try and obscure what this system really is until the day it turns on you, by which time, my friend, it will be far too late.
I have shown that these so-called dictatorial aspects are also features of other democracies. Are the US and the UK dictatorships as well, then?
But a related question is whether the current status quo increases the probability that such an authoritarian will get elected in the first place.
On the one hand, yes, it's bad to give tools like this to a would-be authoritarian. But on the other hand, a lack of such tools may increase the chances that such an authoritarian will rise. They use the freedoms you gave them to get in, then strip those freedoms from you. A liberal and democratic society can't survive without some level of involuntary force applied against those who don't care for such ideals.
The people/businesses there would be quite pissed off and finally pay attention to who is making these decisions. Thats the worst thing a politician can want: a spotlight on them.
Recall the anti-SOPA movement? They changed their tune real quick after that. Frankly the EU is playing the same game as China. They are exploiting capitalism's weakness in an effort to force their will on these companies.
This is the key bit most people miss out.
"You should be intolerant of intolerance" is a useless heuristic. You can rephrase most moral statements to be intolerant.
I think whenever a bad actor tries to talk about tolerance re: being "muzzled", this different formulation of tolerance should be brought up.
This stuff is not okay in any way. People being allowed to megaphone this FUD for cheap attention/clicks/manipulation always find idiots who actually believe this shit, and move the Overton window towards even more destructive speech being tolerated.
While I do value free speech in general, there is a red line. Like, I can tolerate a lot of weird people talking nonsense, but when you spread hate I‘d confront you right on the street in reallife. „But it’s my opinion“ is NO excuse for being an asshole.
Huge opportunity here to censor your disfavored groups by calling them fascist, which has, in recent times, evolved from being a political science term, to being a very broad type of insult/accusation usable against almost anyone you don’t like.
Now people spread propaganda garbage that _looks_ credible but is actually fake or several years old. This is adding kerosene into the fire and might ultimately lead to additional problems _ontop of_ the current suffering in the Middle East. I‘d prefer to not pile up additional issues instead of worrying about media underrepresentation of a side.
The solution to this is to let people use filters.
Trying to have something like this as a rule ends up with existential conflict[1] over what the definitions and set of things allowed should be.
[1] For instance, my personal red line is about people being allowed to express their political views and I will happily physically fight you over this.