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Comment by l3mure | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, there actually was a conviction of an elderly man via the NSA within the past few weeks. 14 months in jail for a poem.

> In this latest case, Lee Yoon-seop was accused of submitting a poem in 2016 to the Uriminzokkiri website, which is a state-controlled North Korean website. Submitted as part of a competition run by the website back in 2016, it praised North Korea, stating that “if the two Koreas were united under Pyongyang’s socialist system, people would get free housing, healthcare and education.” The sentencing court said that Lee had glorified and praised North Korea and had threatened the “existence and security of the country or the basic liberal democratic order over a long period of time.”

https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/man-in-south-korea-jaile...

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Americans that want exceptions to freedom of speech must have no idea what countries that have them use them for.

On the other hand, Americans lack the perspective of a society that has been invaded multiple times in the last century. And remains under threat from one such dangerous and hostile invader.

Framing it as violating a noble ideal of “free speech” I think gives it more importance than it deserves.

Seems plausible such a trade off is a net good for South Korea. We live in the misinformation age. Look at the crazy stuff some people believe. South Korea has effectively outlawed pro North Korea propaganda. Hard to quantify the averted harm of such a policy, but the price seems minimal.

Balanced against the science fiction that Koreans could be programmed into welcoming an invader with open arms is the real life fact that somebody was put in jail for the crime of writing poetry.

Since you don’t seem to be aware, propaganda could have negative real world impact influencing (not even mind control!) a small group of people. Imagine the impact is only a group of 5 people “defect” to North Korea under the belief it is some paradise. Thats harms.

That's just bad advice. How can you ban bad advice? I can't imagine what society would be like if nonprofessionals had liability for the harms that came to other people as a result of acting on their opinions, the way we have liabilities for doctors or lawyers in a client-provider relationship. Yeesh, you'd be putting people in jail for the crime of being dumb online.

All you've been doing is mischaracterizing things to the point of absurdity and then pointing out how your mischaracterizations are absurd.

Propaganda can be harmful even if hasn't programmed anyone to welcome an invader with open arms.

Nobody was put in jail for writing poetry. They were put in jail for praising North Korea.

Banning the praise of North Korea isn't banning bad advice.

If the person had been speaking into a microphone instead you'd be telling me how South Korea outlawed talking.

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