Comment by ur-whale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ur-whale | Hacker News Reader

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> I believe France is and has been the top at individual freedom.

You could not be more wrong.

However, I am not surprised you would believe that: I have quite a few French friends who believe the exact same thing because they've all drunk the kool-aid that was served to them during their school years, namely that France is the country who invented human rights, freedom of speech, etc...

Nothing could be further from the truth (England is a way better approximation to "invented free speech" than France ever was, where do you think Voltaire discovered what Freedom really meant if not during his exile years in England?).

Even today, your average Frenchmen is dead convinced that freedom of speech in France is one of the best in the world and a fundamental value of French society.

If you compare it to Iran or North Korea, fair enough. But then go look up what happened to a guy named Dieudonne if you want a perfect example of there being no freedom of speech whatsoever in France.

Compared to global standards, France is really not high on the individual freedom / freedom of speech scales, but then you have to be able to properly compare things to make vaguely correct calls on such things.

And if you have never left your country nor master English well enough to understand what goes on outside your tiny cultural bubble, and you have been indoctrinated by the French school system since day one, it's a perfectly normal thing to believe.

Could you give concrete examples of situations where your freedom is restricted in France?

> Could you give concrete examples

I thought I already did, but here it is again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M%27bala_M%27ba...

The dude kept on saying completely outrageous things on public channels, none of which should have been an issue in a country with normal free speech laws.

Here's another interesting case, where a TV channel was outright shutdown because they said things that the powers that be didn't like. I guess Moscow isn't that far east of France:

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/french-tv-cha...

Here's another interesting aspect of life in the land of stinky cheese: cash is by law legal tender, as in:

https://www.banque-france.fr/en/monetary-strategy/means-of-p...

However, it is illegal to buy anything with cash if the transaction is more than 1k euros:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F10999?...

These are just off the top of my head, the list is very long and quite sad.

Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith.

At any rate, one of the main reasons was the repeated offenses of the channel, having beaten a record of fines, and never having done anything to correct their course. Fines are not a cost of operation, they are penalties for breaking the law. You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed. Though I'm sure Hanouna has painted himself quite the victim in this affair.

These fines were often for things I think most people would view as legitimate, such as verbal assault, threats or hate speech.

About cash payments, I think you're making a caricature. From your source:

> There is no limit to the amount paid in cash between individuals (e.g. car purchase). Written text is required beyond €1,500 for to prove payments.

This written text is just a proof of sale, not a justification as to the use of cash or its provenience.

The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud. Many countries implement similar measures, often more stringent. Regardless, I'm almost sure your chauffagiste or mechanic will accept a cash payment of any amount. There is the theory, and then the practice.

I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.

> Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith.

What you say may or may not be true, I wouldn't know, I don't watch French TV.

It is, at any rate entirely irrelevant: if that TV channel was advocating that people should tattoo a swastika on their forehead, they still should be allowed to do so, however retarded that is.

That's what free speech means, however horrible and shocking that may be to you. People are free to make up their mind about the channel and not watch it.

The government has strictly no business, in a truly free country, to decide who can and cannot broadcast.

> You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed.

Why in heaven's name would you even need a license to run a TV channel? Do you need a license to create YouTube videos?

> I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.

This tells me you and I likely don't live the same kind of life.

But if you're happy living in a society where every private transaction you make is monitored by your government, hey, what can I say: more power to you, after all, complete and utter surveillance of the plebs is also what happens in Russia. They also likely think it's normal to have your every move monitored over there.

When you've lived your whole life in a prison, you end up not seeing the walls anymore.

I'm personally very happy I don't have to suffer living in a place like France.

> The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud.

Every coercive power there ever was has always had that kind of "won't you think of the children" or "this is for your own protection" bullshit message to wrap their coercion of basic freedoms in a nice package. This is no different.

I think this is naive regarding propagandists. These TV channels don't "express views", they manipulate and fabricate opinion to serve the interests of their owners (in this case a multi-billionaire industrial family with a far right ideology).

Rather than offer viewpoints, they suppress any constructive discussion and recenter the debate on bogus issues to rile people up and garner votes for populist parties that are friendly to their stakeholders. They are a poison to democracy. The riling up itself also has direct and violent consequences.

In such situations, the freedom of the perpetrators is at odds with the freedom of the victims. There is no solution that prevents a lion eating a gazelle that doesn't involve restraining the lion. As children are taught, "my freedom ends when the freedom of others begins".

I doubt any country in the world allows you to manipulate someone into murder and then walk away with it once the deed is done. Punishing hate speech is that but on a larger scale. I struggle to see the issue, really. The only matter of discussion is the definition of hate speech, but the principle itself is sound and necessary in my opinion (and of the majority of people who welcome that such laws exist).

By the way, you mentioned England in your initial comment, but the UK has similar laws in this regard. Were you thinking of the US as a freer nation? For having lived in both, I'll have to beg to disagree, I've never felt as surveilled as in the US. Private companies store your whole card number and any details you were unfortunate enough to share with a given retailer (such as email address) are shared across nation-wide networks. But it sure is convenient when WholeFoods knows you have an Amazon Prime subscription. Or does it not count when it's private companies, only the government?

You’re free to have your own beliefs about speech. Please don’t say that you believe in free speech, though.

Is libel free speech ?

It’s not illegal. You can be sued for it but not jailed for it.

This is pretty much the same way Americans view America, right? Dead convinced that American freedom of speech is the best in the world, even while people get their permanent residency revoked for making Israel look bad, and other people get denied entry for texting their friend that they aren't the best fan of Trump. It also happens to be the way North Koreans view North Korea (understandable for them, since they're shot if they don't).

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