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Comment by gwervc | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

In recent news from the "land of the free": a Norwegian tourist was detained by ICE and denied entry at Newark Airport for having a funny picture of JD Vance on his phone.

You can claim what you want about freedom of speech being guaranteed in the USA, but the reality shows that it only applies for some people.

https://www.nordlys.no/mads-sin-drommereise-til-usa-spolert-...

What are you talking about? Multiple EU countries have free speech written in their constituion.

Article 5 in German basic law (their constitution): https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h... (translated)

77th paragraph in the Danish constituion: https://www.thedanishparliament.dk/-/media/sites/ft/pdf/publ... (translated)

Edit: the flagged comment I replied to claimed that no EU country had free speech in their constitution. This is objectively wrong, and is why I wrote my comment.

Germany? Must be some dark joke. You know how many things can get you fined there?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/freedom-of-expression-ind...

Freedom of expression index (higher is better)

Germany: 0.94

USA: 0.89

What are you referring to? Denying the Holocaust? Making nazi salutes?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Federal_Re...

Calling someone an asshole, or calling them a racist if they seem to discriminate you based on your race, saying a restaurant isn't good etc. can very easily get you sued in Germany.

Do you have examples for each of those?

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/14fu1fm/legally_th...

https://se-legal.de/criminal-defense-lawyer/defamation-libel...

Heh. If you can't do that you don't have free speech. That's what free speech means.

And yet, they are more democratic and more free then USA. And currently less nazi too.

How do you know they're "less nazi" and not just self censoring? Also if that's what people want isn't it less democratic to suppress it?

Things like free speech and voting are more a service to the elites for this reason IMO.

No, it is not less democratic to suppress movements whose explicit goal is dictatorship and abuse of other people.

They are in fact self censoring. I live there and many people are just Nazis. It's illegal to be a Nazi, but the law works on facts you can prove in court, and the only way you can prove that is if they, for example, yelled Heil Hitler, or did the salute, or waved a swastika flag. As long as they're not too obvious about it, it's de facto allowed. Some people are still stupid enough to do the obvious signs of course.

> "Multiple EU countries have free speech written in their constituion."

That's an exceedingly low bar! We need more critical thinking than that to start a substantive discussion about comparative freedoms across political systems. A government can't just declare itself to be a free country; it's practical reality which matters.

Exhibits A, B, & C:

> "Citizens of the People's Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration"

https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/laws_regulations/2014/08/... ("Constitution of the People’s Republic of China")

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27...

> "In conformity with the interests of the toilers, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:—(a) Freedom of speech; (b) Freedom of the Press; (c) Freedom of assembly and of holding mass meetings; (d) Freedom of street processions and demonstrations..."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Soviet_Socialist_Con... ("Constitution of the Soviet Union (1936)")

> "Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association. The State shall guarantee the conditions for the free activities of democratic political parties and social organizations."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Socialist_Constitution_of_the... ("Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (2023)")

The flagged comment I responded to claimed that no EU country had free speech in their constitution. My comment was in response to that.

You have to assume the country in question follows has a Rule of Law. You're argument also works against the US as of recently, less so against Germany.

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