Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

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> We value speech differently.

Yes, we do.

Even ideas that most of us find distasteful should be spoken freely. Yes, this means that we can't jail fringe nutcases who bombard the rest of us with speech that is tasteless, racist, homophobic, obscene, dogmatic, or un-patriotic. (But no law requires anyone to be friends with such people, either.)

But occasionally, the fringe loonies are right. Today most people will agree: Women should have the right to vote. The color of your skin shouldn't decide your destiny in life. Slavery did need to end. If valuable ideas like these can't be suppressed by the government, they can spread throughout our society and eventually change things for the better.

And we can criticize our government openly. As an American, I can say that the war in Afghanistan needs to end, the war in Iraq never should have begun, Obamacare is stupid, President Obama is stupid, taxes are too high, my Senator's incompetent...(I don't actually believe all of these things; they're just random examples of criticisms of government.) This is perhaps the most important part of free speech, and according to the article, the UK lacks these protections.

Free speech protections in the UK aren't as good as the US, but I fully realize that it's nowhere near as bad as a lot of places. In many countries, openly criticizing one's rulers like this would lead to jailing, execution or "disappearance" -- not just of the person, but possibly their family and known associates as well, regardless of their guilt or innocence. (I'm speaking of moral guilt. In authoritarian regimes, when a person's arrested, it virtually guarantees they'll be guilty as far as that country's laws are concerned.)

My country had women's suffrage before yours. My country had a great transformation from a primarily racist white society to one where all have equal rights. I too can openly criticize my government and people aren't disappeared off the streets. I won't be saying which country I'm talking about as it is irrelevant.

Everything in social justice the United States has achieved my country also has, with our different free speech values.

I don't presume to say one is better or worse, but I do consider it totally arrogant the attitude Americans display when talking down about other country's free speech values.

Which are different. Not necessarily worse.

> different. Not necessarily worse.

> I too can openly criticize my government and people aren't disappeared off the streets

In the UK, you can't. That's the main point of the article. Criticism of government results in criminal penalties in the UK. That's the whole point of what the article says. That's the definition of "not being able to exercise free speech."

(Okay, you won't be "disappeared off the streets." You'll be given a fair trial before an impartial court, convicted, and sent to jail. But the relevant idea is having a criminal penalty for criticism of government, not the precise form of the penalty.)

That's not supported by the content of the article. You can certainly criticize the government in the UK, but what you can't do is inflame public sentiment without consequences. I somewhat prefer the US approach, but there's some value in the UK approach too. The public interest and the government's interest are most certainly not considered to be the same thing by the judiciary.

>In the UK, you can't. That's the main point of the article.

Criticising the government isn't what landed these people in jail, it's that the British public found their posts offensive. Look at the examples given in the article again; burning poppies on remembrance sunday, tasteless comments about murdered children, and a tactless joke about bombing an airport.

You've read into the article a problem that doesn't exist.

> the British public found their posts offensive

For any given piece of speech, it's not hard to find someone who's offended by it. So that's a terrible standard for free speech rules, unless you want to have a country of silence.

> You've read into the article a problem that doesn't exist

You may have a point. Let's examine the examples:

1. The airport bombing comment is probably the easiest to call unprotected speech. Even on first reading of the article, I thought "That sounds like an actual threat...Let's see what else they have."

2. The comment about the soldiers could also be considered a physical threat, but it's more of a stretch; "I hope X dies and goes to hell" isn't nearly as strong as "I'm going to kill X".

3. I can't find the specific wording of the comment regarding the murdered children.

4. That leaves us with the poppy-burning; but it seems like this would be a clear case of protected speech in the US.

That's a grand total of one correctly classified instances of unprotected speech (1), one incorrectly classified instance of protected speech (4), and two for which the correct classification is unknown or shaky (2-3). That is, if you take "correct" to be "protected speech according to US law," which is the only classification of protected-vs-unprotected speech I'm familiar enough with to do this analysis.

The data indicate that the UK might have a systematic problem correctly classifying instances of protected speech, but you're right; that certainly isn't a clear-cut conclusion from the article.

This article is bullshit and your comments are offensive ignorant bullshit. You threaten to blow up an international airport on Twitter in the US, even as a joke, and see how well your authorities respond to it! See if your First Amendment rights count for anything when essentially threatening an act of terrorism. I'm not saying that the British response was the right one - I signed the petition to drop the case as it was preposterous - but to pretend that the US would act any differently is ludicrous, First Amendment rights or otherwise.

Yours is a country that wanted to extradite a man with Aspergers to potentially face capital charges for 'espionage' (hacking NASA looking for information about aliens) out of spite because they were made to look foolish by him.

Listen my friend, pontificate when you are pure. Don't make assumption about things based on 'articles' written by hacks with a blatant political agenda that you don't fully understand, lest you end up looking like you do - a sanctimonious prat. Yes ad hominem, because this once it's warranted.

Has someone in the US been convicted of a crime for joking about blowing up an airport? In a state or federal court? Or, has someone in the US been held for, say, a month or more awaiting a charge for same?

Try it and see. However, if anything happens as a consequence, you are on your own.

I do think that the court prosecutions in the UK against Twitter and Facebook users have gone too far and that this is a worrying trend.

Overall, the UK has good freedom of speech (not perfect, but then which country has?).

As others have pointed out, you can criticise politicians and the government in the UK without of fear of criminal penalties (unless your language is threatening or racist).

I think in the UK, we tend to show a little less deference towards politicians and high-ranking officials than in the US. And that means people are not afraid to be critical face-to-face with politicians (without fear of reprisals). For example, here's Nick Clegg (the deputy Prime Minister) facing a bunch of angry students who don't mince their words

http://youtu.be/88fQ2RIoqQA?t=1m44s

> Women should have the right to vote. The color of your skin shouldn't decide your destiny in life. Slavery did need to end.

Plenty of countries were ahead on all three of those regardless of the right to 'free speech'.

There are lots of good things about the United States, there are lots of bad things too. Free Speech is good, but it did not automatically lead to the abolishment of slavery, a lack of discrimination and the women vote. It definitely helped but the courage of those standing up for their rights was orders of magnitude more important. It also does not translate into being able to say whatever you want.

And in spite of free speech the United States still has a long way to go when it comes to citizens rights, due process, cross border criminality and last but not least the rights of LGBT people.

The United States is not at the pinnacle of civilization yet and there are tons of countries that rank higher on various parameters than the United States does.

> it did not automatically lead to the abolishment of slavery, a lack of discrimination and the women vote

That's not the point. The point is that, in 100 years, some of the things that you, me and most of our friends think today might turn out to have been terrible, shortsighted, bigoted groupthink mistakes that resulted in the oppression of millions of people.

We aren't doing it on purpose, of course. We try to be as vigilant as we can about that sort of error by constantly considering different ideas and questioning our own assumptions, prejudices, and cultural habits.

It's hard to do that if it's illegal to talk about different ideas, or say that we might be headed in the wrong direction.

And if it turns out that, despite our best efforts, we can't see the truth which will eventually emerge -- then we shouldn't compound the evils caused by our wrongheaded beliefs by using the power of the state to silence our critics.

> That's not the point.

Well, then maybe you should not have used those as examples to bolster your argument. As it is they don't hold water.

> The point is that, in 100 years, some of the things that you, me and most of our friends think today might turn out to have been terrible, shortsighted, bigoted groupthink mistakes that resulted in the oppression of millions of people.

So, please name some examples where free speech in the United States right now gives it the moral high ground on some subject, higher ground than that reached in countries without free speech by your definition, but otherwise functional democracies (i.e. a very large number of countries).

> We aren't doing it on purpose, of course.

Right now, in your country there are lots of groups actively promoting hatred behind the fig-leaf of free speech, and there are a lot of issues that are not being resolved with people purposely obstructing others in spite of free speech. The correlation between 'free speech' meaningful progress on any of these fronts is not visible to me as an outsider.

> It's hard to do that if it's illegal to talk about different ideas, or say that we might be headed in the wrong direction.

There are a large number of countries that do not have American style 'free speech' where talking about different ideas or saying that you're headed in the wrong direction is not illegal.

> And if it turns out that, despite our best efforts, we can't see the truth which will eventually emerge -- then we shouldn't compound the evils caused by our wrongheaded beliefs by using the power of the state to silence our critics.

There are more options than Iran, North Korea and The United States. Many of those options are perfectly workable and produce societies that are morally speaking the equivalent or the superior of the United States.

Feel free to lecture the rest of us on how well Free Speech works when you have your house in order, until then it is just one more factor in a very large number of factors. It is a positive factor, but when you fail on so many other fronts that its effect fades into insignificance you might as well not have it.

Feel free to lecture the rest of us on how well Free Speech works when you have your house in order

I don't think any country including the US is exempt from criticism -- very strong criticism, at that -- on a variety of fronts. Several people here have tried to derail the discussion into areas such as slavery, women's suffrage, the Second Amendment, torture, or whatever, but those are all offtopic for the (sub)thread. Our house is not "in order," and neither is yours or anyone else's, so what's the point in dragging out a laundry list of unrelated accusations?

My other comment is the most important thing I have to say to this, but in regard to your other points:

> There are lots of good things about the United States, there are lots of bad things too...in spite of free speech the United States still has a long way to go when it comes to...The United States is not at the pinnacle of civilization yet...

I never said that improvement was impossible or the USA was number one in every category of freedom.

My point was that we Americans tend to assume the UK is like us, due to our common language, shared history, superpower status, democratic government, etc. -- so it's a bit of a shock to realize that things which would be perfectly legal free speech here are illegal in the UK.

> [Free speech] also does not translate into being able to say whatever you want.

I never said it did. In the US, it's illegal to say things that will cause a panic or incite violence. Obscenity is a special category with a long history of regulation, which has been rolled back considerably in the last fifty years or so. Individuals have some degree of privacy with regard to publication of photos or details of their lives, which is less for politicians or other public figures. Lies which harm someone's reputation can result in a successful lawsuit. Commercial advertising has to be truthful. Free speech protections only apply to government actions; private individuals or organizations can set their own rules for spaces they own. (Just read an HN post about Apple's prudishness with respect to app content a little while ago [1].) Just being able to legally say something doesn't mean you should; saying controversial things may make people and businesses shy away from associating with you. It may be hard to find friends or employment if you make a habit of expressing highly unpopular or distasteful opinions.

Personally, I feel free to cut loose with this ID. I say what I want -- usually what I actually believe, but sometimes I play devil's advocate or seek out controversy. I think HN can be just a hair on the insular side sometimes, getting itself into one big groupthink because most of us are rather similar in a lot of ways; I try to push others out of their comfort zone when I think it'll be good for them, and for HN and society as a whole. I suppose you can think of me as a friendly troll.

But I'm well aware of the risks of free speech. Other than IP address, there's absolutely nothing about this ID which correlates with my real identity or my identity in other places online. I don't express myself strongly on controversial topics like politics or religion in real life, unless I'm with friends who I know well and who are intellectually strong enough to agree to disagree -- something even very bright people sometimes are not.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4825235

And we can criticize our government openly. As an American, I can say that the war in Afghanistan needs to end, the war in Iraq never should have begun, Obamacare is stupid, President Obama is stupid, taxes are too high, my Senator's incompetent...(I don't actually believe all of these things; they're just random examples of criticisms of government.) This is perhaps the most important part of free speech, and according to the article, the UK lacks these protections.

You can say every (equivalent) one of those things in the UK. What the UK has is restrictions upon threatening or inflammatory speech, so saying a particular person should be killed or die, that a politician should be raped, or that we should commit atrocities to reach an end. If one were to send a threat to the President, one would discover where the US line is similarly drawn.

Criticism is fine. Threats or aggressive malice are not. And most Brits, thankfully, believe this. All reasonable curbs on a continent where people were ripping each other to shreds in their millions within the past 100 years.

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