Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gareth321 | Hacker News Reader

> But the rest of the world lives in a more free speech society.

Dane here, this is not just specious, it's inaccurate. We have far fewer free speech rights in Europe than they do in the US. Tens of thousands of people all over Europe are arrested and imprisoned each year for speech which would be considered protected in the US. [This man was arrested for calling a politician an idiot.](https://www.ft.com/content/27626fa8-3379-4b69-891d-379401675...) [Another German citizen was investigated for calling another politician fat.](https://thegoldreport.com/news/german-police-investigating-u...) [This UK citizen was arrested for re-tweeting a meme and refusing re-education classes.](https://fee.org/articles/uk-man-arrested-for-malicious-commu...)

You're not fighting "fascism" by posting memes on Reddit. You're using computers and electronics and networks built by China, which is currently conducting ethnic genocide, and regularly utilises slave labour, among many other atrocities.

For posterity, Grok 4.5 isn't fascism. You need to spend just a little bit of time reading up about the history of fascism because you demean the entire concept and threat with these histrionics. If you keep crying wolf, no one will care when real danger emerges.

View on HN

But it looks like your examples are all examples of people being mean, or disruptive, or trolling.

For example, for the first German arrested, it looks like it was brought to justice more as "libel and harassment" than because of the political opinion (and apparently, the judgement ended up being favourable to the arrested guy), something any civilised country should be able to do.

And it looks like in the majority of the cases, the justice reverted the sanction. In a fair civilised country, this is the expected process: if you don't sometimes start a judicial process on something that later turns out to not be a problem, then you probably are not a fair country. The world is a Gaussian curve: you will have "right-leaning" people unfairly accused as honest mistake, and you will have "left-leaning" people unfairly accused as honest mistake.

The underlying opinion they may have is not illegal. In all of these countries, you can openly say you don't like the politician in power or say you don't agree. But it is very strange that when people complain about "freedom of speech", the large majority of the examples are about socially abusive behavior, of people trolling or insulting others.

> But it looks like your examples are all examples of people being mean, or disruptive, or trolling.

That doesn't and shouldn't matter. I don't want people getting arrested for doing any of these things, even if I disagree with them. Do you know how disruptive it is to your life, let alone your emotional health, to be arrested?

I'm also a Dane. Denmark is worlds worse than the US in free speech and it's getting worse. This applies across the EU where people like the Spanish prime minister thinks no one deserves anonymity on the internet.

> That doesn't and shouldn't matter.

I fully disagree. Arrest should be "neutral", not based on the political content, but on the social intent.

If you believe X is good for the society, good, talk about it, have a debate, bring arguments.

If you believe X is good for the society but push for it by being a troll, then, you get arrested. Not because of what you've said, but because you have been a nuisance.

The fact that you are being a nuisance just disqualifies you. If you are unable to have an adult behavior, you have nothing to bring to the discussion, and you shoot yourself in the foot.

If I organise a debate and someone arrives, jumps on the table, drops their trousers and defecates in the middle of the table, it does not matter what are their opinion, it does not matter if I'm personally impacted by the presence of the poo, it does not matter if "you can just wipe it and proceed". This person chooses, by their action, to disqualify themselves.

And the fact they then whine "by freedom of speech" as if they were the victim while they chosen, consciously, to be prick, is just pathetic.

There should be no arrest without obvious evidence of a crime. These thinngs are not complicated - aka collecting evidence and testimony.

It's just 'what some guy said on twitter'.

They can literally apply an algo to determine whether it's lawful or not.

And it should almost never be unlawful.

'Hate Speech' is as not remotely dangerous as lies and people acting in bad faith. (Not saying I support egregious forms of hate speech, but we should strongly err on the side of open expressoin).

The most dangerous people are those lying for political or ideological causes, which is completely legal (and probably shoudl be) but we have to watch out for it.

Which "arrest" are you even talking about? And which "evidence" are you talking about?

In these examples, these people are getting into trouble for being pricks. There is plenty of evidence about them, objectively, being pricks.

As for the consequences, as I've said, my point is that the world is a Gaussian curve: the majority of cases will be "well-proportionate", the existence of outliers does not demonstrate oppression. Especially when some of these cases were condemned as disproportionate by even "left-wing" people.

> 'Hate Speech' is as not remotely dangerous as lies and people acting in bad faith.

While I agree lies and bad faith should have more consequences, the thing is that "Hate Speech" is utterly useless.

"Hate Speech" is never needed to express your opinion."Hate Speech" is never needed to propose solution, or convince someone else that your idea is good.

It is like saying "well, I randomly spit in people in the street, but it's not as bad as lying, so why are people faster to condemn my actions". Because spitting is useless, it does not bring anything, you don't need to do it.

If you think that people should be arrested for 'being pricks' then you are the problem here entirely.

Your assessment here that somehow 'language that does not propose a solution' should somehow be banned is Orwellian.

People can say what they want unless a direct call to assault.

Everything else is a choice - people want to use the N-word in their place of work -> they get fired. In front a a judge -> fined. Walking down the street -> people avoid them like turds.

People lying on social media -> fact checked, marginalized, punted form the Televised Debate.

None of that is illegal.

> If you think that people should be arrested for 'being pricks' then you are the problem here entirely.

It is not what I'm saying. I'm saying they are not arrested because of their opinion, they are arrested for their actions. It is not a "freedom of speech" issue, it is about "civility".

You may consider that arresting these people for that is too far (good news, not only me, but the majority of people, including on the left, seem to agree. In these examples, the process concluded it was a mistake, and the person won the case).

By the way, I've asked you which arrest you are talking about, because of some of the examples, there were no arrest at all. Just someone said "oh, I don't like that" and you starting to cry "boohoo, they are arresting me". Talking earlier about people lying, that is a good example.

But this is not a "freedom of speech" issue.

> Your assessment here that somehow 'language that does not propose a solution' should somehow be banned is Orwellian.

Again another straw man argument.

I am against these arrests, like the majority of the people, including the left-wing people. These arrests are the result of over-zealous policemen. But these arrests are not happening because of the person's opinion, they are happening because the person is being an idiot and act in a way where someone not stupid will know they should avoid.

Again, it does not mean they should be arrested.

But it means it is not a freedom of speech issue. These are just losers with not very smart opinion, who acted stupidly and ended up getting some trouble.

No opinion was ever suppressed. Whatever opinion these people have, anyone can express exactly the same opinion content (simply avoiding to do it stupidly), and they will be perfectly fine. In none of these cases, the problem was the opinion itself: you cannot arrest someone for their opinions.

> But it looks like your examples are all examples of people being mean, or disruptive, or trolling.

It looks like you aren't disagreeing with me. You're agreeing with me that Europe has worse and fewer free speech rights. You appear to like that Europe has worse and fewer free speech rights. In the US, one has the right to be mean, disruptive, and troll, without being arrested. We do not.

No, I disagree: in Europe, you can talk about more subjects and have civilised debates around more topics that would get you in trouble in US.

Unrelated to that, I like that in Europe, people who are mean, disruptive or trolling get punished for their childish behaviors. It does not affect freedom of speech, these people have chosen to act like idiots, they did not needed to act like that to express their speech.

Then, if you are saying that on some opinions, the majority of the people who hold these opinions are unable to use proper arguments and civilised debates and resort to being pricks, then I guess it indicates the level of sophistication of these opinions. It is not a freedom of speech problem, the problem is that that opinions is mainly shared by terrible people unable to behave.

> in Europe, you can talk about more subjects and have civilised debates around more topics that would get you in trouble in US.

Be specific please. It looks like you're trying to blur the lines now by using words like "in trouble" when the discussion is around free speech and the legal boundaries. But I won't accuse you of that unless you actually do it, so please explain which free speech us Europeans may practise which would get an US citizen into legal trouble.

> Unrelated to that, I like that in Europe, people who are mean, disruptive or trolling get punished for their childish behaviors. It does not affect freedom of speech, these people have chosen to act like idiots, they did not needed to act like that to express their speech.

Freedom of speech requires the right to offend. You don't know what you say might offend someone until you've already said it. If you're required to not offend someone, you must exercise enormous self-censorship. The right to not offend is antithetical to the principle of free speech.

The original comment talks about

> it is a taboo subject that ends careers and family connections.

To be specific, in US, subjects like criticising Trump can have a big impact. In Europe, criticizing any politician is very very common. In US, it is very polarised, you cannot talk politics with people you don't know.

As for work, in US, research grant were removed for using some "woke" keywords for political/ideological reasons. In Europe, grants are decided by the peers, and when a controversial subject is not attributed a grant, it is not for political/ideological reason, it is because the scientific value is considered as poor.

> Freedom of speech requires the right to offend. You don't know what you say might offend someone until you've already said it.

That's not a good argument. I'm not talking about "someone expressing their opinion that happen to offend". I'm talking about people doing actions that are offending without regard of their opinion. In the examples you have given, the exact same person would have the exact same problem if they had the same behavior but hold totally different ideological opinion.

That's my point: you are politicizing the debate. These people got in trouble not at all because of their opinion, but because they acted like prick. For each "right-wing" opinion that got into trouble, you can easily find example of "left-wing" opinion that also got into trouble the same way in similar circumstances. And people doing exactly the same acts as these people would be prosecuted the same way: there is no "cooling effect", people are not afraid of talking about certain topics, because whatever topics you are talking about, the probability of getting into trouble is identical.

If your argument is "there is no freedom of speech unless people can act like prick", then this is obviously incorrect. Killing my neighbour is "acting like a prick". Where does it stop? Does me not being able to kill my neighbour means I don't have freedom of speech? Is "libel" or "harassment" something we should accept for "freedom of speech" while in practice, tolerating these practices reduce diversity of opinion?

> In Europe, criticizing any politician is very very common.

Criticizing politicians has gotten people arrested in Europe. This doesn't happen in the US.

> As for work, in US, research grant were removed for using some "woke" keywords for political/ideological reasons. In Europe, grants are decided by the peers, and when a controversial subject is not attributed a grant, it is not for political/ideological reason, it is because the scientific value is considered as poor.

This is naive. You think European scientists are immune to political influence, ideological conformity and fads?

> Criticizing politicians has gotten people arrested in Europe. This doesn't happen in the US.

Can you provide some examples? All I've seen are examples where people did not just criticize politicians, but went way further. When, at the same time, "normal" people have absolutely no problem criticizing politicians in a "normal" way. So they were not arrested for criticizing politicians, they were arrested for acting like idiots.

> This is naive. You think European scientists are immune to political influence, ideological conformity and fads?

Well, first, it cuts both way: left-leaning scientists have a left-leaning bias, and right-leaning scientists have a right-leaning bias. So it cancels out.

But second, there is a difference between "experts making a rational decision but being unconsciously biased" and "politicians who have no idea of the subject who ruin a scientist career because they saw the term "Enola Gay" or "financial equity"". One is a bad second order side-effect, the other is frontal political thought control.

> When, at the same time, "normal" people have absolutely no problem criticizing politicians in a "normal" way.

So you agree that the US has more free speech because people can deviate from your completely arbitrarily defined "normal" form of critique.

As for examples, the German criminal code has literally criminalized insulting people (section 185), and insulting politicians has even harsher penalties (section 188). There are hundreds of articles covering cases, just ask any AI for a summary.

> So they were not arrested for criticizing politicians, they were arrested for acting like idiots.

In your opinion, acting like an idiot is a criminal offense, even if it does not harm anyone, in the tort sense?

> Well, first, it cuts both way: left-leaning scientists have a left-leaning bias, and right-leaning scientists have a right-leaning bias. So it cancels out.

And what are the political demographics of academia right now? This is a big reason for the replication crisis in the social sciences.

> politicians who have no idea of the subject who ruin a scientist career because they saw the term "Enola Gay" or "financial equity"".

That isn't really happening. No one's career is being ruined by having to rewrite grant proposals to remove DEI language, because previous policy required DEI language. The restructuring of academic funding and incentives is frankly long overdue. Everyone, including scientists, has been complaining about grant funding and the skewed incentives in academia, like publish or perish. You often have to break a system before it can be fixed.

> So you agree that the US has more free speech because people can deviate from your completely arbitrarily defined "normal" form of critique.

What? No, in the US, people will also be in trouble, not only from deviating from my "normal" form of critique, but also when they don't deviate from it.

Trump called for investigation and arrest on Comey, Cheney, Powell, ... despite the fact that they never crossed the line in expressing their criticism to Trump's decisions. This has never happened in Europe.

> the German criminal code has literally criminalized insulting people

How is that a bad thing? If your opinions are not stupid, you don't need to insult people to express them.

> In your opinion, acting like an idiot is a criminal offense

What? Is that really what you understand? I'm just saying that they acted like an idiot by doing something they should have known was unnecessary and will led to trouble, including judicial one.

Me: "Mr Smith was not arrested because he wears a red t-shirt, he was arrested because he acted like an idiot by deciding to expose himself to children in the street". You: "So you are saying that acting like an idiot is a criminal offence".

> And what are the political demographics of academia right now? This is a big reason for the replication crisis in the social sciences.

Oh, there it goes. Academia are highly international and therefore meritocracy based: if you think that Harvard is too "left wing", go to Paris, or Tel Aviv, or Quebec, or Japan, or Melbourne, or Rome, or London, or any other "anti-woke" university in USA or somewhere else, and publish your piece and become famous for having demonstrated objectively something that the intelligencia wanted to hide. This idea that the whole word is so much into the conspiracy that every universities on Earth are covering the left-wing academia conspiracy is so stupid. Maybe another reason is that a lot of right-wing political ideas don't make sense when confronted to a rigorous analysis, and therefore the right-wing positions are falling from natural selection.

> That isn't really happening

Yeah, sure, and your fantasy about academic left-wing conspiracy and anti-freedom-of-speech-dictatorship in Europe, these are really happening. Sure.

> Trump called for investigation and arrest on Comey, Cheney, Powell, ... despite the fact that they never crossed the line in expressing their criticism to Trump's decisions.

I'm not a fan of Trump's governance, but none of those people were investigated for "criticizing Trump's decisions".

> This has never happened in Europe.

Poland: The "Lex Tusk" Commission (2023)

Hungary: The Sovereignty Protection Office (2023)

Ukraine: Viktor Yanukovych vs. Yulia Tymoshenko (2011)

Turkey: Erdoğan vs. Ekrem İmamoğlu

Romania: Investigating the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor (2018)

France: The "Clearstream Affair" (2004)

> How is that a bad thing? If your opinions are not stupid, you don't need to insult people to express them.

1. Insults are subjective. If you don't see the problem with criminalizing subjective opinions, then I don't know what to tell you.

2. You're literally trying to restrict how I express my legitimate opinions while simultaneously claiming that speech is freer in Europe.

> Me: "Mr Smith was not arrested because he wears a red t-shirt, he was arrested because he acted like an idiot by deciding to expose himself to children in the street". You: "So you are saying that acting like an idiot is a criminal offence".

You've lost the plot. The original point was that people were arrested for criticizing politicians, your rebuttal was that the way they did it was idiotic, which directly implies that you're ok with criminalizing idiocy even when the criticism is legitimate. Your reply here is a complete red herring.

> Academia are highly international and therefore meritocracy based:

This does not follow. Literally.

> This idea that the whole word is so much into the conspiracy that every universities on Earth are covering the left-wing academia conspiracy is so stupid.

It's not a conspiracy when people are just acting in their own best interests. I don't know where you got the idea that it has to be a conspiracy.

> Maybe another reason is that a lot of right-wing political ideas don't make sense when confronted to a rigorous analysis, and therefore the right-wing positions are falling from natural selection.

This is also delusional, and frankly completely ignorant of studies done on exactly this (not only researcher bias, publication bias, hiring bias, and more).

> I'm not a fan of Trump's governance, but none of those people were investigated for "criticizing Trump's decisions".

Is that a joke? These people would never have been investigated if they were not critical towards Trump. The only reason they are investigated is because Trump is taking revenge on them for the crime of saying that Trump is wrong.

Again, this does not happen in Europe. There are political enemies, and they fight between each others. But you would struggle to find 2 political allies, with a president saying positive about the other person on Monday, and then on Friday calling for this person to be investigated because the other person has said something they did not like.

> Poland, ...

These are not cases of a president retaliating on a rival that criticized them. These are corruption, or fights between political parties, or tax evasion, ... Nothing to do with freedom of speech.

> 1. Insults are subjective

Everything is subjective. Hitting someone is subjective, so according to you, criminalising "battery" is dangerous because you can arrest people who just bumped into you in the subway. Pretending that it means full arbitrary situation is just stupid.

> 2. You're literally trying to restrict how I express my legitimate opinions

No, you can do it if you want, you just have to pay for the damage you have done when you use it as an idiot. It is as ridiculous as saying: we are in a free country, so I can walk wherever I want, including in your bedroom when you are sleeping.

No one is ever arresting for your opinion. In all of the initial examples, there are plenty of people who criticize openly these politicians that you pretend people will be arrested if they criticize them. It does not happen. Because it is not true that you are arrested if you criticize them.

> The original point was that people were arrested for criticizing politicians

They were not arrested for criticizing politicians. Some of the examples are literally not attack on politicians, they don't target a politician as individual. Some examples are not even any arrest. And the other examples, they were "arrested" for being stupid, where it happened they were also targeting a politician. They would have been arrested equally if they targeted another public figure.

> It's not a conspiracy when people are just acting in their own best interests.

It is on the best interest of individuals to get a lot of prestige by demonstrating a consensus is not supported by facts.

> frankly completely ignorant of studies done on exactly this

I don't think someone who provided tax evasion examples of powerful targeting opponents just because they were critical of them would be able to understand these studies.

Posting a swastika is not free speech. All the rest, you have in the US as well (libel, etc).

[This is what he re-tweeted.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Swastika...) It might be in bad taste but arresting him and insisting he undergo re-education is crazy, and I can't believe you would defend it. No one gets arrested in the US for re-tweeting memes like this.

As for the rest, you're free to call politicians fat idiots without being arrested in the US, and once again, I cannot believe you would defend arresting people for that.

I haven't looked at the particular case, but nazism is a particular thing - given Europe's history it's there for a very good reason in most EU countries.

I don't know about the 'fat idiot', but in most EU countries that's more than fine so I have a bit of a hard time believing that was the sole reason - public figures are fair target for stuff like that. The limit is actually planning or inciting violence against someone or a group - again, the same as in the US.

Yes and US guys are plain wrong on swastika thing - you could even financially support open nazi militants like Azov battalion from most EU countries without any consequences.

Not if you're an immigrant on a visa and talk shit about ICE online.

> Grok 4.5 isn't fascism.

THat is a fair assertion.

It is however a product of a regime that is currently debasing freedom and racially targeting its own citizens and causing them harm. Is it as bad as what happens to Chinese muslims? No.

But does it have a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world? yes. Musk is funding authoritarianism in the UK. He is funding people that are causing racial division. He is promoting views that are antithetical to the core of U belief.

Grok is a product of this man, and all that baggage.

I can say "I'm an atheist and I hate organised religion" without losing my job.

Can Americans do that?

I can say "I hate the orange clown (insert any other politician) and actively dislike everyone that voted for him", without getting a call from HR.

Can they?

I can't even enter the USA if I share some of the social media accounts like I'm legally required to do.

The 'free speech absolutists' are all calling for censorship in this thread.

So much for free speech.

Yes Americans can do both, unless their boss dislikes it, but that applies the world over.

> that applies the world over

It does not. Plenty of countries have functioning labor laws preventing you from being fired for your religious or political opinions.

Um yeah you can do all of that without legal consequences. HR is not the government. Are these your best examples?

A society that values free expression should be uncomfortable with people being fired merely for holding a different political opinion from their boss.

In the Netherlands, “political opinion” is explicitly listed as a protected discrimination ground.

And in Europe generally, employee speech can fall under freedom of expression, though courts balance that against the employer’s interests, reputation, workplace disruption, etc.

Meanwhile, in the US you'll get fired by phone while your boss is golfing.

Freedom baby.

>I can say "I'm an atheist and I hate organised religion" without losing my job.

Unless you live in the UK

https://old.reddit.com/r/justifiedpolitics/comments/1uocwp4/...

You understand that there is a difference between just expressing your opinion in a normal way, and, on purpose, creating confrontational situations, right?

This guy is totally free to say he hates organised religion. He is not free to be a prick and go out of his way to try to get into a confrontation.

>He is not free to be a prick and go out of his way to try to get into a confrontation.

You mean like saying at work you hate all organised religions, unprompted, like OP wants to do?

Why do you say OP wants that?

They said:

> I can say "I'm an atheist and I hate organised religion" without losing my job.

It did not say they say it at work, or unprompted.

I think in US, if you mention it in a discussion on this subject at the water cooler between friends, it can have an impact on your work, you need to be careful (but I will not die on this hill, I don't think it's the important point anyway). The spirit of OP was about "talking about it", in a "normal way", I don't understand why you are saying that it is impossible to say you hate all organised religions without doing it unprompted or confrontationally.

As for the video, come on, you really don't see the problem? Police usually are drilled to arrest people who can inflame the situation, and this is why they are acting here. I even wonder if it was not the goal of the guy in the first place, to generate clicks and arguing "see, we cannot express ourselves anymore".

HR is usually drilled to fire people who can generate bad publicity, and that's why they are acting in OP's situation.

Free speech preserved!

How is that free speech when you are fired for your opinion?

If you are fired because you are not "a pretty girl" and the argument is "the public prefer pretty girls, so we do it to increase sales", it is still discrimination, it is still sexist. It does not matter if you blame it on someone else: if you fire someone because of their opinion, you are discriminating. If the fact that someone has an opinion costs you some money, then it costs you some money, your financial profit is not important, you are not the centre of the universe, and if you act to preserve your profit over the fairness and justice, then you are just a parasite that should be excluded from a civilised society.

>> We have far fewer free speech rights in Europe than they do in the US.

I'm in the UK. Mean tweets lead straight to jail now.

No wonder prisons are overcrowded, they must be full of twitter users.

Put down the drama bouquet, princess.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com