Non-crime hate incidents - yet another not-at-all-Orwellian reality

[Twilight Hue]

......

My answer is: Anything but create some sort of "censorship police". That way leads to totalitarianism.

Remember Bidens 'Disinformation Governance Board' ?

Disinformation Governance Board - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dangerous totalitarian stuff. America dodged a major bullet when it was rightfully dissolved.

Censorship of free speech has no place in any free society.

 

[danieldemol]

I'm just reporting my understanding of how current free speech laws work in the U.S.

I think you are doing more than that, I believe you are defending US style free speech laws over UK style free speech laws - the latter which don't permit hate speech.

I would assert that in order to defend them successfully you are going to have to answer why violence has to be imminent as a minimum in my view.

 

[icehorse]

I think you are doing more than that, I believe you are defending US style free speech laws over UK style free speech laws - the latter which don't permit hate speech.

I would assert that in order to defend them successfully you are going to have to answer why violence has to be imminent as a minimum in my view.

Okay, where do you draw the line? Are "micro-aggressions" hate speech? Who will be in charge of deciding?

Let me put this another way - what government do YOU trust to decide what YOU are not allowed to hear?

 

[PureX]

I don't know how universal it is, but even
if someone makes contact with a cop that
results in no ticket or arrest, they often make
an electronic record of someone being loud,
angry, insulting, or otherwise disliked. This
is sometimes used to harass the person later.
It's a target on one's back.
That's too much power for a government that's
too unaccountable, too inept, & too corrupt.

But solution is not to disempower government. It's fix the system of accountability.

 

[Revoltingest]

But solution is not to disempower government. It's fix the system of accountability.

I want to take away improper & illegal power.
Cops shouldn't have any ability to track people
who merely offended them. They're experts at
gaming the system. So I'll give them one less
abusive power they must be held accountable for.

 

[PureX]

I want to take away improper & illegal power.
Cops shouldn't have any ability to track people
who merely offended them. They're experts at
gaming the system. So I'll give them one less
abusive power they must be held accountable for.

Capitalists want to keep government weak because the government is the only real threat to their ability to exploit and abuse everyone else. So they constantly blame the government of overreach and abuse and advocate for it's disempowerment. But in reality the people NEED a strong empowered government to keep the capitalists and their bottomless, toxic greed in check. So the real solution is not to disempower the government so the criminals among us can run amok (including the greedy capitalists). The solution is to make government stronger, and better. More responsive to the needs of the people, rather than to the criminal class among the people.

It's a constant challenge, but one we'd better learn to get right, because the consequences are dire if we don't.

 

[Revoltingest]

Capitalists want to keep....

Nothing interesting ever starts out thus.

 

[PureX]

Nothing interesting ever starts out thus.

Nothing that you want to read, that's for sure.

 

[Revoltingest]

Nothing that you want to read, that's for sure.

You need new material.
The tired repetitive vapid rail against
capitalism is devoid of any insight.

 

[PureX]

You need new material.
The tired repetitive vapid rail against
capitalism is devoid of any insight.

Hard to see anything with your eyes closed so tight. Anyway, the comment wasn't for you. It was for those who can still see.

 

[Revoltingest]

Hard to see anything....

I see all.
BTW, your left shoe is untied.

 

[danieldemol]

Okay, where do you draw the line? Are "micro-aggressions" hate speech? Who will be in charge of deciding?

Let me put this another way - what government do YOU trust to decide what YOU are not allowed to hear?

Micro aggressions look like a mixed bag to me, some of them I probably would consider hate speech. But regardless of the grey areas I feel pretty sure an overt call to violence should unambiguously be considered hate speech regardless of the time frame attached.

I trust left governments up to a point, but I see a healthy dose of scepticism as helping maintain the balance particularly in the grey areas.

By the way i would probably tend to penalise hate speech rather than censoring it, so society could still debate whether a penalty is appropriate to what was said.

 

[icehorse]

Micro aggressions look like a mixed bag to me, some of them I probably would consider hate speech. But regardless of the grey areas I feel pretty sure an overt call to violence should unambiguously be considered hate speech regardless of the time frame attached.

I trust left governments up to a point, but I see a healthy dose of scepticism as helping maintain the balance particularly in the grey areas.

By the way i would probably tend to penalise hate speech rather than censoring it, so society could still debate whether a penalty is appropriate to what was said.

Well penalties would be better than censorship, so there's that

So how would you go about defining and judging potential hate speech? (When I think about it, it seems incredibly prone to bias.)

 

[Valjean]

I include socialist/marxist sympathizers in government just as equally.

No, It's pecisely the socialists and the left wing, motivated by the Care and Fairness foundations who find this sort of thing objectionable.
It's the right wing-- the fundamentalists and religious right -- with their emphasis on Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity, who support intrusive and unjustified monitoring of suspected thought-crimes.

 

[danieldemol]

Well penalties would be better than censorship, so there's that

So how would you go about defining and judging potential hate speech? (When I think about it, it seems incredibly prone to bias.)

It is prone to bias, and perhaps the only way to minimise that is to have it judged by a panel of trained minds.

I would probably define it along the lines of speech which causes demonstrable harm, but ultimately im neither a lawyer nor a politician, so the exact wording would be above my personal pay grade.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Remember Bidens 'Disinformation Governance Board' ?

Disinformation Governance Board - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dangerous totalitarian stuff. America dodged a major bullet when it was rightfully dissolved.

Censorship of free speech has no place in any free society.

From your link:

"Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, stated that the board would have no operational authority or capability but would collect best practices for dissemination to DHS organizations already tasked with defending against disinformation threats,[15] and asserted the board would not monitor American citizens.[16] John Cohen, the former acting head of the intelligence branch of the DHS, said that the board would study policy questions, best practices, and academic research on disinformation, and then submit guidance to the DHS secretary on how different DHS agencies should conduct analysis of online content."

It doesn't sound like totalitarian censorship to me.

 

[Twilight Hue]

From your link:

"Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, stated that the board would have no operational authority or capability but would collect best practices for dissemination to DHS organizations already tasked with defending against disinformation threats,[15] and asserted the board would not monitor American citizens.[16] John Cohen, the former acting head of the intelligence branch of the DHS, said that the board would study policy questions, best practices, and academic research on disinformation, and then submit guidance to the DHS secretary on how different DHS agencies should conduct analysis of online content."

It doesn't sound like totalitarian censorship to me.

Of course we all know goverment officials will always keep their word and promise they will never ever break public trust.

Scouts Honor , hope to die and all that.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

So how would you go about defining and judging potential hate speech? (When I think about it, it seems incredibly prone to bias.)

A good place to start would be understanding where a person's speech interferes with another person's ability to assert their own free speech.

For instance, this is a quality forum because it is well moderated in a fair manner. Everyone is free to share their opinions as long as they follow some basic guidelines including personal attacks. Were it not for this, the forum would not be a place where every person would be free to share their opinions. Think of our mission statement:

"As a community of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, our aim is to provide a civil environment, informative, respectful and welcoming where people of diverse beliefs can discuss, compare and debate religion while engaging in fellowship with one another."

An online forum is different from the civil society of a nation, but the idea should be similar. The fundamental rights of humans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are always naturally restricted by recognizing that an individual's right to these should not restrict another's right to these. If murder brings me happiness, I cannot pursue it lest it interferes with anothers right to life.

A person's free speech should not unduly restrict another's. Of course, there are always consequences for this freedom. If I decide to be a racist jerk in public, I can expect to face consequences for that.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Of course we all know goverment officials will always keep their word and promise they will never ever break public trust.

Scouts Honor , hope to die and all that.

Of course!

We should always be wary of those who govern us. That is part of the balancing act of democracy and an important ballast being the right to free speech, especially wielded against the government. But this needs to be a well-tempered weapon, which requires critical thinking and accurate information. Simply labeling everything as free speech and every attempt to manage information as totalitarian censorship adds impurities that creates a pretty shoddy sword.

 

[Sargonski]

For the last 9 or 10 years in the UK, if a citizen is offended by the speech of another, they can file a report with the police who might log a permanent "non-crime hate incident" into their records. It is estimated that around 200,000 such reports have been logged to date.

Here's an excerpt from one of the links below:



In 2023 the guidelines were revised, but remain largely as vague and subjective and disruptive as before.

UK police’s speech-chilling practice of tracking ‘non-crime hate incidents’

Non-crime hate incidents: code of practice

As a mother of mixed race children i am really quite pleased that overt, insulting racist speech can be prosecuted.

Who gets to decide what insulting speech is ? .. and what may not be insulting to you .. may be insulting to someone else .. you having mixed raced children having no relevance to the question ... of how far the thought police should go to effect compliance.

How is having mixed raced children relevant to your apology for totalitarianism .. a totalitarianism which will affect both mixed race children and non mixed race children negatively .. see their essential liberty eroded .. find them living in a police state .. where they are looked on as the criminal.