Comment by Arkhaine_kupo
13 hours ago
Sometimes there is a worthwhile discussion on the reach and breath of policing, sometimes ridiculous people with insane views and 0 technical or legislative knowledge make opinion eds for people to share as rage bait.
Please just look at the other content from the "lovely" Laurie Wastell of the spectator to find the kind of groups, opinions and places she wants to protect vs those she doesn't.
like I would be kinda embarrased to share news sources from people being actively sued for the harm they caused with their misinformation (in their case vaccine lies).
> If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]
this was a law introudced by a conservative goverment, as part of their increase in police tools, which in large part came from support for "anti woke" policing of the pro black protests that came after it erupted in america.
People like the previouslike mentioned Mrs Wastell advocated for stronger sentencing and more police, and now that the leopards are eating the faces of the people who spend all day on facebook sending death threats to muslims she is now so incredibly offended.
Btw another reason for the focus on the NCHI is because the police are swamped, the Conservatives under theresa may cut their budget 40% which meant they have way less people so to keep stats up, you gotta focus on the easy shit.
Maybe if we hadn't brought in consulting types who advocate for stats to show work progress, conservative cuts to salaries and advocated for "blue lives matter" which pushed for stronger sentencing laws we would not be here but somehow Mrs Whitehall and you will take 0 accountability and instead blame "woke judges" or some other nonsense as she does in her article.
If you really believe that your fellow citizens can be easily influenced to undertake extreme actions by a twitter post, why not end democracy altogether? Since citizens are seemingly perpetual minors who lack agency over their actions. This is why all authoritarian regimes absolutely love hate speech laws.
> If you really believe that your fellow citizens can be easily influenced to undertake extreme actions by a twitter post
so words have no capability of influencing people? Why speak at all if it can never change anyones opinion?
See what happens when you do reduction to absurdity of any argument?
But seriously, ask yourself: Is the entire ad industry a sham? Are state actors like the kremlin troll farms, the chinese fake newspapers and the cia meme department all wrong and no one can ever be influenced because they are adults and rational actors all the time? Are objectively effective misinformation campaigns like Brexit not proof of succesful compelling speech through channels like cambridge Analytica?
> why not end democracy altogether?
democracy is about empowering people. Leaving people to construct an identity through heaps of misinformation is not democracy, its insane and it cannot work.
> Since citizens are seemingly perpetual minors who lack agency over their actions.
Someone spending billions of dollars in anti intellectualism propaganda, political smear campaigns and capturing media networks is not the fault of the individual citizens, they are not minors they are victims of targetted hostile information hazards.
> This is why all authoritarian regimes absolutely love hate speech laws.
Authoritarian regimes tend to brag about how free their speech is. America spent the 50s chest bumping while sending people to jail over "communist ties" under mccarthyism, they spent the 60s bragging about free speech while sending students to jail for complaining about vietnam, they spent the early 2000s talking about free speech while punishing allies who did not agree with Irak (like France) and sending people to black sites like Guantanamo. And now they brag about free speech while the sitting president Elon decides which individual words get flagged in his social network and the vice president Trump jails 3 different judges over their rulings
you know all that free speech
Citizens are supposed to have critical thinking to distinguish what's right and wrong, what's true and false.
Freedom of speech allows to hear different views and apply this critical thinking. The problem is that you seem to know better and want to choose what's allowed and not allowed to say, given your political bias and contempt for your fellow citizens.
Last, democracy is not about empowering (what an empty word...) people, but about managing the various interest to end up with something that is acceptable. If a subgroup is being bullied, it is normal that it expresses its resentment. For instance, when white british people are being mass raped, and in some case, likely eaten[0], with no or little enforcement by the Police due to fear of being seen as "racists".
As a side note, all of the examples that you give are about reducing freedom of speech, so I don't really see your point. You could have cited the Weimar Republic, that had stringent hate speech laws, which did not prevent the access of the NSDAP to power.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Charlene_Do...
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