EU pushes forward on law against hate speech, illegal content. Hosting companies required to take websites offline

[Brad Padgett]

please seriously... words cannot be an incitement of violence but hey you believe what you want to....I guess.

and no words cannot offend.

hopefully next you can post some buzzfeed or vox references for additional information and fact.....

Words can easily be offensive and can truly hurt someone more than you think. Just depends on the person and what is said. I agree with what you said though. Freedom of speech should not be mitigated in any fashion or against the law. That much is the truth. And it's painfully sickening that laws are becoming so strict they are now trying to govern what comes off your keyboard or out of your mouth. Still I just wanted to correct you there with my personal take. Because some people really do have hurt feelings over some of the stuff that is said on many forums... this one included

 

[combatgamez]

hate speech does not exist.

 

[Claverhouse]

I agree Hate Speech is a bogus concept, but the idea is a product of a 'free' capitalist democracy, as decided by the elected congress: nothing to do with communism.

Before I was born the Papal States disallowed free speech and they were no more 'communist' than the British Empire.


Face it, most regimes have always crushed dissent whilst they were riding high; police aren't just there to protect property --- and as soon as the regime is replaced via revolution, the police and magistrates willingly serve the new regime. And crush the new definition of dissent.

 

[Mr Lucky]

It is always possible that some people do not understand the meaning of the word incite

I agree Hate Speech is a bogus concept,

I think it may be more accurate to say free speech is a bogus concept if it is meant to mean people can say whatever they want even to the extent of committing or causing crimes such as slander, genocide or acts of terrorism.

 

[rootsxrocks]

I finally relented and bought a new domain after 10 years and having ATT's DNS shadow blocking my site from phone users by (i suspect) erroneously assuming the name was a racial reference. I wish I could prove it, I'd sue. So Crackercoast which has not even a hint of racist content is now flagler.app. I will be fine with blocking all but United states Ip's if Europe keeps up this madness.

 

[Robust]

It seems that admins will no longer be allowed to sleep or be offline. The penalty seems similar to that of the GDPR.

a) I doubt the average XenForo forum will get any of these "terrorist content orders". Likely only the larger ones, which can easily afford to have a system made for this, and have moderators online at some point during the day pretty much all the time.
b) "To help smaller platforms, MEPs decided that, when a company has never received a removal order before, the competent authority should contact it, to provide information on procedures and deadlines, at least 12 hours before issuing the first order to remove content that they are hosting." -- unlikely to get more than one.
c) The EU does not have a history of seeking penalties against small businesses, especially those acting in good faith.
d) Highly unlikely such orders will be made during the night. So yeah, you can sleep.

 

[rootsxrocks]

I mean... A lot of those people are unironically racist and/or bigoted

Isn't that the definition of bigoted? Applying traits to a whole swath of people who share some common ground.
I have some fears over European policies and how they might effect me, just because I may be euro-phobic doesn't mean I hate Europeans.
If a religion condemns my lifestyle and dictates killing me for it , and I am resistant to that culture overshadowing my freedoms, its not hate or racism, its survival.

 

[Robust]

Does anyone believe these new laws have something to do with Brexit? Honestly, I do. I'm seeing each day all these new laws constantly being made in the EU for no apparent reason then only to complicate the system much further. This seems to be an EU response from the UK receding and it's a bit unfair if you ask me. This thread is pretty old but I still wanted to say that's my opinion and I believe it's a good one. Apparently law makers are not thinking clearly whatsoever and now want to ban freedom of speech. What's next, are we going to put a camera in everyone's bathroom to make sure they aren't doing drugs.... This just seems to be an obvious cause if you ask me.

The UK still has its vote in all EU institutions as a current member state, so I doubt it. And even if it didn't, the UK does not, by itself, make a blocking majority. 70 MEPs absented from this vote, 204 voted against, and a lot of abstentions and votes against the other copyright directive as well. And whilst this may be controversial legislation, this isn't the EU "going insane". It's the people in this thread and in general failing to interpret intent properly. The world didn't end at GDPR, and it won't end here. If EU legislation caused a significant number of businesses to close shop for no real reason I think it'd be considered a disaster.

And the discussion in this thread is so far away from the topic in OP. Much of it is either very politically motivated, or consists of responses that don't really know what they're talking about, and are pretty far off the matter at hand. e.g. bringing "communism" into this (???)

 

[imno007]

Words can easily be offensive and can truly hurt someone more than you think. Just depends on the person and what is said. I agree with what you said though. Freedom of speech should not be mitigated in any fashion or against the law. That much is the truth. And it's painfully sickening that laws are becoming so strict they are now trying to govern what comes off your keyboard or out of your mouth. Still I just wanted to correct you there with my personal take. Because some people really do have hurt feelings over some of the stuff that is said on many forums... this one included

But part of the reason so many people are so easily hurt or offended these days is basically because they're delicate flowers, to put it nicely. They're growing up and spending more time online with friends than they are in the real world, and even when they physically get together they're often watching their devices more than making eye contact and engaging in conversation. This is making for some awkward, socially inept young people, including 30-something's, who amongst other things don't know how to take or give criticism or understand different viewpoints than their own. In short, in many ways people today, in general, are less mature than they were in past generations (there's actual studies that show this), and I worry about making up laws left and right to cater to these sensitive souls. Making it illegal to threaten others with violence or death or publicly shaming them by posting personal and compromising pictures, that kind of thing, I can get behind; but as soon as we start getting into trying to outlaw every single thing that might make a person feel bad or negatively impact their self-esteem in some way....

 

[rootsxrocks]

Words can easily be offensive and can truly hurt someone more than you think. Just depends on the person and what is said. ........Because some people really do have hurt feelings over some of the stuff that is said on many forums... this one included

See there is a BIG problem The control is in the hands of the offended , I'm not gonna stop eating peanut butter just because someone else has a weakness that makes them susceptible to it. I wouldn't smear it on them but if they got in my face and suffered by my breath I would not feel bad. and I'm damn sure not obliged to consider or protect anyone's feelings, this is far too subjective. Feelings vs Physical/Financial harm, HUGE differences.

 

[Assadi]

reduction of freedom of speech = communist = control the people.

sorry being simplistic here but its true.

t. product of Cold War-era propaganda

Please read the tiniest amount of literature about the subject. Marx never mentioned wanting to reduce freedom of speech. And, in fact, he spent a huge amount of his life being censored by various people and governments.

please seriously... words cannot be an incitement of violence but hey you believe what you want to....I guess.

How much do you want to bet that you probably don't apply the same principal to ISIS supporters and such? It's just demonstrably incorrect that words cannot both directly and indirectly cause violence.

This is making for some awkward, socially inept young people, including 30-something's, who amongst other things don't know how to take or give criticism or understand different viewpoints than their own.

This is just actually grandpa complaining about the kids these days. I guarantee you cannot backup this idea that young people are measurably worse at understanding other people's viewpoints. Anecdotally, in this thread, it is mostly old men complaining about how they don't want to understand other people's views because they're simply too easily offended.

 

[imno007]

This is just actually grandpa complaining about the kids these days. I guarantee you cannot backup this idea that young people are measurably worse at understanding other people's viewpoints. Anecdotally, in this thread, it is mostly old men complaining about how they don't want to understand other people's views because they're simply too easily offended.

First off, I'm not that old, I'm in my 40's - and if you think that qualifies for dismissing my viewpoints because I'm not young enough to be accepting of all the ways you can think of to feel sorry for yourself, then...well, maybe you're right? I'm not all about repressing everything and always suffering in silence, like your actual grandpa or great-grandpa might have believed, but on the other hand I don't believe in always bearing all your pain for the world and requiring constant reassurance and support, including from complete strangers, 24/7, every time someone is mean to you or less than encouraging.

And an inability to see others' viewpoints seems to me a likely consequence of a generation that stays at home a lot more and has far fewer in person social interactions than my "old fogey" generation. Yes, younger people today are safer than they've ever been, far less drinking and drugging and racing cars, etc., which is all very wonderful, but it's basically because they stay at home a lot more and do a lot more of their interactions through machines. And by the way, if you're the exception to all that, good for you. I am, for the record, again, generalizing.

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Assadi]

First off, I'm not that old, I'm in my 40's - and if you think that qualifies for dismissing my viewpoints because I'm not young enough to be accepting of all the ways you can think of to feel sorry for yourself, then...well, maybe you're right?

I am not dismissing your views because you're 'old'. Rather, I am dismissing (some of) them for being unfounded, stereotypical generational-gap complaints. People, since the dawn of time, have always sucked when it comes to contrasting views - it's not something unique to the newer generation.

And an inability to see others' viewpoints seems to me a likely consequence of a generation that stays at home a lot more and has far fewer social interactions than my "old fogey" generation. Yes, younger people today are safer than they've ever been, far less drinking and drugging and racing cars, etc., which is all very wonderful, but it's basically because they stay at home a lot more and do a lot more of their interactions through machines. And by the way, if you're the exception to all that, good for you. I am, for the record, again, generalizing.

Again, this idea that an inability to see and understand contrasting view points is unique to millennials is just factually incorrect. And, this hypothesis that it is due to spending more time inside is also just not based on anything concrete—it is just your feeling about the situation; this is what I meant by "grandpa complaining about the kids" sort of thing.

 

[imno007]

Read the article I linked to. There's a lot more of that kind of thing to be found. Also, I never said an inability to understand different viewpoints is unique to young people today, because it certainly isn't. What I'm simply saying is that many of them - not all - don't have the same life experiences at their ages as did previous generations. They're more isolated and protected, for good and bad, and at the end of the day just less mature on average than people their ages in past generations. But anyway, that's all I have to say on the matter. You believe what you want to believe based on your experience, and I'll believe what I want based on my own - like everyone everywhere all the time.

 

[Assadi]

@imno007 I did read your article. And, don't get me wrong, I don't deny that there are issues that the new generation is facing, but specifically, the concept that they are worse at dealing with contrasting viewpoints is something that was not covered in the article and was the only thing that I was talking about. The rest of it (e.g., worsening mental health) isn't really all that relevant to the discussion.

 

[imno007]

@imno007 I did read your article. And, don't get me wrong, I don't deny that there are issues that the new generation is facing, but specifically, the concept that they are worse at dealing with contrasting viewpoints is something that was not covered in the article and was the only thing that I was talking about. The rest of it (e.g., worsening mental health) isn't really all that relevant to the discussion.

It's basic psychology, as far as I'm concerned. If you don't interact a lot with people in real life, trying on personalities with many different people in many different social situations as you mature, seeing how your behavior and words affect living, breathing human beings, seeing the pain and joy on their faces, in their eyes; if most of your romantic and intimate experiences are online, divorced of bodies, through a computer.... well, I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. And the "rest of it" is very relevant to the discussion, as far as I'm concerned, because many of these laws are and will be enacted to safeguard these snowflakes, who are already safer, statistically speaking, than they've ever been.

If today’s teens were a generation of grinds, we’d see that in the data. But eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X teens did in the early 1990s. (High-school seniors headed for four-year colleges spend about the same amount of time on homework as their predecessors did.) The time that seniors spend on activities such as student clubs and sports and exercise has changed little in recent years. Combined with the decline in working for pay, this means iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.

So what are they doing with all that time? They are on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed.

And that really is all I have to say on the matter.

 

[TPerry]

I think hate speech should be punishable

Please define hate speech.
And no, if it hurts one's pretty little feelers, it's not hate speech.

 

[Assadi]

Please define hate speech.
And no, if it hurts one's pretty little feelers, it's not hate speech.

I would define it as speech that threatens or encourages violence against a group of people on the basis of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion (e.g., blatant KKK-style rhetoric).

And, personally, I would go further and say that also includes both people who directly dog-whistle violence and people who intentionally provide a set of ultra-biased descriptive claims that lead the listener into making the violent normative claim themselves (e.g., Jordan Peterson, bell curve people, ethnostaters, etc).

I am definitely more on the extreme side of that, though. I don't value the American-style true freedom of speech; I don't think it leads to a more productive, happy society than those with minor restrictions like in Western Europe.

Most people who talk about hate speech aren't trying to thought police you, regardless of what angry dudes screaming about SJWs would have you believe - e.g., those "laws against misgendering" aren't saying you can't be an аsshole, but rather they are trying to move transgender people into a similar style of protected class that we give black people (i.e. you cannot intentionally misgender trans people in the workplace to purposefully create a hostile environment because they are trans, you can't harass or discriminate against trans people when it comes to being a landlord, etc).

Almost literally nobody is out there saying that you should arrest people who offend you. This is a total strawman. I hear people like you complaining about those people infinitely more than I actually hear those people do what you act like they do — and I even intentionally associate more with the kind of people that would stereotypically be your 'SJW' crowd.

 

[ManagerJosh]

I would define it as speech that threatens or encourages violence against a group of people on the basis of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion (e.g., blatant KKK-style rhetoric).

And, personally, I would go further and say that also includes both people who directly dog-whistle violence and people who intentionally provide a set of ultra-biased descriptive claims that lead the listener into making the violent normative claim themselves (e.g., Jordan Peterson, bell curve people, ethnostaters, etc).

I am definitely more on the extreme side of that, though. I don't value the American-style true freedom of speech; I don't think it leads to a more productive, happy society than those with minor restrictions like in Western Europe.

Most people who talk about hate speech aren't trying to thought police you, regardless of what angry dudes screaming about SJWs would have you believe - e.g., those "laws against misgendering" aren't saying you can't be an аsshole, but rather they are trying to move transgender people into a similar style of protected class that we give black people (i.e. you cannot intentionally misgender trans people in the workplace to purposefully create a hostile environment because they are trans, you can't harass or discriminate against trans people when it comes to being a landlord, etc).

Almost literally nobody is out there saying that you should arrest people who offend you. This is a total strawman. I hear people like you complaining about those people infinitely more than I actually hear those people do what you act like they do — and I even intentionally associate more with the kind of people that would stereotypically be your 'SJW' crowd.

We are betraying the principles upon which the internet was founded. It's an attack upon its very soul.

I iterate again... one's definition of hate speech could be one person's faith. Or one individual's position on government policy. Or another individuals moral principles. These "policies" have tread into the territory of more politically correct thought policing.

This quote comes to mind (yes it's from Star Trek, but it's very applicable):

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

 

[Assadi]

I iterate again... one's definition of hate speech could be one person's faith. Or one individual's position on government policy. We are betraying the principles upon which the internet was founded. It's an attack upon its very soul.

Yes, they could be very easily. But, I don't see how that is a bad thing?

An ethnostater or nazi's position on government policy would be to violently expel people from a country based on race, religion, etc. I would define advocating for such political positions hate speech just as I would define extremist views held by certain religious minorities, like those held by ISIS.

Speech is not automatically good for society simply because it is part of your faith or position on policy. I am totally for crushing nazi and Islamic State propaganda. I don't see the value in unrestricted freedom of speech.