JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence....
My right to travel is not infringed because I can walk.
Hateful people will be inspired by books and by speech to be hateful and to hurt others. Not sure why you draw the line at books, since also speech can be used as a lesson.
I would also there is fundamental differences between causing an immediate panick and voicing a hateful opinion. The later was times and times misused to silence governmental criticis. Sure - this time it might turn out different, since good guys are in power, but I highly doubt it.
Free speech is the ability to criticize your government without going to jail for it. It is not meant to protect your right to trash minorities.
And my point, governments have a history of using such laws in the end to get rid of critics. Sure this time it will be completely different. I would love to share your optimism, but you will have to allow me to remain skeptical.
Or maybe you got it wrong and that’s not the point I was making?
The reasoning used in Assange and Manning case, is that information they made publicly available is endangering peoples lives. That is not unsimilar to the argumentation that hateful speech is endangering people targeted by it.
I make that point in general, that I don’t trust governments with regulating speech. By the way I’m all in for private platforms regulating speech, would not hang around here otherwise.
Agreed. It just becomes problematic when speech itself is redefined as crime, that is what I’m arguing against. And the the line with the consequences is not that clear either. Someone could read a book and go an kill someone. I personally think it’s a hard thing to really understand consequences of words.
My argument is more, that while I trust at least some governments with deciding on what food is safe, I don’t trust governments at all with decisions about what speech is permitted.
I don’t think it’s a case of a law protecting weak from the strong. Since that was what I replied to.
But it’s a fair question where I draw the line. It’s somewhere with direct and indirect consequences, which is hard to define. I absolutely agree that her speech might have very tangible real consequences to real people from a group she is targeting. But than again it’s due to actions of other people “inspired” by her words. While when shouting fire, you create panic just with your own words. Than again one can definitely incite violent actions through media. But that it is even more complicated since it becomes about intent and interpretation.
Part 2 Section 3, 32: […] It provides that it is an offence for a person to behave in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner, or communicate threatening, abusive or insulting material to another person, with either the intention to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group.
It’s talking about likely consequence not after a crime has been committed. Also:
Part 2 Section 5, 47: Section 5(1) creates an offence of possession of racially inflammatory material. It provides that it is an offence for a person to have in their possession threatening, abusive or insulting material with a view to communicating the material to another person, with either the intention to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or where it is likely that, if the material were communicated, hatred will be stirred up against such a group.
Which makes possession of inflammatory material an offence. Which is rather murky on it’s own, but even more so in digital age.
Later it quite literally defines on which terms it’s permissive to discuss sexual orientation or religion.
To be fair, maybe I missed something so feel free to correct me:
So you do think governments should enforce speech laws.
I think it’s a more complex question that people make it out to be. I would say any speech regulation by the government is something we should be wary about.
If you look a bit on the history of fascism, they often attack liberal systems as oppressive because of laws that muzzles the hateful. Once in power, their first move is to muzzle the opposition.
I don’t get your argument here.
Don’t be duped by their tactics, the oppressed few can barely get equal rights and the hate army is marching to take that away swaying the weak-minded with a narrative of free speech.
Sure, when people who disagree with you are weak minded, it’s easy to be always right.
You cannot say “transgender people don’t deserve rights” because you are harassing them directly.
That exactly what I personally think is problematic, because I would fundamentally disagree that this is “directly” - but you are right that this is exactly that will be an offence under that law. The same goes for possession of inflammatory material (Part 3, Section 5, 47). Especially with digital media that seems rather murky.
Again I find Rowling opinion on trans people rather disgusting and genuinely damaging. But the law seems to me rather excessive. But maybe I’m missing something.
ANYBODY can have a twitter, youtube, tiktok, etc account and immediately have access to a platform where they can potentially speak to thousands of people,
That is a bit trivializing. Not everybody is able to build a following, you need to bring something to the table for people to watch you. Given it can be just being somehow entertaining like tate. But it’s not like every bigot gets automatically Rowling’s reach, she had to write a rather popular children book for it.
and some of them are pretty impressionable
That is the core question to what degree is someone responsible for actions others created by their words. There are obvious clear cases but I think the law gets rather unclear with “or where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group.” (Part 2, Section 3. 32). That’s rather broad and unclear in my opinion.
Governments have a bad track record (in my opinion) when it comes to vaguely defined laws.
I would absolutely agree that we have a gigantic problem with modern forms of mass communication. For me it’s beyond just bigots spewing hate but also foreign governments influencing people. For example in Germany a lot of far right AFD talking points has obvious roots in russian media propaganda. And I will not pretend that I have any kind of answer but I feel like it has to go deeper than trying to regulate specific cases of speech.
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo! Feddit.de ist wieder da! German
Wie hab ihr so die Zeit währenddessen verbracht? Weiß man warum die Instanz flöten gegangen ist?
JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over Scottish hate crime law (www.bbc.com)
JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence....