I agree with this, sorta. So, how does one's speech violate another's civil rights?

@Jacar When it use to intimidate and frighten people. This is then hate speech which, in my mind, is a form of terrorism. Do you support terrorism?

@OwlInASack

Oh yeah! !!

@OwlInASack Expert ground level advice I'm sure.

@OwlInASack 'Better to remain silent' as the saying goes. You stopped being a reader when you offered your juvenile comment. In your own mind you're obviously legendary. It does help the show though. Thanks.

@OwlInASack Scat obsessed organisms were the cause for fly swatter invention.

@OwlInASack

What makes veiled statements in the 'form' of questions, containing assumptions like 'free speech incentivizing crime' as a given NOT OFFENSIVE to many, if not all, people who cherish our freedom to speak?

Questioning validity of a Constitutionally protected freedom such as free speech ending or being abridged on the basis of OPINION is also very offensive and, by the way, ignorant because rights are not matters of opinion. That is why we differ from Democracies, where majorities or authorities determine rights and freedom of their exercise.

We ARE NOT a Democracy and special efforts were made to prevent it within our constitutional system. People who want to live under Democracies are free to live elsewhere if they disagree with our system instead of OFFENDING those of us who cherish protection of our freedom to exercise our CODIFIED civil rights.

Ask offensive "questions" as veiled advocacy - get offensive responses calling out the disingenuous nature of the post. There is nothing innocent or merely curious about it and you know this.

When equally ignorant people on the Right ask 'questions' about legitimacy of right to privacy, bodily sovereignty and gender/sex equality before the law, people on the Left have every reason to be offended. They do not and SHOULD NOT hesitate to exercise THEIR rights to free speech in defense from OPINIONS veiled as questions that threaten THEIR cherished liberty to exercise THEIR civil rights. I also don't think they should concern themselves with whether the way they express disagreement might offend some right-wing fanatic who disrespects Constitutional protections to advance their theologically motivated encroachments.

That was a little rambly. Please clarify.

@Jacar You're right. It is. Needs lots of editing. If I put it into an article or book instead of a comment section I'll 'clarify'. Great idea...

Who decides what is hate. Ask both sides the answer may surprise you.

@Biosteelman

What types of speech are not protected by the First Amendment?

Although different scholars view unprotected speech in different ways, there are basically nine categories:

Obscenity.
Fighting words.
Defamation (including libel and slander)
Child pornography.
Perjury.
Blackmail.
Incitement to imminent lawless action.
True threats.

@LiterateHiker some of those are really hashing semantics. It isn't the speech that is being restricted but it's criminal action that is.
With the exception to your child pornography example all of those done in jest as in a parody or skit are legal. Thereby it isn't the actual speech that is not protected but the immediate actions/threat involved with such.
Defamation requires a third party to be witnessed and it must have caused actual harm otherwise it isn't. In the case of a celebrity it must be done with malice. Once again not the speech but an immediate foreseeable outcome.

That wasn't really my point though. The right would say calling white people oppressors and racists is hate speech. While the left would go as far as saying if we talk about regulations that involve minorities or women that is hate speech. But if we buy into this idea that speech can be so bad it needs regulation outside of what already exists...

We agree on many things. This is not one of them. If hate speech becomes illegal, it festers and flourishes in the dark, eventually becoming a cancer, thus making it much harder to counter. In part, what we see now... the increase in hate speech concurrent with the rise of Trump... is a good example.

While that hate speech is not illegal, and has not been oppressed officially, it has obviously flourished in the dark these last dozen years or more. By not being exposed in the light of day, those of us who care have been somewhat blindsided by the increase in racism and bigotry since 2016.

I know I have been surprised by it. In retrospect, it was hidden because Obama was President. Just that simple fact was enough to hold that objectionable discourse down. It was, obviously, not politically popular. It was hidden, much of it, in items like Trump’s birtherism.

But, a larger impediment to openly bigoted speech loomed. That impediment, in my opinion, is the concept of that which is condemned as polically correctness. That concept helped to chill unacceptable speech and, over time, unacceptable speech disappeared. Simply put, people feared speaking their minds because what they wanted to say was not politically correct.

That chilled dialog. When objectionable things were said, the response was often condemnation and, in a work environment (for example), punishment. What was missing was the opportunity to talk. Without talking, people lost the opportunity to actually learn from each other. And, that simply increased resentment and left the bigotry, racism, etc. hidden away and festering.

The upshot of this is that making hate speech illegal prevents society from dealing with it with education and understanding. Making it illegal keeps it hidden. You can’t fight what you can’t see. And, you don’t have an opportunity to understand it’s cause. By being open, you have the opportunity to deal with it.

@OwlInASack made me look it up. TIL: "the man on the Clapham bus" has a Wikipedia entry. There are local variations for Australia and Hong Kong.

@OwlInASack , @Elganned Good point. I just cued onto the fact that they named it after their own bus routes

Fair answer

I pretty much agree to what you stated. I think speech that incites violence is violence and should be illegal.

Not that you have stated anything about this, but the free speech protected in the US by the First Amendment protects us from the government interfering with our speech. It doesn't mean that private individuals or companies can't limit speech within their domain (your own home, other private property, websites, etc), or that someone else has to fund our speech.

@sfvpool you're right. i keep hearing cries of "censorship" applied to private entities such as facebook (or ag dot com though i have not heard it here -- if it happened, it would be legal because it's a private place. but even a private entity can break the law by encouraging violence or committing slander or libel, for example.

g

@OwlInASack Should a person's gender or color have any bearing on their ideas about free speech? I hope not.

@OwlInASack I judge a person by their ideas and actions, regardless of gender, color, or anything else. I know of many women and non-white men who have very similar ideas to those expressed in this video. I could understand the value, if the subject was gender or race, but free speech? And, for what it's worth, at least one person on the panel is not heterosexual...

How do you determine hate speech?

@Druvius If there is no fire, and folks were injured in the panic, it would be.

@Druvius You are one of those assholes that just likes to keep shit going . You are blocked. no. 96.

@Druvius Yo Expert? This is your evidence? Your link connected me to a faux expert named Ryan who has a bachelors degree in Journalism. His only possible link to legal knowledge is that he was a blogger for the ACLU. @Sticks48 was right when he mentioned the analogue to the US Supreme court case law cited in my attached link. Read the Court's Decision and the Subsequent Jurisprudence paragraphs. Falsely yelling fire in a theater is unprotected dangerous speech. It was a documented opinion established in this case.

[en.wikipedia.org]

'Treat people the way they want to be treated'. NOOO that is not a dictum for a free society.
This is the rule in law in canada now that compels speech. It is at the core of the insanity of the ontario human rights tribunal.

@Jacar What do you (hopefully specifically) mean by 'free society'? Are you going to be more free than me? Will I be free to kill you and your family if I don't like your freedom?

I enjoy most benefits of our society such as it is and I'm willing to pay some prices for those benefits. But again, that's my human decision.

@RichCC . . . you really jumped far to get to "Will I be free to kill you and your family if I don't like your freedom?" How does free speech translate to you being free to commit crimes?

Free speech is the fundamental right. Everything else flows from there.

I cannot be responsible for anybody's feelings. To be held responsible for such is what is happening in canada. If you do not mind read what another person wants, and they feel sad, you can be fined and jailed. That's fascism.

@RichCC, @OwlInASack . . . How did you get there?

Treating people how i prefer to be treated is one of the oldest moral dictums. Why would i treat anybody differently?

@OwlInASack Jacar is showing his trolldom more and more. I'm leaving but you can stay if you want. He doesn't deserve the your attention.

@OwlInASack . . . Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

There is a very significant reason it is part of the the First Amendment.

I agree...if it is for something that you have no control over, it is hate speech...and, it is just plain mean.

Right but wheres does it end between the kkk actively rallying supporters and the kkk actively asking for people to lynch people?

@Curioussapien If you ban the KKK then you have to ban the communist party etc. The UK had to dance this fine line during the IRA bombings. It ended up with the farcical case of Gerry Adams being interviewed on TV with his voice dubbed in.

@273kelvin How do you feel about the case about the man who taught a dog to do the Nazi salute? Just curious...it seems your police have been given a lot of power to decide what is and is not hate speech...

@thinktwice Not being shackled by a written constitution helps. To my mind it often goes too far. One case that springs to mind is two 17yr olds from Belfast jailed for 3 months for burning a poppy and posting it on FB. Often when you clamp down on things its like putting a damper on a fire. It just increases the oxygen.

@thinktwice frankly i find it ok. Its distasteful but it causes no harm

@273kelvin I would have personally shot them...but wait, you can't have guns in the UK...but aside from that, I agree that sometimes it goes too far at the expense of those who don't do this...I imagine you will have a clogged up system for a bit until it can be sorted out...seems like hate speech is being determined by people not without hate themselves...

@thinktwice Well northern Ireland is the only place in the UK where all the police are armed.
Who decides whats hate speech or not and does it depend on which side your on?

@273kelvin exactly...which is why I think there is going to be a lot of debate over this...it will be interesting to follow...

@Curioussapien I tend to agree...it was distasteful but I am sure some just found it funny, especially those who are too young to remember the cartoons, editorials, etc. that slowly seeped into the Germany culture and grew like a snowball to make it fashionable and OK to say hateful things about the Jews...I get it...no actual crime or action was taken by anyone...not today...but does it imprint on the psyche? Does it get added to each day until...? I am more for free speech than curbing it but sometimes I wonder what future harm it does...just food for thought is all I am offering as are you, I suspect.

@OwlInASack It is not just police. If they think there is a case to answer then that is taken to the crown prosecution service (cps). Which unlike a DA is branch of the home office and are civil servants and not subject to elections. Then it will of course go before the courts which is much like the US system (you got yours from us) and bound by precedent.
[cps.gov.uk]

@OwlInASack I agree...just being able to say what you want and hiding behind the skirts of free speech is not working either...the line should be attacking against things that are not changeable...your sex, your color, etc. People evolved even higher would look deeper...hurting others mentally or emotionally...for what reason? I just get concerned when they don't think through how they plan on enforcing a law...who decides...what are the criteria even if it does not meet our personal sensibilities.

@OwlInASack It is always going to be a balancing act. Nowadays we have the far right spouting racial abuse, fundamental muslims doing much the same but with far more terrible consequences. Of course any reasonable society would want to curb such excesses but how far do we take this? When does this start to be censoring legitimate protest and opposition? and who decides what that is?
Take the case I mentioned in an earlier comment. Two teenagers from Belfast burnt a poppy on FB. Now I do not condone this act but I believe they had a right to do so. You may not agree but you did not grow up with soldiers patrolling your streets. They got 3 months in jail. Similar sentences have been handed out to radical muslims who have done the same. Is it too big a stretch to sanction footballers who kneel? Would 45 love the powers that Putin has?
It is up to us, yes us to be vigilant and protect our society not only from the abuses of freedom but also the abuses of power and we have to go that extra mile for things that we disagree with. Because so many of the good things we take for granted have been won by people ready to say things that got them behind bars..

@OwlInASack I think its a perfect example of overstepping the line. Those lads were white. What if they were radical islamists? Is it ok to say that islam is a crock of shit but not muslims? Is one theological and the other racial? Then how about judaism or jews? The problem in a democracy is when the majority find views abhorrent it is difficult to defend the right to express them.
How far did the burning of that poppy go towards shouting fire in a crowded theater? I am sure that the prosecution argued that given the civil unrest in NI recent past and the sectarian violence that still lurks beneath the surface. Any public display of this sort could result in bloodshed but was that their intent? If the intention is to goad others to commit unlawful acts then there is a clear case but then we are in the realm of thought crime.
It is a crime in the UK to abuse someone using the N word. The word itself is not banned but the abuse is. Therein lies the dividing line. You have freedom of speech unless you are curtailing others rights.