[Bobboau]

That's not quite what I meant. What I mean is when you actions start to cause harm to others or violate their rights is when they should be criminally chargeable. So an obvious example is murder, which takes away someones, well life.

 Inciting violence is a bit of a grey area, in this case I agree with you, she should not have been charged.

An example where say a radical muslim is deliberately radicalizing and and inciting others to carry out terrorist acts, that would require some kind of action on the part of the state against the individual inciting these activities, as well as the people being incited of course.

Except the talking isn't the part that takes away my rights. It's the blowing ****/people up part that does that, and that is the crime. I mean just think about the language used by Christians about how they are being persecuted by letting gays get married, have you never heard them describe masturbation as violence against one's self or homosexuality as violence against god? I mean if you are ordering a suboranant to do something you are taking on a portion of the consequences of that subordinates actions, sure, yeah, speech is involved there, ok, but that's about as far as you can take it before you start opening up the gates to your enemies. and I mean how do you define "incitement" just because you fail to incite doesn't mean you weren't trying, and you might say something that incites someone else to violence when you had no idea it was possible. In your example, ask yourself honestly what is more likely to happen, arrest for incitement of the Muslims quoting from their holy book about how unbelievers need to be 'slain wherever they are found'? or the group of non-muslims who confront them getting arrested for being racists? (because 'muslim' is a race apparently? meh, separate issue) in either case, who wins?

I mean, I honestly actually think Bahar Mustafa was inciting violence with some of the things she has said. I don't think the letter of the law is being miss-applied, I think the law it's self is utter horse ****. How other people were going to respond to her expressed contempt for other people is completely irrelevant to her right to express how she feels. I mean, lets say we go 100 years into the future and there are no racists left in the world, and we bring with us Jimbo Lee a good'ole boy from the backest of back woods Alabama. Jimbo looks around and sees nothing but mixed race people everywhere, not a single white (by his judgement) person as far as the eye can see. is the stream of hatred that flows forth from his mouth now suddenly  perfectly fine and dandy just because there is not longer anyone left who might agree with him? If so doesn't that imply that speech would only possibly be illigal if it had a chance to change the world? isn't that exactly the class of speech that needs to be protected the most?

If the left weakens the right to free speech in order to clamp down on racism and bigotry, the right is going to use the same tools to clamp down on sedition and immorality, the only ones who win are those seeking power, domination, and subjugation of others. No matter who wins we all lose.

[Bobboau]

Black Wolf:
the idea that a government has any right to dictate what it's people can say seems primitive and backwards from my perspective.

and, thank you for your argument for American exceptionalism.

[rubixcube]

I see your point, but I think you are partly to blame if you are deliberately inciting people to commit criminal acts. It must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, ie it must be proven that you deliberately helped caused the heinous actions in question. I do agree it can be a slippery slope to overusing the powers of the state, but that does not mean the state has no place in all cases.
And no, Muslims are not a race, their a religion

Also

Black Wolf:
the idea that a government has any right to dictate what it's people can say seems primitive and backwards from my perspective.

and, thank you for your argument for American exceptionalism.

While I disagree with Black Wolf, this is kind of obnoxious

[Bobboau]

yeah, I suppose it is . I mean, don't know, I thought it was funny. But... I guess those two things aren't mutually exclusive. I guess me and him are happy with our own native cultures take on the issue.

you'd be surprised of how often people get that race thing wrong.

There is no way that you can possibly determine if someone is inciting violence on purpose or not. they might just say something in the moment that is utterly hateful and violent without having any thoughts at all of the consequences. in order to "help cause" any criminal act, you would have to buy material used, fund, participate in, plan, or coordinate the act. those last two I can see getting a little close to speech, but would definitely fall under the giving-orders-to-subordinates case. All of these things are crimes as far as I can tell. "inspiring" it? no

[Herra Tohtori]

Bahar Mustafa has a right as a human to be able to communicate her thoughts and ideas. I absolutely think she is a horrible detestable person, sexist, racist, teaparty of the left, I put her in the same bubble as the westboro baptists, that is how I feel about her and I mention it only to put what I am saying into a particular context. Just like all of them, she has a right to say what she wants to say, a right to Freedom of Speech. Now the UK government has a difference of opinion with me on this subject, but just because something is a law does not make it right. I do not fear her words because I have a right to freedom of speech as well and can argue against them, I do not fear them because I think I am right and a fair discussion of her positions will show me to be right to reasonable people. I think penalizing people because of what they say, especially by law, only shows that you fear what they have to say, or you are merely vindictive. This is bull****, and I am personally not going to stand for it, though there is little I can actually do, other than start a conversation about it with people who maybe can. Any restriction of speech hurts everyone, any time you make a club to silence your enemies you make a club for your enemies to silence you. Truth can only be found by all options being available and debated and bad ideas argued against, not silenced.

I say again, this be some ****ing bull**** right here.

Freedom of speech is one thing. Incitement to criminal activities is another, and should at least be investigated, just like criminal threats.

In other words, yes, everyone's free to say whatever they wish, but with freedom comes responsibility to not say certain things. If you say certain things, people will assume you mean them.


In this case, it would fall under "Encouraging or assisting a crime" which is one of the inchoate offenses of English law. To quote from Wiki page:

"Inchoate means "just begun" or "undeveloped", and is used in English criminal law to refer to situations where, although a substantial offence has not been committed, the defendant has taken steps to commit it, or encouraged others to do so. As in all inchoate offences, the defendant "has not himself performed the actus reus but is sufficiently close to doing so, or persuading others to do so, for the law to find it appropriate to punish him."

Additionally, it can be clearly said that the tweet saying "Kill all white men" incites or encourages people to commit crimes on a racial and gender basis. So it would also fall under "Incitement to racial hatred" and whatever legislation covers hate speech in the UK.


So in my opinion, freedom of speech is not threatened by the law enforcement taking action when a crime has been committed.

There is no way that you can possibly determine if someone is inciting violence on purpose or not. they might just say something in the moment that is utterly hateful and violent without having any thoughts at all of the consequences. in order to "help cause" any criminal act, you would have to buy material used, fund, participate in, plan, or coordinate the act. those last two I can see getting a little close to speech, but would definitely fall under the giving-orders-to-subordinates case. All of these things are crimes as far as I can tell. "inspiring" it? no

Freedom of speech also means you have a freedom to not say stupid **** that you don't mean. You also have the freedom to implicate yourself of criminal activities, and in this case, it is indeed a crime to urge people to commit criminal activities in most jurisdictions. Whether or not you really meant it.

Obviously case-by-case judgement is necessary, but the Internet - and by extension Twitter is a mass medium, and there is absolutely no way of knowing what kind of audience received that message. Who's to say someone didn't take it seriously? That is why the base assumption is to take things like these at a face value, and start an investigation on it. It is the same with bomb threats or school shooting threats - most of them are probably hoaxes, but you got to take them seriously because the one time you don't respond and it turns out to be legit, you're sort of screwed, right?

[Bobboau]

yes, you have the freedom to not say something, just as much as you have the freedom to say something. I mean that's sounding like some serious "gays have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex" level logic right there, I mean honestly. if you can't say something without fear of being silenced you are having your right to free speech and expression violated.

If someone DID take it seriously, it's on "someone" not the person who lightly tapped a few buttons that let others know how she felt. Who's to say someone somewhere didn't interpret her tweets about traffic one morning as a sign from Daigon the deep one that it was time to start blowing up highway overpasses? we can't start arresting people for pre-crime, let alone second hand butterfly effect pre-crime. all this is is a tool for shutting up people you don't like. and you know I can sympathise with you, she is the westboro baptist of the left, so yeah, I'd like to shut her up too, but you can't just do that, because one of those people you just want to shut up, sooner or later, one of them is going to turn out to have been right all along and you'll never find out which one that is if you just lock up everyone who says something controversial. you need to argue that stuff, in a free and open marketplace of ideas. if you get rid of all the crazy fringe people then you never get a chance to practice your arguing skills on an easy target.

and yeah, like I said, she violated the letter and intent of a stupid law, so the 90% of your post going into detail on how she broke the rules is just flying past me in an orthogonal direction. I have no problem with you saying things giving authorities probable cause to start investigating you for having committed an actual crime, but TALKING is no such crime. how is this a crime? it could be said that those privileged man-spreaders incited her to say that by being a bunch of patriarchal misogynists. there are a great many things that could be said, and by far more of those things said than not are utter bollocks. could you, hypothetically, show me a picture of the victim of this crime? if someone says they want to kill all the brown people just watch them for a while and see if it looks like they or someone they know might make good on it, until they look like they are going to do something more than bluster let them be. if you really wanted to keep everyone safe you could drug everyone lock them into a metal cylinder and run an IV with all nutrients and fluids they'd need along with a constant stream of sedatives that keeps them unconscious for the rest of their lives, they would be very safe then.

[666maslo666]

Freedom of speech is one thing. Incitement to criminal activities is another, and should at least be investigated, just like criminal threats.

It is the same thing. Freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want, nothing more, nothing less. Hate speech laws or laws against incitement to violence by definition restrict free speech, they diminish it. You may agree with them or not, but dont try to pretend they magically do not infringe on freedom of speech when that is exactly what they do.

Countries like UK but also my own Slovakia do not have freedom of speech when it comes to some more controversial statements. Thats the reality of it, at least on paper. Whether that is good or bad is another matter.

[Grizzly]

Hate speech itself diminishes speech: It's a way to shut others up. Harshly.

That's always were those freedom discussions boil down to: Absolute freedom is impossible as that means giving people the freedom to curtail the freedom of others.

[karajorma]

In the end, if you feel that your laws work for you, stick with them. But I don't see that many Brits complaining about this case, so I'm quite happy to see this piece of **** go to jail. If this was a case like that nonsense about blowing up an airport, I might feel something. But if your job is to promote diversity, and you've fallen foul of hate speech laws it was part of your job to understand, then I'm not really going to care.

[Luis Dias]

The point is not that absolute freedom is desirable or reachable. The point is that you shouldn't let the governments dictate what exactly it is that you can or cannot say, for they are too much of an interested (biased) institution to ever have that power. First you say that "Hate Speech" curtails free speech, which is an incredibly vague statement of itself, impossible to verify at all. But lots of people will agree with it. Then we will demand, "Ok, what is hate speech then?", and that's where ideology kicks in and before you know it, we have all these goons telling us that racism is hate speech, but that racism is something only white people do, that criticizing feminists is "hate speech" (NO, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) and all sorts of silly nonsense that nonetheless gets into academia ... and eventually the state.

From a simple line "Hate Speech", we get into authocratic dystopias very fast. The tendency is for these dystopias to creep in. That's why all our vigilance should be towards THAT, and not that boogey monster of "Hate Speech" that 99% of the time, it just ain't so.

[karajorma]

Except that the thing is, unless you do have absolute freedom, you do have to draw the line somewhere. European countries prefer to have a certain set of things you might say result in criminal prosecutions. That is exactly the same as the US. It's just that the UK for instance has added a couple of extra things.

What you're doing here is making a slippery slope argument when you are already on the slope. If someone is further down the slope but the gradient is the same, they're not any more likely to slide into autocratic dystopias any more than you are.

[Luis Dias]

You're not going to start misreading and misrepresenting what I say again, are you? What I said was literally acknowledging that the slippery slope is unavoidable. What I added was that the onus of all of us, the real concern we as citizens and netizens should have is to prevent it to slide more and more towards authocracy and authoritarianism by a growing "interpretation" of what "hate speech" is by the Law that we are all under scrutiny from.

Come on, don't start this **** again.

e: To clarify to all of those who need help in reading what I said, I acknowledge the slippery slope is real and unavoidable. That is, on one extreme we have 1984, in the other we have Really Hateful Speeches curbing everyone else from saying what they want. Both extremes are bad, and I hereby acknowledge the conceptual existence of both, and that we reside somewhere in the middle, much unlike the larger parts of the world, which are much more autocratic than this part of the world. My point is that the current threats are against Speech and therefore that's where our attention must focus on. I did not say that, because we should focus on this part of the problem that "the other part" does not exist.

If I'm going to be misrepresented regarding this ****, I'll ****ing bail out again.

[Grizzly]

The point is not that absolute freedom is desirable or reachable. The point is that you shouldn't let the governments dictate what exactly it is that you can or cannot say, for they are too much of an interested (biased) institution to ever have that power. First you say that "Hate Speech" curtails free speech, which is an incredibly vague statement of itself, impossible to verify at all. But lots of people will agree with it. Then we will demand, "Ok, what is hate speech then?", and that's where ideology kicks in and before you know it, we have all these goons telling us that racism is hate speech, but that racism is something only white people do, that criticizing feminists is "hate speech" (NO, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP)

You may not be, but it's quite clear that other people are. You link to an obviously slanted website linking to an obvious slanted website quoting an obviously slanted defense laywer of an obviously slanted man who may or may not be a harasser (currently in court, so...) - All of them with the intent of ensuring that they are can not be held accountable for the awfull **** people utter on the internet (because what is the internet coming to!).

[666maslo666]

Hate speech itself diminishes speech: It's a way to shut others up. Harshly.

What? I dont agree with this absurd statement at all. Hate speech does not shut others up, "victims" of hate speech can speak up just like anyone else, heck, they are more likely to do so than if there was no hate being spread against them in the first place. The only way to curtail the freedom of others when it comes to speech is by censorship. You know, the very thing that hate speech laws are and absolute free speech is the opposite of.

[666maslo666]

Except that the thing is, unless you do have absolute freedom, you do have to draw the line somewhere. European countries prefer to have a certain set of things you might say result in criminal prosecutions. That is exactly the same as the US. It's just that the UK for instance has added a couple of extra things.

It is not just a couple of extra things. US laws against freedom of speech are very specific and narrow and it is pretty hard to violate them merely by speech. On the other hand, UK hate speech laws are incredibly broad, at least on paper. There is a slippery slope and we are all on it somewhere, but UK is a lot lower than the US for sure.

[karajorma]

Which is exactly why I mentioned the gradient.

You're not going to start misreading and misrepresenting what I say again, are you? What I said was literally acknowledging that the slippery slope is unavoidable. What I added was that the onus of all of us, the real concern we as citizens and netizens should have is to prevent it to slide more and more towards authocracy and authoritarianism by a growing "interpretation" of what "hate speech" is by the Law that we are all under scrutiny from.

I didn't misrepresent you at all. I simply pointed out that being lower on the slope is not necessarily a bad thing.

[666maslo666]

If someone is further down the slope but the gradient is the same, they're not any more likely to slide into autocratic dystopias any more than you are.

You are kinda already there actually. In some ways we had more freedom of speech during communist dictatorship than the UK has today.

[Luis Dias]

You may not be, but it's quite clear that other people are. You link to an obviously slanted website linking to an obvious slanted website quoting an obviously slanted defense laywer of an obviously slanted man who may or may not be a harasser (currently in court, so...) - All of them with the intent of ensuring that they are can not be held accountable for the awfull **** people utter on the internet (because what is the internet coming to!).

Very well, I challenge you to find a liberal outlet reporting on this case in a "reasonable" manner that better exposes the facts. Funny thing, I haven't found it.

I understand though if you'll prefer to post vapid cartoons instead. After all, life's too short to be serious about anything.

[666maslo666]

Which is exactly why I mentioned the gradient.

You are assuming the gradient is linear, it is not. It is exponential. The more anti free speech laws there are, the easier it is to get new ones enacted due to precedents and the easier it is to convince the judges that at least some of them were violated. This is why US first amendment is such a great thing, it puts a stop to any anti-free speech legislation before it even has a chance to become part of status quo. If not for the first amenment the US would have long ago deteriorated into something resembling European oppressive systems by now, IMHO. There would already be many innocent americans in prison merely for being "hateful".

[headdie]

You have the Right to free speech
I have the Right to not feel threatened or persecuted by another without just cause

Intent or humour ends at the point where someone else is adversely affected and the law in this case is there to protect the majority over the minority.

Also where is the difference between #killallwhitemen #killallblackwomen #killallmuslimtrans
what separates the above from #blowupbritishbusses ?

it is all disgusting and is criminal for a good reason.