> let people go on X and engage in hate speech

So interesting to see it become a popular opinion that we should "not let" people say certain things. Like, if necessary, we should jail people for speaking.

I remember learning about the ACLU[1] as a teen, 25 years ago, and how they took a lot of flak for defending people who said things we all agreed were gross, which at first glance seems disgusting. But the lesson we were taught was that the Constitutional guarantee of "freedom of expression" wasn't qualified with "as long as the opinions being expressed are cool ones."

Really, "hate speech" is defined as "any ideas counter to beliefs I hold dearly." Right wingers think some or all porn is the "bad" kind of expression and apparently banworthy, and left wingers think saying pretty much anything about trans ideology (other than full-throated endorsement) is hate speech.

I'm aware that many who are of the "don't let people do 'hate speech'" aren't Americans and don't owe any respect for the ideas of our particular Constitution, and that's fine -- but many Americans also now feel that citizens should only be able to speak the subset of ideas that one party endorses, and that any other ideas should be punishable, as they are in the UK.[2]

[1] If I understand it correctly, I think the ACLU is under new management, and no longer defends anyone whose ideas are uncomfortable.

[2] https://factually.co/fact-checks/justice/uk-arrests-for-twee... This fact-check points out that "only" 10% of the 30 arrests per day for online postings end up with convictions, and that it's rare to have "long" prison sentences. Very comforting.

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jeroenhd 3 hours ago | parent [-]

American free speech laws are the exception, not the rule. All European free speech laws have always been balanced and weighed up against other laws. This is hardly anything new. If anything, the internet has brought forth a short time period where everything goes and the status quo is now recovering.

The legal definition of hate speech (or rather, its local equivalents) is not just "any ideas counter to beliefs I hold dearly".

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MiiMe19 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

American free speech laws are the superior option. A government that has the power to arrest people for saying "hateful" things is no better than China or North Korea. But at least you won't need to deal with people saying mean things (that you can block) on your computer (that no one is forcing you to use for social media) anymore, right?

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dirasieb 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

12 thousand people arrested per year for social media posts is "balanced"? https://archive.ph/bdEqK

at this point it's the #1 principle of the UK government, everything else comes second after putting people in jail for saying the wrong things

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jeroenhd an hour ago | parent [-]

What the law says and what law enforcement does are two different things. 90% of those arrests don't lead to conviction. The law isn't the problem here.

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dirasieb an hour ago | parent [-]

do you think being arrested for social media posts can lead to a chilling effect on those social media posts? why are we pretending that being "arrested but not convicted" is anywhere near acceptable for speech the government doesn't like?

	▲	jeroenhd 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Cops can arrest anyone for any reason. If it wasn't for speech, it'd be for public intoxication or accusations of being a paedophiles or for potentially possessing a weapon. Like the linked article states: the law doesn't permit the police to do what they do. Even if you implement an America-style "you can even yell bomb in an airport" speech law, the cops would still arrest people to intimidate them. Changing the law does nothing when the police force is simply ignoring the law.