Free Speech: European v. U.S. Model

[broncofan]

Precursor to something sinister=Neo Nazis start vandalizing people's business and property after their march was over.

I think that's either the criminal act itself or conspiracy to commit the criminal act which is firmly prohibited everywhere.

[broncofan]

In the US a clear example of the problem can be found with the claims, made on Infowars and other websites, that the massacre at Sandy Hook was a hoax. At what point does free speech allow people to make such offensive and outrageous claims cross a line drawn by moral decency if not the law, and is the law impotent if it cannot deal with it? I believe prosecutions so far have not challenged the right to claim Sandy Hook is a hoax, but threats made to individuals in Connecticut that broke the law. The dilemma thus puts a moral argument at odds with the law.

But it goes further, because there is no innocent claim in Infowars, but a long term intention to change the way the US is governed, as its chosen conspiracy theories are designed to weaken -not loyalty to the State, but obedience to government in the state.

The hoaxes peddled on infowars are a great example and categorically different from others. It's not defamation because in many cases doesn't regard an individual and his/her reputation. It's often not hate speech, or incitement as it's legally defined, or a threat.

It involves pervasive falsehoods palmed off as facts that cause deep emotional harm to people in the service of a political agenda. It can in an attenuated way lead to violence but it is much more remote than the law involves itself in preventing. It invariably leads to harassment though it doesn't call for it.

It definitely crosses a line of moral decency, but the law is pretty much impotent. Or we just accept that it's impotent because the greater harm is deciding that words alone cause a societal harm worth punishing. Or that deciding the objective truth of something is not for a legislature.

I think we all have seen specific forms of speech that almost objectively have no value and cause more harm than good. We do prohibit defamation, because we deem it's possible to decide that some things are false and injurious to a person. But we are careful to make sure it's limited to that person and his reputation.

[Stavros]

To clarify something I put in my first post, with regard to the UK -Public Order law was relevant to aspects of free speech where it might incite disorder, but the Public Order Act of 1986 was amended by a clause in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 of which the relevant clause states

A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting [see amendment below], thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress

The Public Order Act of 1986 was also amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006, and again in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act of 2008 the latter two concerning themselves with religious expression in the first, and sexual orientation in the second, but note that after a campaign the word 'insulting' was removed from Public Order law. There is also an additional source of law in the Football Offences Act of 1991 which forbids indecent or racialist chanting at designated football matches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_s...United_Kingdom

I suspect that in law the UK -bearing in mind differences in law in Scotland and Northern Ireland- limits free speech more than it does in the US, though whether the law is always applied is hard to assess, not least when little is done (in my opinion) to police football matches. Note that tv coverage tends to edit out through sound engineering the precise chants that emerge from the crowds so that watching tv one is not always aware of what is happening in the ground. If the press is to be believed, the most common incidences of racist abuse takes place at football matches in Russia, which hosts the FIFA World Cup next year.

The basic principle, that hate speech is not free speech is thus enshrined in English law, though it is not clear how often the law is applied and used to convict.