Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

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Since you brought it up, I would generally agree with you and am not too concerned about free speech on the internet. More than just terrorist groups are being censored, but all of the speech that I have seen disenfranchised has been speech that is in my opinion objectionable in one way or another.

A lot of people in the US don't seem to realize how extreme we are as a country when it comes to free speech. We fetishize free speech in a way that I feel is not healthy. I don't think any country's laws are perfect in this regard, but all the other western democracies seem to be just fine with their laws against things like hate speech. I don't see how the US allowing hate speech is beneficial to the country or its people.

This opinion tends to be an unpopular on HN and I figured I would meet the original OP on their terms.

Western democracies with hate speech laws are less democratic because the range of legally permissible opinions is smaller.

If mere functioning is your goal for the country, then certainly countries without strong free speech protections can function. They can even function without democracy at all.

But most people want more for their country.

Western democracies with weaker free speech protections do function, but they also have a substantial pressure outlet in the form of websites hosted in other countries that don't kowtow to oppressive governments.

Cross reference this list[1] with this one[2]. I just don't see any evidence for a claims like "Western democracies with hate speech laws are less democratic".

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

The only thing the democracy index gets right are the broad strokes. But then again, so could a high schooler with wikipedia and a free afternoon.

It's not implemented well enough to detect the fine differences between western countries.

Hate speech laws reduce the range of discourse. They suppress dissent. That's inherently undemocratic.

I think the reason so many people feel that it's important to allow dissenting and objectionable speech is that the perception of 'harmful' speech is mostly subjective.

Relegating that permissiveness to a particular entity allows that subjectivity to be enforced in perverse ways.

Many people feel it is better to tolerate the objectionable and hurtful speech than to allow a 3rd party to use subjective judgment to censor.

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