What's on your mind today?

I have to say I'm pretty worried about the state of Europe's free speech, as discussed previously here: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Policing-the-web-in-Germany-where-hate-speech-insults-are-a-crime-(60-Minutes)?index=0x67b37001d2404da004f82e2268011a77b4f43cf918b8cec39ed811d66205fcd70858c137

I understand that for some people - especially very young - hearing bad words on the Internet can actually lead to bad outcomes. But so does the words heard IRL. Will they now arrest school bullies, road ragers and bosses who sometimes lose their temper?

Ofc there are radical examples where someone literally asks people to kill someone, and so on. But these are obviously punishable by law, also in the US.

What I mean here is a very blurry line of "hate speech".

I have to say I'm pretty worried about the state of Europe's free speech, as discussed previously here

I think most people who reject this kind of lecturing from the Americans will say that this is Trump propaganda and that it isn't supposed to be taken seriously. And that we as Europeans can push back on it because we have our own cultural reasons to implement stricter free speech limitations than in the US.

But so why is 60 Minutes reporting on this? It seems to coincide with JD Vance's speech at the MSC. But is 60 Minutes a government-controlled TV show and so the timing wasn't random? Or is it just a coincidence? Or is it just the current vibes to dunk on the EU? German election interference? What lead to them producing this video?

I think most people who reject this kind of lecturing from the Americans will say that this is Trump propaganda and that it isn't supposed to be taken seriously. And that we as Europeans can push back on it because we have our own cultural reasons to implement stricter free speech limitations than in the US.

I literally had this exact conversation today with a French friend lol.

In this discussion I organized my thoughts as follows:

Let's say we draw a bell curve of hateful speech, where on the left there's "I disagree with you", and on the right there's "We need to kill him".

I don't think anyone would disagree that people on the right side of the bull curve should face legal charges. Even in the US.

The question is where is the cutoff point for the prosecution, and who actually controls it. Atm it's the state, and it's worrying, as it might be misused against the citizens.

I already have friends in Germany and the UK who are worried about speaking their minds out loud. Not because they're worried about legal charges (yet), but because they don't want to be ostracized. Which ofc reminds me of the US in 2020-2024 era.

And I think this is actually long-term bad because if you suppress speech that way people won't speak their minds, so you won't be able to track what they actually think.

This is what happened during the 2024 elections in the US where many people were surprised by Trump winning by a huge margin.

It is known as preference falsification (rel: "Private Truth, Public Lies" by Timur Kuran) and I think it's bad for the society.

I'm a preference falsification minimalist. I'd rather have people speaking their minds out loud when their ideas can be countered by other people/community notes/whatever, than them not speaking at all and having hidden tensions build up in the society. Because it's very dangerous.

A lot of anti-hate laws we have are to prevent Hitler-esque rise to power where you have a guy in the main square hating on Jews for 6 years. But this is not the only path to authoritarian power.

Another path is where these tensions just get stronger and stronger, and they get more and more suppressed by the state. And at one point people just can't hold it anymore, and we have a revolution. An armed one, like in 1789 France or 1917 Russia, or a democratic one, by protests like in 1979 Iran.

And although it is possible to have a revolution that doesn't end up in authoritarianism (see: 1989-1991 Soviet Union collapse), all the ones mentioned above have ended in de facto dictatorships.

But so why is 60 Minutes reporting on this? It seems to coincide with JD Vance's speech at the MSC. But is 60 Minutes a government-controlled TV show and so the timing wasn't random?

60 Minutes is on CBS, and it's been historically left-leaning. These are the people who cut the Kamala Harris interview to make her sound better. So I'd say either they decided to be more supportive of the Trump's government and it's a coordinated action, or they just found out it might be a hot topic that would get them a lot of views and ad revenue.

Let's say we draw a bell curve of hateful speech, where on the left there's "I disagree with you", and on the right there's "We need to kill him".

I think the issue is that it's not even that clear cut.

E.g. the video features a meme that translates to "climbing park for refugees" and then it shows an electricity power transformator in the background. Tbh, at this stage I'm not really sure what the legal implications are of me just describing what I've just seen, but in any case, let me analyse what I think is the "hateful speech" component of it.

My naive interpretation is that this is a "distasteful" joke. Clearly, you're not supposed to climb on a power transformator because you're going to die, so it plays with the idea of electrocuting refugees, which is exactly as you're saying, closer to the "I want you to die" intention. So should it be persecuted?

At the same time, this is using a meme template, universally recognized as a "joke medium" and, let's be real, it is a joke. You may not find the joke funny or you may disagree with it. Maybe you think it's a taboo. I grant this all and I'm not disagreeing. But it is, strictly speaking, still a joke. And my personal cultural understanding of a joke is that its prescription isn't to be taken seriously. So then why Am I supposed to take serious this bad-taste joke about killing refugees with electricity? Clearly, the first-layer interpretation intention is not to literally send refugees there to die despite it invoking that image in someone's head.

And here is where IMO it goes to far or it becomes really complicated, because I don't think we should have a government agency that is just occupied with investigating of whether someone's intention during posting a meme was to kill or incite violence towards refugees or whether it was to make an arguably distasteful joke. And then there's obviously a huge gap between killing someone and making really distasteful jokes.

I just think, and IMO the thumbnail of those three gov employees symbolizes it already, these people shouldn't have the paternalistic state mandate to police who said what on the internet. I think this is not a good use of state capacity and I doubt the outcomes of this will be good.

THAT SAID:

A lot of anti-hate laws we have are to prevent Hitler-esque rise to power where you have a guy in the main square hating on Jews for 6 years.

This is where I still see a good use in these laws and I don't think they should be abolished entirely. I'm not necessarily against these laws, but I think to execute on them is a very touchy topic that is supposed to be handled with great care.

For example, if you're intentionally creating a scenario where you're running on a platform of hate as a politician or business person or whatever, then why not have this be investigated if it puts in danger the constitution of the country. This to me would be a righteous use of these laws. If it is just randomly persecuting citizens for posting memes singularly, or when they insult politicians, then I think this is a misuse of that law, and it's a slippery slope into some form of authoritarianism.

My concern is with the execution of these laws and how arbitrary and decentralized the German state is, and how this may lead to a repression tool for ordinary citizens.

And here is where IMO it goes to far or it becomes really complicated, because I don't think we should have a government agency that is just occupied with investigating of whether someone's intention during posting a meme was to kill or incite violence towards refugees or whether it was to make an arguably distasteful joke. And then there's obviously a huge gap between killing someone and making really distasteful jokes.

That's a good point. I know people who make these bad jokes from time to time, but they'd never turn them into a reality. They just like edgy humor and sometimes take it way too far, and don't have enough skills (like professional comedians) to keep it in the boundaries of taste.

I just think, and IMO the thumbnail of those three gov employees symbolizes it already, these people shouldn't have the paternalistic state mandate to police who said what on the internet. I think this is not a good use of state capacity and I doubt the outcomes of this will be good.

I'd add that they'd probably not be that effective in the long run. If history of censorship teaches us anything is that it's the never ending arms race. After some time memes and references become more subtle and iykyk (see: Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh), so you can't actually prosecute a person for that unless you go full authoritarian mode.

This 60 Minutes episode gave me chills...

And the part where they're laughing saying that people are so surprised when they confiscate their smartphones...