[norome]

seems pretty telling that the article is all about Britain and the UK, but the author calls it a "European" problem. While afaik european countries do not have "free speech" in the american sense they do each have differing levels of tolerance, criminalization, and enforcement. I think the social side is even more important than the legal aspects. Orwell wrote his 1984 about England, after the social repression he experienced. And I would say the same or stronger repression and conformism exists in north america, despite the law. What I've seen in europe is that day-to-day freedom of expression is far and away greater than anywhere in Canada or the US i've been. Including the UK sphere. So I think it's a serious error to conflate the law itself with the "tyranny of the majority", and to conflate one country or region with "europe".

[CjHuber]

At least in Germany there is definitely a „free speech problem“. There are several crimes such as „Volksverhetzung“ (agitation of the people) that do serve a legitimate purpose but which are very vaguely defined. Also, trying to ban a party like the AfD, which is the second largest in Germany, for things that are not illegal to say (I‘m not judging their politics here, I‘m just saying the assessment has been leaked and there are no illegal things in there) doesn’t exactly scream free speech

[znpy]

The weird thing about the whole AfD issue is that the other parties don’t realise that censoring and excluding AfD will likely make it stronger. Strange they didn’t consider that outcome.