[earthnail]

I’d much rather get arrested in Britain than Russia or Iran. And I certainly wouldn’t put the UK in the same bucket as Russia and Iran. Not even close.

Hate speech is a problem. If it wasn’t, why are Russia and China spending so much on troll farms? It’s a direct attack on a democracy’s ability to form consensus. I don’t think we’ve found the right, effective way to deal with this problem yet, but I applaud any democratic country that tries sth in that area.

I also think Tor is great, just for the record.

[fasbiner]

So to be clear, your sole expectation of a liberal democracy is that it have a better judicial system than Russia or Iran.

And beyond that, you applaud any democratic country's efforts to reign in speech by arresting their own citizens in order to combat foreign influence operations?

And the fulcrum of this argument is that we believe that Russia and China have uniquely pernicious influence operations and there are no other state-level actors domestically or semi-domestically whose intelligence services also exert influence through the passage of laws restricting speech?

Having seen the last two years of politics in the UK and the US, your impression is that there is an overwhelming Chinese-Russian troll farm operation which self-evidently justifies rolling back the last two centuries worth of hard-fought and incremental precedents won for free speech and free press.

And again, the water-line we need to stay above is merely "this is still better than being arrested in Russia or Iran", keeping in mind that many countries we would not consider to be democracies at all also meet this bar.

[graemep]

> And beyond that, you applaud any democratic country's efforts to reign in speech by arresting their own citizens in order to combat foreign influence operations?

The US has adopted policies based on that argument in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism and I think its generally agreed it was a bad thing.

[like_any_other]

> in order to combat foreign influence operations?

They don't have to be foreign - domestic prohibited leafleting suffices: Samuel Melia: Far-right activist jailed after sticker campaign - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867

[earthnail]

I probably made my point not very well. I am indeed worried about freedom of speech, and your example about Mccarthy ism is very very valud. I come from Germany; the Nazis, and later the Stasi, were masters in suppressing freedom of speech, and both committed the most brutal atrocities that must never be repeated (and also, as a side note, completely ran the country they ruled into the ground).

Freedom of speech is really, really important. And yes, we absolutely must defend it. But it bothers me that it is used as a complete killer argument when politicians try to talk about other problems.

Our societies are getting more and more polarized. We are being bullied by various actors, and whenever someone points it out someone else (often the perpetrator) is quick to hide behind the false argument of freedom of speech.

I personally really believe that we need to do something against that polarization. It’s an attack vector that’s very actively and very effectively being exploited by adversaries, foreign and domestic alime. It’s not a new thing, propaganda and misinformation is centuries old, but in the age of the internet the dynamics change, and we need to adapt.

This is a super complex problem. And there is a huge risk that people abuse it to implement surveillance they always wanted to have. But yes, my general position is that I think it’s good that proposals are being made, and because of that, I don’t want to see Starmer in the same bucket as Putin in this discussion. It’s also good that there are fights about which proposals are good and bad. But my overall feeling is that we ignored the problem for too long, and now we have to catch up. Otherwise, we’ll just get more and more polarized societies, and this really, really worries me.

It may at this point also be worth pointing out that the proposals really are very different.

- The UK went for a centralist proposal on age verification around porn, which can very easily turn into a surveillance tool. I think it’s a terrible solution.

- Australia opts for banning social media for minors. Doesn’t strike me as a big surveillance tool. Maybe extreme if you don’t share their view on the dangers of social media, but clearly a very different approach, and also a different problem they think they identified to the UK

- Germany goes for better parental controls, i.e. mandating manufacturers to make it really easy for parents to enable a walled garden for their kids. I like it because it’s still up to the parents whether to enable it or not, and no government surveillance is involved at all.

The cool thing of having different countries experiment with different approaches - not just solutions, but also assumptions on what problems would need fixing - is that you can run many experiments in parallel. The scientist in me is very happy about that.

If we’re lucky, one or two of these will over time come out as great solutions and get widely adopted.

[miroljub]

If you live anywhere in the west, you should be more concerned by being arrested by your own government then by some government in the other part of the world.

[computerfriend]

This is true (modulo travel and extradition) regardless of where in the world you live.

[throwfaraway135]

The problem is that it is really difficult to define what hate speech is, and more often than not it's used as a cudgel to silence the opposition.

For Iran and Russia, it is what Khamenei and Putin don't want to hear,

in the UK it's what Starmer doesn't want to hear.

[Defletter]

> The problem is that it is really difficult to define what hate speech is

It can be, but free speech types like to pretend it's nigh impossible. The UK has had modern hate-speech laws (for want of a better term) since the Public Order Act 1986, which made it an offence to stir up or incite racial hatred. Amendments in 2006 and 2008 expanded that to religious and homophobic hatred respectively. This exists in stark contrast to the common strawman touted by freeze peach types of "are you just going to compile a list of 'bad words'?!" Hate speech is not magic: you're not casting the self-incriminatus spell by saying the bad word.

That said, I wont pretend like that aren't misuses of police powers in regard to speech, and expression more generally. We've seen a crackdown on protests over the past few years which is more than a little frightening. That said, it's become a pattern that anytime I encounter a discussion online about the UK trampling on freedom of speech or whatever, it always comes back to hate speech. It's almost never about protest or expression. I think that's interesting.

EDIT: Correction, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 did not make stirring up or inciting "homophobic" hatred an offence, but rather hatred on the basis of sexual orientation. So one could get prosecuted for being inciting anti-straight hatred.

[delichon]

Apparently it isn't very hard to define as you just did so quite accurately. It's just whatever those who control the definition don't want to hear.

[ben_w]

It is really difficult to define what hate speech is, it certainly can be used as a cudgel to silence the opposition though I'm not sure about "more often than not" and bluntly everything can be used that way: my previous commute took me across the lines of what was officially known as (translated) an "anti-fascist protection rampart"* to keep people from leaving a country that put "Demokratische" in its name.

For the UK, it's not even clear what Starmer doesn't want to hear, he's got the charisma of the 10th-worst-in-class GCSE-level presentation on a topic not of his own choice. This can be observed in the poll ratings which are both amusing and the kind of thing that should only be found in a farce and not reality.

I'd instead point to Musk, who has openly said that "cis" is "hate speech" on Twitter now he owns the site. Starmer may or may not have such examples, but it's just too hard to figure out what they even are 'cause he lacks presence even as PM with all the cameras pointed at him.

* And to English speakers, "the Berlin Wall"

[wartywhoa23]

It's not the puppets who don't want to hear, it's the puppet masters.

[hdgvhicv]

It’s Badenoch wanting to deport a British Citizen for what he posted online, not Starmer.

[teiferer]

> more often than not

Do you have any evidence for that claim or is it a gut feeling?

> in the UK it's what Starmer doesn't want to hear.

In a literal sense that can't be true, since upon change of government, the hate speech definition does not suddenly change. In contrast, Putin and Khamenei are very literally able to personally define the definition.

In a figurative sense, that's likely true. As a democratically elected representative of the people, what he wants censored reflects what the people want censored, so is in alignment with a democratic society. If the people change their mind or realize it's not actually what they wanted, they elect somebody else next time. Good luck trying that with Putin or Khamenei.

In either case, your comparison does not hold up.

[thrance]

Just read the damn law before spouting nonsense. There have been hate speech laws since the 1980s. There are simply just more and more insane neonazis groyper-types online to which it is applicable.

[flr03]

Law is always subject to interpretation and as imperfect as it sounds it is better than no law at all. And I'm not talking about hate speech specifically. Using this as a tool to silence opposition is possible and made easy in countries that do not value and nurture independence of institutions and have rampant corruption, often countries with authoritarian leadership. UK is not exempt of criticism, it would be unhealthy not to, but comparing Russia/Putin with UK/Starmer makes it evident that you are more concerned by pushing a political agenda that by facts and reason.

[earthnail]

That comparison is not only highly inaccurate, it’s also harmful in that it distracts from the real problem at hand.

Putin and Khamenei are ruthless, brutal dictators. You don’t need to like Starmer, but he’s none of that. He’s a proper democrat. The implication that they’re all somewhat the same delegitimises democracies and legitimises these dictators. That’s how they win.

I personally don’t think UK’s age verification thing is a good idea. I like Germany‘s idea of mandating PC and smartphone manufacturers to put simple parental controls in thar parents, not the central government, can enable for their kids.

I love Australia‘s banning of Social media for kids. Let’s see where that leads. I don’t live there but am very excited for rhe outcome of that experiment.

We can’t just sit here and simplify everything to black and white while Russian troll farms polarise our societies. We bear some responsibility here to have a nuanced debate about these things.

[kortilla]

No, external influence is an attack on democracy’s ability to form consensus. No hate speech required to drive a wedge between constituents and make people focus on the wrong things.

[tarkin2]

"[A] direct attack on a democracy’s ability to form consensus" is a wonderfully precise term.

Splitting democratic nations through fearmongering targeted at everyone's online profile is an incredible weapon.

[naasking]

Democracies virtually never form a consensus, there are always dissenters on any issue. Democracies reach decisions by majority rule, not consensus.

[dmm]

> Hate speech is a problem.

I agree, 100%. Donald Trump should have the power to jail people for things they say online.

[dwb]

That is not how the legal system works in the UK or USA. That said, I am worried that we are going quickly in that direction.

[flr03]

No there is a thing call the law, those are passed by elected people and applied by a judicial system that is not the executive branch. Hope that helps.

[llmslave2]

I'd rather get arrested in the UK too, but that's completely irrelevant.

> Hate speech is a problem. If it wasn’t, why are Russia and China spending so much on troll farms?

Non-sequitur. The existence of troll farms doesn’t mean it's such a big problem that we should give up our rights surrounding speech and communication that we fought hard for.

[aetherson]

I don't think it's completely irrelevant. Can we admit some nuance where the UK's fast ramp up of arrests for previously legal speech is genuinely concerning, but also that raw number of arrests (not even convictions!) is not the only basis for comparison?

[immibis]

What are people saying that gets them arrested? This important but as-yet-unanswered question is crucial to evaluating the severity of the UK's censorship regime.