lennybird

When I feel that I can't improve the world, I improve myself and focus on my family.

You can have a fair and equitable court system, or you can have a fast one; rarely if ever both. True justice tends to be slow and steady and helps to account for public witch-hunts and reduce risk of someone innocent being. People always say, "Yeah well this one is obvious!" but that's not how justice works. It must be absolute. It must be there for the lowest of hanging fruit if it is to be there for the more nuanced cases just the same.

On the other hand, sadly, a slow and unfair one are not mutually-exclusive.

No good comes from this. This is the equivalent threatening or intending for violence.

And yet, I'm told by another user, a free speech absolutist, that this is absolutely normal and should be protected.

In your view then, should schooling, vaccinations, trans surgeries, social media access also be entirely up to the parent?

Second to that, the law doesn't prohibit anyone from accessing these things outright; but rather ensuring that children don't get access to these things absent of their parent's approval — just as you indicate is your view here. Put another way, an adult parent could indeed log into pornhub on their behalf, no?

Free speech answers that, too. Expressing an opinion we disapprove of isn’t an exception to free speech: for that we can express our condemnation.

Yeah that's all fine and dandy to free-speech hard-righty absolutists, conveniently enough, but no, that's not my view; nor is it a representative of some V For vendetta authoritarianism to recognize objectively-wrong speech.

Tell me, do you or do you not subscribe to the "punch a nazi" notion of not being tolerant to intolerance?

Restricting private access to information while raising risk of identity fraud & abusing the rights of protesters with loose definitions of terrorism isn’t heading to your cartoonish idea of a dystopia?

As I had originally stated in my response, this would be a step towards that, yes, as I felt it was the most substantive point of your response to me; but not on the "doorstep"—as I had stated—itself. We will circle back to this following the Three High Court ruling in the coming weeks.

Far-right extremists want nothing more than free speech absolutism because it is convenient to their shallow tropes to dupe the masses; hence why far-right extremism is on the rise throughout the globe in the first place. So goes the adage, a lie travels half-way around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

To reiterate, the source that you cited is not in reference to those cases, but specifically about hate speech and cyber-bullying — both clear problems that have aided in the rise of far-right extremism across the globe already. Put another way, we've had free speech absolutist social media and internet for decades, and we've only gone further rightward as a result. I'll quote directly the source you cited in which I'm referring:

The application of Germany's decades-old speech laws were strengthened after its darkest chapter, and then was accelerated online after an assassination of a politician, fueled by the internet, sent shockwaves through the country. In 2015, a video of a local politician named Walter Lübcke went viral after he defended then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's progressive immigration policy.

"People with a very right political world view, they started hating him on the internet. They started insulting him. They started to incite people to kill him. And that went on for about four years," Meininghaus said.

This Stochastic terrorism threat is real, and in fact was utilized in Israel just the same when then-candidate Bibi engaged in the same stochastic rhetoric and inspired a radical to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.

Defamation, Slander, Libel cases are common. Misattribution even under plagiarism is another aspect of commonly regulated speech. I don't have much a problem with false quotes on high-profile figures not classified directly as comedy having some capacity for removal. This is how lies travel faster than truths around the world. Again, hardly a sign that UK is turning fascist.

So, what exactly IS your solution to inhibit the far-right except for moderate or left-wing governments to directly deal with said hate speech? (And no, I don't consider Pro-Palestinian protesters hate speech of course; which is why this Court ruling is so pivotal).

Finally, hateful words are still words. Has this generation forgotten how to handle words?

It is extremely ironic one says this, considering the strict Hate Speech laws of Germany originated from their direct experience with propagating fascism at home in the 1930s, 1940s and learning through pain and suffering inflicted on others as well as themselves. Volksverhetzung was suspended conveniently enough during the Nazi era, and only post-war was it codified into law. So the question may be reversed: Have YOU forgotten the potency of these words, gone unchecked?

You raise valid points and I'm certainly opposed to the notion of non-violent Pro-Palestinian protesters being labeled a terrorist organization (no differently than Antifa in the US, or the absurdity of stopping campus protesters against Israel). I am curious what people's thoughts here on laws that seek to prohibit minors from using social media, and how that differs from ensuring loopholes are cut to prevent minors from seeing porn.

When I reacted to the other user's comment, most of the rhetoric I was hearing was from disgruntled far-right extremists upset that islamophobes and various racist, sexist bigots were being held accountable on social media for hate speech, and even then the few instances they pointed to also basically dried up with either nothing or a proverbial slap on the wrist.

On the flip-side, if we step back and look at this, none of what has been mentioned is really some indication that UK is on the doorstep of V for Vendetta-like dystopia. Put another way, preventing children's access to porn -- whether agreed with or not -- has kind of been a presumed given, and only recently did it seem like a bunch of politicians became aware that it wasn't actually restricted in the first place or something...

On another note, when you cite, "penalizing vitriol, insults," that article actually is in reference to combating Hate Speech and cyber-bullying in Germany, which is a bit different is it not? That is in reference to Intolerance to Intolerance, yeah? To that I mostly say good!

And I'm simply answering that they're really not, or at least not in the falsely-equivalent picture you painted with the US. USA is closer to Russia in terms of its fast-track to authoritarianism. UK? They're engaging in what many here claim to support: no tolerance for intolerance.

If by keeping losers who run their mouths with hate speech in check, then sure.

UK and Germany kind of felt the worst effects of fascism and so have less tolerance for intolerance. This doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Don't promote talking-points originating from far-right propaganda outlets. This isn't when remotely the same as the blatantly unconstitutional Gestapo-like actions of ICE thugs going on in America. Friendly reminder this administration is actively trying to remove political satirist from television by leveraging their oversight of corporate mergers and the FCC. They succeeded with Colbert.

Don't forget all the publicly-funded universities that caved to pressure on bogus claims of antisemitism with protesters exercising their first amendment rights. Hell, some when tried to stop protests of Israel itself.

Echoing this: If you set out to finds someone directly, more often than not you're going to have a bad time I think. The most organic way is through self-improvement and a certain inner-peace or contentment with being on your own. Combine this with getting involved in communities of ANY sort that you find comfort or passion in, from a pick-up sports league to DnD group to renaissance festival — whatever. Start finding community, and from there organic connection is bound to occur.

But again, it's not something you pursue directly but almost always by serendipitous, indirect means.

For me, it was like a flip of the switch. The moment I started to focus on self-improvement and be content with being on my own was the moment I started to be invited to things; which then gave me the confidence to say, "yeah, sure I'll go." It was one of these times I met my partner, soul mate, of going on 2 decades.

I'm very much an introvert, and my partner is extremely extroverted. She asked me out on our first date, actually lol.

It's like The Office meme; "They're the same picture."

Also, more importantly, what do Meta, Google, and Apple have to do with picking tariff wars with Canada and fighting over Greenland with Denmark? Like I'm all for shitting on corporations and their pathological pursuit of profit, but I'm not yet seeing the connection.

Did you read Putin's own essay on his imperial fantasies? The Foundations of geopolitics; Surkov theater? Let's not pull the Glenn Greenwald blind-eye RussiaGate nonsense and pretend that russia is innocent in all this. There is an absurd amount of evidence that this is the exact goal of Putin for many, many years — particularly the fragmentation of NATO, and why he was hinging on Trump's reelection ideally to invade Ukraine in the first place. The one piece of puzzle that luckily failed and likely led to Ukraine being able to mount an effective defense against his main invasion.

Moreover it has also been very obvious that the Republican administration, and that includes think-tanks like Heritage, have been infiltrated. There's a reason Trump is Agent Krasnov. There's a reason former Trump officials were literally imprisoned before they were pardoned for essentially spying on behalf of russia. There is a reason Putin spent a lot of time and resources seeking Trump's winning every election. There is a reason Trump is picking fights with Denmark over Greenland and right out of the gate picked a fight with our closest ally both literally and figuratively, Canada. There is no better explanation than to divide and fracture the west and to give Putin his return on his investment.

You can even look to Hungary (and again the obsession with right-wing domestic media interest) as a proving-ground for Putin.

Never said it was. I said it would be wise for them to do so and ultimately in their own interest to do so, though.

They would be wise to caveat the security risk being only when Republicans are in power as it currently stands.

This is much of Putin's plan to fracture long held western alliances. He sees these headlines and sees his return on investment.