Man arrested for racial abuse of Chelsea striker Demba Ba

[Zhangfei]

I just defined "hate speech" to mean "potatoes". I'm going to have some boiled hate speech with dinner tonight, I think. Or maybe french fried hate speech with ketchup.

Why is anyone banning potatoes? That seems silly.

Almost as silly as trying to redefine terms like "hate speech" to avoid discussing the actual issue, because you'd rather attack a totally different straw man instead.

They're stuck on straw man arguments and argumentum ad absurdum. I think this thread has moved beyond a reasonable discussion to a weird zone.

[Sorensen]

They're stuck on straw man arguments and argumentum ad absurdum. I think this thread has moved beyond a reasonable discussion to a weird zone.

So its still been an argument of people who want free speech vs those who don't that it.

[Zhangfei]

So its still been an argument of people who want free speech vs those who don't that it.

Right. I want free speech and you don't like sauerkraut.

[Sorensen]

Right. I want free speech and you don't like sauerkraut.

So you agree that people should be able to say any racist thing they wish?

[Zhangfei]

So you agree that people should be able to say any racist thing they wish?

No, just like I don't think people should incite riots or violence, commit defamation, conspire to commit a crime or perform libel or slander.

[Raybourne]

No, just like I don't think people should incite riots or violence, commit defamation, conspire to commit a crime or perform libel or slander.

So then tell them...Arresting them is a non secateur.

[Sorensen]

No, just like I don't think people should incite riots or violence, commit defamation, conspire to commit a crime or perform libel or slander.

Do you also not think people should be allowed to speak about political ideas. That is pretty similar to racism, its a system of beliefs and religion for that matter.

[Wildtree]

So its still been an argument of people who want free speech vs those who don't that it.

All people in here are from countries which have freedom of speech. And in all countries present the freedom does have limitations by laws.
Absolute freedom of speech doesn't exist anywhere.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 04:09 PM ----------

Do you also not think people should be allowed to speak about political ideas. That is pretty similar to racism, its a system of beliefs and religion for that matter.

Depends on the society and the motives.. Germany for example has the harshest Anti-Nazi Laws of any country. And spreading nazi ideologies is the sure path to get in trouble with the law in Germany.

[Zhangfei]

Do you also not think people should be allowed to speak about political ideas. That is pretty similar to racism, its a system of beliefs and religion for that matter.

Yes. Political beliefs are based on serious matters. Racism is based on ignorance and hatred without any scientific basis and causes significant harm.

[Themius]

I don't see the problem with this...

[Skavau]

No, this is just categorically false. This is the "evolution is just a theory, man" of arguments against hate speech. You not understanding the terminology is not an argument against it.

Edit: Specifically, for something to qualify as "hate speech", it typically needs to involve an incitement to violence against an identifiable group, or to threaten/harass/intimidate said group.

So, if we're going to talk about speech regarding a group of blue-skinned people, to make up an ethnicity that doesn't exist so nobody can get offended;

"I hate all those fucking blue people" isn't hate speech.
"You smurfs are ruining everything" isn't hate speech, even if "smurf" is a racial epithet in this case.
"We need to kill all those goddamned smurfs" is hate speech, due to incitement to violence/genocide.
"Smurfing smurfs smurfing the smurf out of all the smurfing smurf" isn't hate speech, despite the heavy use of "smurf".
"If I see any fucking bluefaces, I'm beating the shit out of them" is hate speech, speech meant to intimidate/harass.

And so on.

It isn't "insults". It isn't stuff that offends people. If that's what you think "hate speech" is, then you aren't paying attention to the actual laws and you're just reacting off either a complete willful ignorance of the legislation in question, where you refuse to actually look up those laws to inform yourself before spouting off, or you're listening to some propaganda mouthpiece that is outright lying to you.

Yet, in the UK all of the smurf comments have the potential, if noticed to get you arrested. In the UK, more than inciting violence or issuing direct threats based on race count as hate speech.

---------- Post added 2013-02-02 at 04:46 AM ----------

Yes. Political beliefs are based on serious matters. Racism is based on ignorance and hatred without any scientific basis and causes significant harm.

What about people who seriously support racist political ideologies?

[Zhangfei]

What about people who seriously support racist political ideologies?

Then they are racists. Their political ideologies are irrelevant. Same with racist football fans, or racist business managers, or racist cheesemongers - it's the racism that's the problem.

As stated above, there's no evidence for racism having any groundings in reality. It's just vocalised discrimination.

[naturestorm]

I think what a few people fail to realise is that this was reported to the police by a person who viewed the comment, they didn't go trawling through the Internet looking for people to arrest. A member of the public brought this to the police's attention which gives them a responsibility to look into it to see if a crime was committed. Part of that investigation would be arresting the guy who made the comments on suspicion of whatever crime to get his side of the story on record. It is hardly a crusade to arrest and prosecute all Internet trolls in some sort of totalitarian plot like some posters are obsessing over.

So you mean not even the "victim" reported it as harassment" yet the guy was arrested? Sounds very disturbing as in regards I fail to understand what can a comment on facebook or an insult in real life be a crime? It's not abuse unless the victim is forced to tolerate it and can't get away, as in maybe at work when he gets insulted by his boss each day or something.

But insulting racist/religous or not on facebook or on the street should never be motive to prosecute someone. You don't like, move on, none was contraining you to stay there and hear the insult. You don't like the facebook post? Report it, it's get taken down, user maybe banned.

But then again EU is not that liberal or democrat when it comes to freedom of speech, our last European Justice Report (signed by EP and presented by it's representative) for my country, said (for the first time ever in any report) that our mass-media should get censored and not talk about any trials, judges and anything justice related so not to offend them because it's an attack on justice! So basicly they told us to revise our freedom of speech laws to make it in such a way that mass-media can't question or cover any justice related news!