subadubwappawappa

In some areas, like hate speech, the US has an almost absolutist approach to freedom of expression, which goes beyond most of the rest of the world.

This position is extremely disappointing coming from your group.

Without an objective legal definition of hate speech and an unbiased ruling authority, some governments are overstepping their bounds, and more insidiously, they are pressuring private companies to censor on their behalf without due process. Your statement whitewashes these troubling activities.

Calls for violence, genocide, and murder are rightfully banned - but the legal term for "hate speech" has grown to encompass "expressing disrespect" in Sweden, and "insults a person or group" in Norway, etc... ...and calls to classify pictures of cartoon frogs as hate speech in the US..

With no due process, private companies subsequently censor based on these broad government definitions. ...and their censorship often goes further than their government directives...

"Facebook has never claimed to be a free-speech platform.... She explained that when a user reports a piece of content that might be offensive, the company exercises its power to censor with precision." -- Facebook's head of policy, Monika Bickert

When the Constitution was written, freedom of speech was protected from the government. It was not imagined that we'd also need protection from massive multi-national corporations. ...but today, nearly all of our communications are done via the custody of private corporations (Social media companies, cell phone provider, email providers, ISPs, etc...), that seem to have no qualms censoring by their own definitions and happy to act on behalf of the governments.

I'm glad you're here answering questions on World Free Press Day - but to be honest, when I see members of the press complaining about freedom of the press while simultaneously advocating censorship... I'm less than sympathetic to their cause.

The government pressure on private companies is especially concerning because it lacks any due process of law and these companies often hold effective monopolies over almost ubiquitously used services.

Unlike during the writing of our constitutions, 99% of all our communications today are made through the custody of private companies - ISPs, cloud services, social media, search engines.

Thanks for the reply - I appreciate it.

There is a multiplicative impact on censorship when the government delegates censorship (for example today - to private companies).

With regard to your example in the Rwanda catastrophe... I don't know if a hate speech law would have prevented those massacres, but we shouldn't look to the worst cases of human behavior to guide policy. If we did that we'd be left with no freedoms at all. If we govern to the lowest common denominator, what kind of society are we left with? We must value our freedoms at a high value, as they were paid for in human lives many times over.

I would have expected your organization to err on the side to protect freedom of speech, rather than highlighting the US as a bad example due to our lack of censorship. We walk a more slippery slope these days than we have in the past. It would be nice if the Center for Law and Democracy walked with us instead of trying to push us off the edge. :)

I appreciate all the good work you guys do.

Oxygen is used by racists. Maybe we should classify oxygen as a racist chemical?

No, his characterization of the US as absolutionist and different from the rest of the western world conveyed an obvious opinion.