I mean, the holocaust definitely happened, was horrific, and people who deny it either deny history happened at all of are conspiracy theorists, but I don’t like the precedent set by the government specifying what opinions are allowed to have - it doesn’t sound like something we should be celebrating, and anyway, banning opinions just drives them underground, if you want to regulate people’s thoughts you have to legalise them.
which means fewer people will find them and engage with them.
You’re going to get more people turning to Nazis if it’s just out and about in the open. If YouTube was running ads for nazisim, they’d get converts. If the only nazi stuff you see is scribbled on the bathroom walls, it has less legitimacy and thus fewer converts.
But it’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. It should be illegal for me to claim I’m disabled when I’m not or that bleach cures autism. Misinformation should be illegal.
Disinformation is spreading misinformation on purpose, knowing that it is incorrect.
Spreading misinformation should (in my opinion) not be illegal in itself, people should in many cases be given the benefit of the doubt. It might be ignorance.
A judge/jury should decide if it is done knowingly.
As long as the punishment is fair and not unduly harsh, I don’t see any real problem with criminalising misinformation in general. It’s already illegal to lie about facts in a great many contexts (e.g. fraud, perjury), and reasonable people don’t have a hugely difficult time distinguishing a fact from an opinion.
As a trivial example: “This is mine and you can have it for a dollar” is not an opinion someone can be entitled to, it is a statement of fact that is either true or not.
First off, I am a bit torn here, but will take the opposing side for arguments sake.
This is not an opinion. The holocaust happened, that makes it a fact.
I get your point, but should disinformation (as in deliberate misinformation) be allowed? How much harm should we accept from people spreading disinformation before we do something? The harm here being antisemitism.
Antisemitism is growing because people do not differentiate Israel and Jewish people. Many jews report that they do not feel safe in otherwise safe countries.
This is a hard question. Not sure what I think… Might be side effects that are hard to foresee
Agreed. People imagine the best case scenario for these kinds of bans, like calls to criminalize “misinformation” but what happens when the government is headed by Donald “Fake News” Trump and suddenly what you know to be fact is labelled “misinformation”? People were getting cancelled for speaking out against the invasion of Iraq, now imagine if it became a crime to deny that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Your argument only works if you assume that this sets some precedence for fascists to use. It doesn’t, fascists like Trump will implement fake news laws anyway.
In fact Holocaust denial is illegal in quite a lot of countries for quite a while now, most of them democracies (in number, not necessarily km²). Obviously you have to be reeeeally careful with any legislation that somehow restricts any freedom (like freedom of speech), but since every freedom requires boundaries to ensure other freedoms (like the freedom to live in peace and safety) and this is a historical, culture-defining fact and not some political agenda, we are absolutely fine.
I agree that fascists will try to force through what they can, but there is a wide range on the political spectrum outside of fascism, and they wouldn’t force through fake news laws like fascists, but they will take advantage of legal tools provided to them. A domestic mass surveillance program, the likes of which a fascist would want, was instituted by Bush and then continued and expanded by Obama. The justification was to combat terrorism, which would seem like a worthwhile goal, but I’d argue the negatives far outweigh any supposed positives.
Additionally, having these tools laying around only makes the job of fascists easier. Fascists still have to work within the legal framework set up before them, at least initially. Sure, they can try to ignore and force through measures, but the courts have legal backing to challenge them. A blanket misinformation law would make it so much easier for fascists to label something as misinformation and the courts can’t do anything about it.
In this case, it’s specifically about outlawing Holocaust denial, so I can’t imagine it being abused, but at the same time, I can’t imagine it doing much to stop fascism. It’s such a highly specific law, it even causes some to think “why only outlaw Holocaust denial and not the denial of other atrocities?” and that’s where the opportunity for a more general law comes in, which increases the potential for abuse.
I mean, the holocaust definitely happened, was horrific, and people who deny it either deny history happened at all of are conspiracy theorists, but I don’t like the precedent set by the government specifying what opinions are allowed to have - it doesn’t sound like something we should be celebrating, and anyway, banning opinions just drives them underground, if you want to regulate people’s thoughts you have to legalise them.
which means fewer people will find them and engage with them.
You’re going to get more people turning to Nazis if it’s just out and about in the open. If YouTube was running ads for nazisim, they’d get converts. If the only nazi stuff you see is scribbled on the bathroom walls, it has less legitimacy and thus fewer converts.
But it’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. It should be illegal for me to claim I’m disabled when I’m not or that bleach cures autism. Misinformation should be illegal.
Disinformation is spreading misinformation on purpose, knowing that it is incorrect.
Spreading misinformation should (in my opinion) not be illegal in itself, people should in many cases be given the benefit of the doubt. It might be ignorance.
A judge/jury should decide if it is done knowingly.
As long as the punishment is fair and not unduly harsh, I don’t see any real problem with criminalising misinformation in general. It’s already illegal to lie about facts in a great many contexts (e.g. fraud, perjury), and reasonable people don’t have a hugely difficult time distinguishing a fact from an opinion.
As a trivial example: “This is mine and you can have it for a dollar” is not an opinion someone can be entitled to, it is a statement of fact that is either true or not.
First off, I am a bit torn here, but will take the opposing side for arguments sake.
This is not an opinion. The holocaust happened, that makes it a fact.
I get your point, but should disinformation (as in deliberate misinformation) be allowed? How much harm should we accept from people spreading disinformation before we do something? The harm here being antisemitism.
Antisemitism is growing because people do not differentiate Israel and Jewish people. Many jews report that they do not feel safe in otherwise safe countries.
This is a hard question. Not sure what I think… Might be side effects that are hard to foresee
Agreed. People imagine the best case scenario for these kinds of bans, like calls to criminalize “misinformation” but what happens when the government is headed by Donald “Fake News” Trump and suddenly what you know to be fact is labelled “misinformation”? People were getting cancelled for speaking out against the invasion of Iraq, now imagine if it became a crime to deny that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Your argument only works if you assume that this sets some precedence for fascists to use. It doesn’t, fascists like Trump will implement fake news laws anyway. In fact Holocaust denial is illegal in quite a lot of countries for quite a while now, most of them democracies (in number, not necessarily km²). Obviously you have to be reeeeally careful with any legislation that somehow restricts any freedom (like freedom of speech), but since every freedom requires boundaries to ensure other freedoms (like the freedom to live in peace and safety) and this is a historical, culture-defining fact and not some political agenda, we are absolutely fine.
I agree that fascists will try to force through what they can, but there is a wide range on the political spectrum outside of fascism, and they wouldn’t force through fake news laws like fascists, but they will take advantage of legal tools provided to them. A domestic mass surveillance program, the likes of which a fascist would want, was instituted by Bush and then continued and expanded by Obama. The justification was to combat terrorism, which would seem like a worthwhile goal, but I’d argue the negatives far outweigh any supposed positives.
Additionally, having these tools laying around only makes the job of fascists easier. Fascists still have to work within the legal framework set up before them, at least initially. Sure, they can try to ignore and force through measures, but the courts have legal backing to challenge them. A blanket misinformation law would make it so much easier for fascists to label something as misinformation and the courts can’t do anything about it.
In this case, it’s specifically about outlawing Holocaust denial, so I can’t imagine it being abused, but at the same time, I can’t imagine it doing much to stop fascism. It’s such a highly specific law, it even causes some to think “why only outlaw Holocaust denial and not the denial of other atrocities?” and that’s where the opportunity for a more general law comes in, which increases the potential for abuse.