- cross-posted to:
- scotland@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- scotland@feddit.uk
JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
…
Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
Her opinion on trans folks is shit, but people should not go to jail for shit opinions. Broken clock and stuff.
It’s more complicated than that. Like saying there is a fire in a theatre when there is none, saying transgender are undercover perverts and a danger to society when it’s not supported by evidence will get people killed. Freedom of speech is great and all but when your lie and put people in danger there should be consequences.
And just for the record, this is not a theory. People HAVE been murdered.
Sick people are inspired to violence by all kind of thing, are we going to outlaw Catcher in the Rye?
We should because it’s a shit book.
I see, since you are for outlawing books it all falls into places.
omg you’re reaching so hard over this entire comment section. just stop, it’s quite frankly embarrassing
Oh no I’m embarrassing myself in the internet, how will I ever live that one down.
There is a very incredibly stark contrast between telling a story on a page and actually saying “we should hurt people”
Kind of depends? There are books around that are rather direct in their hurtful message.
Yeah there are, but you’ll never be able to stop people from spreading literature, legal or not, so things like catcher and the rye, mice and men, mockingbird, with all of their controversies are great to have in schools to help our children grow into adults who can identify this stuff for what it actually is and not some deranged gospel.
But then there’s also a ton of other arguments to be made about mental health and all that, when it comes to violent psychos we shouldn’t get in the habit of settling with a scapegoat
Maybe you are misunderstanding me, I’m not arguing for censorship of books but against censorship op speech.
You originally asked if we were going to suggest banning CATR, my point is mostly these books are great examples to help people identify this language and why it should not be used. If you went into a crowded theater and started shouting there’s a shooter, you’d be arrested for inciting panic. Its not censorship when the point is stopping speech from causing physical harm. Same way your right to travel isn’t infringed by requiring a license to drive
So who is deciding what opinions are puting people in danger. US government for example thinks that whistleblowers Manning and journalist like Assange are puting people in danger.
You can weaponize an opinion, that is what is getting punished.
Where you draw the line? And who is drawing it? Will you be equally happy when conservatives will use the same tools against opinions they see as dangerous?
Who draws it? The government?!
What could go wrong? Assange and Manning would like a word with you.
Slippery slope fallacy “You’re okay with the government saying certain ingredients can’t go in food? Where does that stop? Will you be equally happy when a government you disagree with uses the same tools to dictate everything that goes in your food?”
“You’re okay with the government saying certain areas are off limits to the general public? Where do you draw the line? Will you be equally happy when a different government uses the same tools to forbid you from leaving your home?”
Is this specific step reasonable? Then it’s okay. When they try to take an unreasonable step then it is appropriate to do something about it.
My argument is more, that while I trust at least some governments with deciding on what food is safe, I don’t trust governments at all with decisions about what speech is permitted.
“But what if conservatives ape what you’re doing and make shit up?” is an all-purpose argument against doing anything.
“But what if conservatives call you a terrorist?” is both a real problem that happened to people, and an obviously shite reason to say “therefore let’s not fight terrorism.”
Stop treating “but who decides?” like a table-slapping counterargument. Every law has a line. Unless you’re an outright anarchist, someone has to draw a line, somewhere, and choosing not to draw a sensible one never seems to stop assholes from drawing an unreasonable one. I mean for fuck’s sake, have you seen American states censoring school libraries for fear of acknowledging queer people? That’s not some backlash or ironic reversal. They’re just bastards. The fact they’ll latch onto whatever we’re doing, as an excuse, doesn’t make us responsible for their bastardry.
Yeah, so let’s not play their game and not give governments any tools to be able to censor anyone. In best case in some constitutional form.
I think the line is being drawn at “don’t sympathize with
terrorist groupsan opressive theocratic government” (publicly stating “at least the taliban know what a woman is”) and “don’t directly fund hate groups”.(Edited, see comment below)
Terrorist for ones are maybe freedom fighters for others - kind of sketchy line over there.
When you woke up today did you decide you were gonna make excuses for the Taliban right there and then or did it kinda just happen? Holy shit.
Taliban are obviously the only terrorist group on the planet and rebels were never before labeled as terrorists.
Which other terrorist group did that TERF sympathize with?
How should I know? I personally don’t follow those crazy people.
Lots of people just don’t know what freedom is speech actually means. Speech isn’t a crime, but crimes can be committed by speaking.
If you kill someone with a hammer, you aren’t charged with possession of hammer - you’re charged with murder. If you hire a hitman to do the killing instead, you aren’t charged with “using speech.”
When that theoretical person is arrested for “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” they aren’t actually being arrested for their speech or their words, but for a separate crime that uses speech as a mechanism.
Speech is a marvelous thing that should be protected, but freedom of speech is not freedom from the consequences of using speech to commit other crimes.
Agreed. It just becomes problematic when speech itself is redefined as crime, that is what I’m arguing against. And the the line with the consequences is not that clear either. Someone could read a book and go an kill someone. I personally think it’s a hard thing to really understand consequences of words.
She grossly misinterprets what the law is meant to achieve. It’s not for somebody who dead names a trans person or calls a trans woman he or him. It’s when someone Tweets out “Who will rid me of this troublesome trans person?” and then their one or more of their followers goes out and beats or murders that person.
You should maybe read the law.
It’s talking about likely consequence not after a crime has been committed. Also:
Which makes possession of inflammatory material an offence. Which is rather murky on it’s own, but even more so in digital age.
Later it quite literally defines on which terms it’s permissive to discuss sexual orientation or religion.
To be fair, maybe I missed something so feel free to correct me:
https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/legislation/bills/s5-bills/hate-crime-and-public-order-scotland-bill/introduced/explanatory-notes-hate-crime-and-public-order-scotland-bill.pdf
I was using hyperbole but the intention is the same. If you use a public platform to intentionally cause harm to another person by way of their race, nationality, sexual identity, or other specificity then you have committed a crime.
What you clearly missed was the point of the law. Hate speech isn’t about saying what you want about another person, it’s about using your speech to directly or indirectly harm another person or group of people.
Sorry I’m bad at reading facial expression over the internet. My mistake.
I literally quoted the law: “where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group.”
That goes beyond what you claim. While even a possession of such speech would be an offence.
People shouldn’t go to jail for shit opinions, I agree. That changes when their opinions become more than opinions.
That’s cryptic.
Have as many opinions as you want, but if you spread shit like “we should exterminate the lesser races” and “trans people are rapists” you earn a vacation at the greybar hotel for abusing your right of free speech to infringe on other people’s rights.
The question is where the line is drawn and how to make sure the state is not abusing those powers to suppress opinions that it sees dangerous. A good example are cases when protecting the children is used as argument for more surveillance. This seems foelr me to go along the same lines.
Sometimes the question of “Where do we draw the line” is an important, valid question that must be considered. Sometimes, the answer to that question can also be “I don’t know precisely, but this is damn well over it.”
I’m not saying that hack writer is necessarily to that stage, but we absolutely should not allow “But where do you draw the line” to turn into “Everything is permitted because what about splitting hairs.”
Than I will rephrase the question. Who should draw the line and do you trust people in power to draw it in a fair way? What if conservatives are holding that power against opinions they think are dangerous?
I’m not totally familiar with how the Scottish legal system works, but wouldn’t the line be drawn by a jury of peers, and not necessarily the people in power?
Good question. But than again - not sure you want to be judged on sensitive topic by a group of peers, I’m not a huge fan of that concept to be honest.
[Calling for the extermination of people based on race/ethnicity/religion/gender/disability]
[Discrimination based on race/ethnicity/religion/gender/disability]
|||||||||| THE LINE ||||||||||
.
.
[Literally 1984]
Most sane countries don’t have a lot trouble with this.
Calling for extermination, I would agree on. Since it’s more than an opinion it’s a call to action.
I’m really curious for examples.