Facebook and Twitter to suspend Trump accounts following attack on Ilhan Omar??

Flash said:
Hate speech is constitutionally protected free speech--just like they have on Fox and MSNBC.
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I'm not saying hate speech should be illegal. However, we do have laws against speech that can easily lead to violence. It's illegal to threaten people. It's illegal to slander people. It's illegal to stand on a street corner and yell about who should be lynched.
Hate speech is very difficult to place sometimes. When exactly does it go from hate speech we should tolerate to hate speech that is too dangerous to allow? It's subjective and we have courts to determine when the line has been crossed.
 
Flash said:
You can try to incite violence. Your speech cannot be restricted until it becomes clear that others are about to commit violence because of your speech--it has to be imminent.
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This is why this is such a gray subject. A court usually has to determine what counts as "imminent."
Personally, I don't think trying to incite violence should be legal. And either way, Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be giving violence a platform. If Trump is going to slander Omar, resulting in her getting death threats, then his account should be suspended. He's still free to spazz out about Muslims offline.
 
StoneByStone said:
I'm not saying hate speech should be illegal. However, we do have laws against speech that can easily lead to violence. It's illegal to threaten people. It's illegal to slander people. It's illegal to stand on a street corner and yell about who should be lynched.
Hate speech is very difficult to place sometimes. When exactly does it go from hate speech we should tolerate to hate speech that is too dangerous to allow? It's subjective and we have courts to determine when the line has been crossed.
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Our laws allow more freedom than your interpretation. The test for laws inciting a riot are very difficult to meet. I can advocate anything I choose including violent overthrow of the U. S. or sex with minors. For my speech to be restricted or illegal it would have to lead to violence directly as a result of my speech with people committing violent acts I am urging them to commit (not as a reaction against my speech). It has to be imminent. If I urge you to beat up somebody and you do it a couple of hours later it is not a result of my speech. Many of the inciting a riot cases from the Vietnam War riots were overturned.

It is illegal to threaten people if I am serious about the threat and I am capable of carrying out the threat. Cases of threatening the president have been overturned because it was based on a condition ("I am going to kill the president if he ever comes to my town") or when it is not a direct threat. A man was convicted of saying President Obama was going to "take a 50-caliber to the head" and called him a racial slur on the Yahoo message board--overturned.

It is not illegal to slander or libel people but they can bring a civil suit against you if you can prove it damaged you. I can stand on the corner and yell "all Jews should be lynched" and it is not a crime. There is no such thing as hate speech too dangerous to allow unless it is a credible threat.
 
StoneByStone said:
This is why this is such a gray subject. A court usually has to determine what counts as "imminent."
Personally, I don't think trying to incite violence should be legal. And either way, Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be giving violence a platform. If Trump is going to slander Omar, resulting in her getting death threats, then his account should be suspended. He's still free to spazz out about Muslims offline.
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This at least the second time that this has been mentioned, in this tread; but I haven't seen anything verifying this.
 
Flash said:
Our laws allow more freedom than your interpretation. The test for laws inciting a riot are very difficult to meet. I can advocate anything I choose including violent overthrow of the U. S. or sex with minors. For my speech to be restricted or illegal it would have to lead to violence directly as a result of my speech with people committing violent acts I am urging them to commit (not as a reaction against my speech). It has to be imminent. If I urge you to beat up somebody and you do it a couple of hours later it is not a result of my speech. Many of the inciting a riot cases from the Vietnam War riots were overturned.

It is illegal to threaten people if I am serious about the threat and I am capable of carrying out the threat. Cases of threatening the president have been overturned because it was based on a condition ("I am going to kill the president if he ever comes to my town") or when it is not a direct threat. A man was convicted of saying President Obama was going to "take a 50-caliber to the head" and called him a racial slur on the Yahoo message board--overturned.

It is not illegal to slander or libel people but they can bring a civil suit against you if you can prove it damaged you. I can stand on the corner and yell "all Jews should be lynched" and it is not a crime. There is no such thing as hate speech too dangerous to allow unless it is a credible threat.
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Looks like Jade wants some of those BLM members arrested!!
 
StoneByStone said:
This is why this is such a gray subject. A court usually has to determine what counts as "imminent."
Personally, I don't think trying to incite violence should be legal. And either way, Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be giving violence a platform. If Trump is going to slander Omar, resulting in her getting death threats, then his account should be suspended. He's still free to spazz out about Muslims offline.
Click to expand...

Imminent means it is about to happen immediately. Trump did not slander Omar unless his statements were untrue and it damaged her. His tweets did not lead to her getting death threats and they probably were not credible threats--meaning the person did not really intend to harm her. A threat the person made the following day was not something that can be blamed on Trump because it no longer carried the emotional state required for a person to act. And, writing on the internet is not something a person does in the heat of the moment but requires intent and planning on their part.

Facebook and Twitter were not giving violence a platform because no violence against Omar occurred. As a private organization they are completely free to not allow certain kinds of speech or ban particular people. All those freedoms (speech, press) only restrict government actions and do not apply to non-governmental entities.

We can lament that our society now sees it as acceptable to hate, denigrate, condemn, or attack others, but never should we seek to ban freedom of expression. Speech which is offensive or "hate speech" should be discouraged but never prohibited.

There are many on this forum who vehemently attack others with insults and profanity and justify it because those (liberals or conservatives) are destroying this country. JPP can ban those people, but government should never limit that speech.
 
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