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0 pointsnv-vn8y ago0 comments

Just because not everyone is granted the right in America does not make America worse than other countries. The OP is contending that the US, despite an imperfect record on free speech, is still better at it than anywhere else. Aaron Swartz is not at all a counterexample.

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walterstucco8y ago· 2 in thread

> does not make America worse than other countries.

It's bullshit that western EU is worse than US.

Even if we consider my country, Italy, where we already had Berlusconi and the granddaughter of Mussolini is in the parliament.

USA don't learn from other countries mistakes.

And when they make their own mistakes (and we in Italy had suffered a lot because of them), they say "we are still better than you"

No, they're not.

nv-vnOP8y ago

See Meerko's comment on this [1]. The EU has a class of its own freedom of speech violations that America does not. The fact that the US has made mistakes and the EU has made mistakes isn't the deciding factor. The scope of the EU's violations seem broader to me, given differences in the definitions of hate speech [2]. Whereas the U.S. has violated the right of freedom of speech for individuals, its track record is better w.r.t. freedom of speech because the EU chooses to ban a wide portion of speech.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15013897 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-19/free-spee...

walterstucco8y ago

Meerko's comment is not relevant for twO reasons:

- it asserts USA is better than most western EU, it's false

- it asserts that freedom to hate is proof of more freedom, but if people are not protected against hate speech and hatred, nobody is really free

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