Free Speech or Racial Hatred?

What an interesting discussion.

I must say, I agree with a large portion of the opinions stated here, but not all.

I've never been one to stand for Racism, or discriminations of any sort. I firmly believe in equal opprotunity, Freedom of Speech, and take a firm stand against censorship.

With reading the article posted, and the posts here, there is one small point that I may be overlooking. Was the offensive emails in question mass mailed, or were they targeting individuals with their messages of hate? If it was the former, shouldn't the ISP's involved be doing some sort of filtering against mass mailings? I recall reading there are many proposed plans against fighting spam, and this would appear to be far worse than the countless "viagra" ads that fill our mailboxes. And if they were targeted to specific individuals, then I feel the answer lies is prosecution.

It's one thing to be stating your views to a receptive listener, it's another to force those views on another. If I want to discuss conspiracy theories with a friend,(or religious, political, etc.) that's one thing, assuming they want to listen to me, or partake in the conversation, great, then we can have an interesting conversation. But if I keep bombarding them with my ideas, thoughts, and opinions, and they -don't- want to hear it, then I'm violating their rights by imposing my beliefs on them.

One person's rights end where another's begin.

The same things apply with propaganda,such as these hate mails. If I want to learn about your ideas, beliefs, whatever, I can easily seek your organization out. I don't want to be force fed messages of hate, whether online, in person, whatever. And I don't want to see it subtly fed to the youth, as is being done here:
Racist Gaming

Personally, I would love to see this kind of activity end, there's norhyme or reason for it. To attack someone based on sex, race, creed, religion, sexual preference, is ignorance, plain and simple. We're all in this together. What people don't understand, they fear, and obviously, what they fear, they hate.

In this day and age, it's difficult to believe that such ignorance still runs rampant throughout our societies, but yet, take a look around, and I'm sure it can be found, sometimes in the most unsuspected places. And that is really a shame.

I believe what someone said earlier "private e-mail should not be monitored." If you are just sending someone e-mail then i believe you can say whatever you want, although some people will disagree. If you make threats and then they want to use your e-mail then their is nothing you can do. But since it seems like there was no "direct" threat i do not believe they should be using that e-mail

I don't agree with racism, but I do agree with freedom. If you start restricting peoples point of view then soon you start restricting what people can do. why is it that nobody see that the thing thought of as unethical or not moral are the first things that people try to restrict. Next will be the things that are not in the best intrest of a goverment or corporations. And finally it will be that you cant post thread to the net without some "big brother" affiliate kicking your door open and bringing you to jail.

All I am saying is be carfull how much power you give orginizations and how little power you allow the general public. People are threatened by power, but more so by not having it.

knoledge is power, know all that you can.

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Next will be the things that are not in the best intrest of a goverment or corporations. And finally it will be that you cant post thread to the net without some "big brother" affiliate kicking your door open and bringing you to jail.

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Actually, this has already happened in Sweden, or at least something similiar. I read it on another board I'm a member of, and the gist of it states that the webmaster is responsible for the material posted on the boards hosted on their servers. They closed down the site on top of possible criminal charges. The site in question is a newspaper of all things, and from what I read, it's one of the largest in the country. Anyhow, the Stockholm court found the publisher guilty of "ethnic group bashing", based upon posts in a forum. I'm not sure of all the details, but that's the summary of what happened.

Here's the link:

Swedish Site shut down

I don't read Swedish, but here's the link for those who do. (And if someone could post a translation of the article it would be appreciated.)

I´ll translate but post a link to the article..

With freedom comes responsibility, and the world is full of naivete...

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Actually, this has already happened in Sweden, or at least something similiar. I read it on another board I'm a member of, and the gist of it states that the webmaster is responsible for the material posted on the boards hosted on their servers. They closed down the site on top of possible criminal charges. The site in question is a newspaper of all things, and from what I read, it's one of the largest in the country. Anyhow, the Stockholm court found the publisher guilty of "ethnic group bashing", based upon posts in a forum. I'm not sure of all the details, but that's the summary of what happened.

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Uhm. I don't really see your point. What does censorship have to do with crappy internet-related swedish laws? For all mass media, wether it be movies, audio cd's or news papers you have to have a publisher. The publisher is responsible for what gets published.
If a news paper decides for example, to publish an article on how stupid black people are, they are commiting a crime and someone has to pay for it. Espesially since you can't put a news paper in jail. Media in large has a tremendous oppertunity to control peoples opinions which is why you have a publisher.

In the case you speak of, the paper in question - Aftonbladet (www.aftonbladet.se) had some racist **** published on their discussion board. The thing is that acoording to swedish law, this discussion board is counted as part of the news paper and thus, can't publish illegal stuff without commiting a crime.

I'm not sure I think this is bad either, mostly because people in large are morons and I'll bet you my next salary that some people actually thought the discussion forum to be journalistic content published by the paper.

If the stuff published was kiddie porn instead of a racist remark, published as a fact, both of which are illegal whould you still have said the same thing?

Bottom line is that you can think whatever you want, you can say it to whoever you please, but once you state it as a fact, you are commiting a crime and you should get punished.

There is a big difference between "Black people are morons" and "I think black people are morons".

Just my two cents/pennies/ipaqs/whatever.

Cheers,

no one is perf. dudes freedom is hurting.it will change soon.nothing is forever.

I hate all of you <censored>. Thats how I see it. Then you don't know what the general view of whatever the topic is. I diplore racism and hate. In a free society though it has it's place. An exaple would be. All of a sudden you have a barage of mass mailings in an area. It may be anit-semite or racialy motivated material. Well, that may lead one to figure out that somethin troublesum may be brewing in that area. I believe in a persons right to express ones opinion. At some point it must have a line drawn in the sand. If someone says to me. I hate so and so (insert whatever ethnic group), well thats an opinion. I may disagree with them. But, they should have the right to express that. If they say, I hate all whatever lets go and kill them or burn their homes. Well thats wrong. In other words. It should be a right to express ones opinion as long as it doesn't infringe on anothers right to equaly do so. What if during WWII the governments of the allies decided to supress and censor the discovery of the concentration camps after the invasion and defeat of Germany to keep the public from viewing the horiffic images of death. Even though they had the opinion that it was horrible. Then the world may have never known. Sometimes free speech right or wrong, leads to an improvment of a problem. Like in the former USSR when the Chrynobil reactor melted down. The USSR censored it and it caused many needless deaths from radioactive poisoning. It was not until radiological sensors in the free countries of Europe discovered it, that the USSR had to come clean and start cleaning up the mess. What if those countries had sensored it as well? It would have been even more devistating. So as long as one express's an opinion it should be allowed as long as it does'nt infringe on the rights of someone to counter with their own opinion. Thats the difference between democracy and totaltarianism.

Just my $.02 worth.

Well, simply put, my reply was involving the "big brother" concept that was mentioned earlier in the thread, that I quoted in my reply.

I don't support racism, and I strongly believe in freedom of speech, as well as thought. I thought I was pretty clear in my post on my stance in my previous posts. But however, I am slightly confused on something that was asked. I'm not sure what you think I was saying...

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If the stuff published was kiddie porn instead of a racist remark, published as a fact, both of which are illegal whould you still have said the same thing?

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Well, if some sick bastard was posting kiddie porn, they should be punished, plain and simple. No arguements from me on that one. Regardless of being illegal, I'd say it's immoral as well. Just my opinion...

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Media in large has a tremendous oppertunity to control peoples opinions which is why you have a publisher.

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Very true.

As I had earlier stated, I didn't read the article from the source, I read about it on another messageboard. I thought it was appropriate given the concept of Big Brother kicking in the door and arresting people for what they say, post, etc.

-Aryoche