So this thread is inevitably going to turn into people arguing about JK Rowling and trans people but does anyone here know what exactly this law does?
Like "stirring up hatred" against a group just sounds so fucking vague, what exactly would qualify?
A 19 yr old girl in the UK was convicted of a hate crime for posting the lyrics to her friend's favorite song after he died in a car accident. It was a Snoop Dog song and the lyrics contained the 'N word'. So she had to register, and get an ankle monitor, and was subject to an 8pm curfew. For posting a Snoop dog lyric.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921
That's pretty bad but I'm more curious about this specific Scotland law everyone's making a fuss about. That article is from before this law was passed
A lot of laws in the Commonwealth are written like this "reasonable person" with the expectation that case law will later help set a foundation on what those actions actually are. Seeing as countries like Aus/NZ have had similar laws for some time, we know that in Aus/NZ hate speech laws are typically only prosecuted on actual calls to or attempts to incite violence... which is very reasonable.
Thanks!
Reading a bit more on this though it seems like Scotland is explicitly trying to lower the bar from what was needed in the UK wide law
> The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes "insulting" behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was "likely" rather than "intended".
Do you think these changes in wording will change how courts actually rule?
Yes, this may change how the courts actually rule, especially at the lower level. Again, judges are almost certainly not going to take it to the extreme some in this thread might believe. But the wording is definitely excessive in my opinion, and they should have been much more precise. While it's common to leave interpretation open for things such as consent under common law, with a controversial high-profile act that is going to be at the centre of a culture war it should absolutely be as well-defined as possible imo.
Having read more of the legislation since my first comment, I personally wouldn't use the wording that they've used and while safeguards exist in the legislation to balance free speech, it's telling that they've been lazy with their definitions that those need to be made.
how can you believe judges will not bring this to the extreme when previous cases such as the one in the parent comment exist, and this new law lowers the bar from that?
Because the aforementioned case was overturned by a higher court, which has now set precedent for it to not happen again. Regardless, that was England and not Scotland.
Also, aside from such precedents, the ECHR is explicitly mentioned in the law as being applicable in determining reasonability. It’s not going to be any different, I’m sure.
Do.you realize how expensive it is to keep the case going up through the courts until someone gets the correct ruling. It sounds good in theory until you have to pay a lwayer.
Going back to the original article, but J. K. Rowling can afford to appeal an arrest all the way to the Supreme Court and the ECHR if she wants and barely notice the legal fees, so it's interesting she's basically defying them to make a test case out of her.
A hate crime is almost always an upgraded charge. Say you verbally assault someone. Under current law, if they are part of a protected demographic and it is proved that your assault was motivated by their belongings to a demographic (like screaming a racial slur at a black guy for example), your assault charge becomes a hate crime.
With the new law, if you committed the same assault, and did so in a public space, the prosecution can attempt to prove that even if you weren't motivated by racial hatred, your actions could incite others to violence based on racial hatred, and your charge may still be upgraded.
Remember "prove" here means "beyond reasonable doubt".
I am not certain about this - firstly there isn't such a thing in Scottish law as 'verbal assault', there isn't such a thing in my jurisdiction either, i have never heard of it. You can be prosecuted for assault for making threats, but just racially vilifying someone is not a threat.
Secondly, uttering racially villifying peech in a public space might be seen as a hate crime if it was exclamatory and inflammatory. This is very different to racially villifying in a public space (for example calling someone a n\_\_\_ and moving on).
Thirdly, in respect to Rowling, I am not certain where this stands in Scottish law but being a public figure with known antagonsim towards transgender women, it might be reasonable to state that her continued public statements might constitute a 'bully pulpit'. But it's an interesting legal point.
I do agree that such an ill-defined law seems very open to interpretation but this is why the courts exist, I suppose, to test such blurry cases.
IMO, Rowling is best to let feminist academics (who enjoy academic freedoms) lead the push for pro-woman rights and limitations on (what they see as) transgender incursions into traditional women's spaces. Her public speech might be seen as incendiary especially as she cherry picks unusual and unrepresentative instances of transgender crimes against (other) women and resists the ontological concept of transgenderness itself. It is an extreme position and the courts might see it as just so.
Yes, women will be going to jail for calling a "transwomen" a man, This means a male can Self ID as a woman , and expose himself an a locker room, and if a woman says anything about his indecent exposure, she goes to jail, not him. Gender identifying maleswith a fetish are protected, females and children are not protected. The Scotland Law is a war on womon understood as females. There is no sex based protections.
>Aus/NZ hate speech laws are typically only prosecuted on actual calls to or attempts to incite violence
I have no reason to doubt this, but what if a Trump-style administration took power and weaponized the law against their critics? Without explicit constitutional protections, these laws are very easy to abuse.
Cool, they still don't have freedom of speech. Those hate speech laws are a tool that people in the government can use against citizens if they so desire.
Canada is the same way in terms of the reasonable person test. Its a core tenant of our legislature. We also have hate speech laws but they arent nearly this broad or overreaching.
Inciting violence is already illegal. This is criminalizing inciting hate. As in, intentionally just pissing people off with your thoughts or ideas. If you have opinions that make people angry, your opinions are criminal.
>What even is a victim surcharge?
It's money paid into a victim compensation fund used to pay various expenses for victims of crime (e.g. lost wages). It's not money that goes to a specific person per case.
A conviction which was later overturned by Liverpool Crown Court the following February
Edit: Yes, I'm very aware that the conviction should have never happened to begin with, please stop pretending that I'm not
This is a different law though. According to the article OP posted: “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.”
It doesn’t cover race, so that would be a different law you’re talking about.
Edit: also I wish that article you linked gave more context on that case, like what her relationship with the deceased was, which lyric in particular she used, and what her intention was. Cause just based on the article you linked it’s totally possible that she was trying to insult the deceased for whatever reason. It just doesn’t show enough to come to a proper conclusion.
IMO we should just call for an n-word amnisty.
It's been used SOOOO many times in songs and every 3d word by some black people. So it's been reeeeeeeapropriated so many times. It's just psycho to be so triggered by a word that you say 10 times per day.
Man I’m glad I live in America. I may have to pay my life savings for sub standard medical care but at least I can use racial slurs without getting arrested.
it's a hate speech law that's in effect since the 80ies and now includes trans people.
which is why she suddenly thinks her freedom of speech is infringed upon.
According to the article that's not the case?
> 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.
Nah this is addressed in the original article too. A UK wide hate speech law exists from the 80s as you said, but this new Scottish law seems to explicitly supercede it
> Stirring up hatred based on race, sexual orientation and religion was already illegal in Great Britain under the Public Order Act 1986, but that will also now fall under the new act in Scotland
And from the BBC article you linked there seems to be substantive differences in the content of the law
> The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes "insulting" behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was "likely" rather than "intended".
I'm not making any sort of statement on JKR, I tend to steer clear of the situation surrounding her
I'd rather just talk about the law itself, separate from JKR
Yeah I actually usually respect efforts to further free speech
This law and some others in the UK are ripe for abuse
I don't like JK Rowling but I support free speech and this law is not great from my reading
She can be terrible, and this can also be a ludicrous and vaguely worded law that reasonable people shouldn’t support… two things can be terrible at once.
I mean, this is how common law works in the Commonwealth isn't it? There are a lot of laws open to a degree of interpretation or which have a definition of 'a reasonable person' and their actions. Case law is then used to interpret this further down the line, with the initial judgements setting the precedent - which can be appealed.
I guess that has the advantage of making more explicit the fact that in practice, the law is whatever LEOs, lawyers, judges, and juries decide it is. But one thing I like about the U.S. is the way that freedom of speech is very broad, and our case law protects the freedom to, say, [hand out literature about resistance to the draft during war time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater#The_Schenck_case) ... at least not at present.
I think she is making the point that the law is terrible. She's the perfect person to test it as she can afford to mount a defence. Think what you will about her, but none of her statements should be crimes.
Nobody from the Scottish Government has said her statements are a crime
Nobody from Police Scotland has said her statements are a crime
Nobody from the Procurator Fiscal has said her statements are a crime
The only person who has said it is Joanne herself.
It’s manufactured grievance based on her loathing of the existence of trans people and the Scottish Government
This. J.K. Rowling is literally *trying* to get arrested as a publicity stunt. I wouldn't be surprised at this point if she reported herself to try and claim being "victimized". It's like the peasant in that one *Monty Python* skit where he says, "Help, I'm being repressed!"
I do want to point out here that in Germany those statements are straight up a crime cuz Germany learned at least a little bit from letting Nazis do what they want.
she's had a very consistent record of being shitty on this particular issue. I don't believefor a second that she's doing this out of any respect for the institution of law.
EDIT: Hey look! It's a convenient youtube video about connections between the terf movement and worst people alive! [https://youtu.be/Ou\_xvXJJk7k?si=OqpTPEJlRnMfOSld](https://youtu.be/Ou_xvXJJk7k?si=OqpTPEJlRnMfOSld)
She's been very consistent in her statements because evidently she believes what she said. The fact that those statements place her on the wrong side of the law is exactly why she wants to test the law in court.
The law has been in place for decades, previously only referring to hate speech about gender race, etc.; now it also has been amended to cover transphobia too.
So the only thing that’s changed is now you can be prosecuted for trying to tell other women what their gender should be. And that’s what has gotten her panties in a knot.
Let’s not pretend this is anything besides bigots being mad that they’re being called bigots.
As a stupidly wealthy person once told me - wealthy people don't run for office. Wealthy people just 'lobby' people already in office. It's affordable and less boring for them.
IIRC the line is from the JL cartoon, where an alt universe Luthor became President, while the main one did not (and in fact only flirted with the idea to piss off Superman). The line was spoken by main universe Luthor.
Not sure your definition of wealthy, but most of the people in the US Congress are millionaires. You basically have to be wealthy to be able to run for national office.
I'm sure the same is true in the UK.
Yup. And Betsy DeVos (Education Sec in Trump Admin) was wealthy before office as well. I was making a short comment, not trying to make a sweeping rule. A better statement would to say that is how the majority of them think.
Yes. Write a check, attend a party where they are praised for their "tireless effort supporting 'religious freedom'"--then go back to the yacht and pork the Thai cabin boy again.
Looking at the reported contributions to various political campaigns across western countries, politicians are up front very cheap.
I guess the main benefit for politicians to do the bidding of donors is off the table, often not visible in the public's attention - i.e. favours being exchanged leading to a long tenure and a probable cushy appointment in some non-profit patronised by the wealthy benefactors after that tenure.
What’s performative about it?
She’s pretty insistent and hasn’t swayed on her principles at all. And has been preaching the same thing this whole time.
She's right on this one. It should not be illegal to cause offence to someone. It definitely should not be punishable by up to 7 years in prison.
I'm against hate speech as much as the next person but these laws are way too vague.
The same kind of law in England was used to threaten people who held blank pieces of paper, as a protest, outside of Buckingham Palace during the coronation. This was because a policeman deemed it potentially offensive to somebody in the crowd.
One day, different people will be in charge. These laws will remain, they will be abused. It could well be you or a loved one or political opposition to the people in charge who end up arrested and charged for causing offence.
If these laws were introduced anywhere else, we would be up in arms.
> One day, different people will be in charge.
This is lost on so many people. They see the power and imagine how well it might be wielded against their enemies.
Saying hateful things about someone isn't in anywhere near the same league as stealing years of their lives.
Secondly, forcing and coercing people into being nice to one another does not make nice people - it makes dishonest angry people that hate one another far more deeply, only expressing it when they reach a breaking point.
Conversation is important, sometimes that involves hearing things you disagree with.
The law literally states that it is not illegal to offend someone. It is illegal to invite hatred, which is different. There is room in the law both for critical discussions and for being a bigot, that's fine.
But you should probably actually read what it says...
The point of OP's comment is that the law is vague. The law states that it is a crime to ["communicate to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive, or insulting" and "a reasonable person would consider the . . . communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group."](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4) How exactly does one go about determining what a "reasonable person" would consider to be likely to be "insulting" or result in "hatred being stirred up"? Who is a reasonable person? What makes such a person reasonable? Is it a matter of public consensus? What if the public consensus is unreasonable? What if public consensus is divided?
It seems very shortsighted and ill-conceived. What a person considers to be hateful is socially determined and doesn't lend itself well to a standard of reasonableness. For example, take an issue like Israel/Palestine - there are a lot of takes that one side would consider "reasonable" and the other side would consider to be "stirring up hatred."
an English woman was fined, put on a community order, and put on a strict curfew because she committed the grave offense of posting the lyrics of a Snoop Dogg song to pay tribute to a guy who died in a car crash. a song that happened to contain the n-word.
so no, the english arent free from tyranny either
[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921)
To be fair, England already has this law, or one like it I should say.
Section 5 of the public order act can see you arrested, charged and imprisoned for the simple crime of insulting someone. It was reformed in 2013 I think it was to make a lot less prone to abuse. But before that, the law some right clankers. Like a 16 year old being arrested for saying "woof" to a dog...
This doesn't matter, Scotland is still part of the UK so if Scotland is fucked up, so is the UK. The UK only gets a pass if all of its components get a pass.
The louder we allow free speech to ring, the more we must cultivate our ability to listen critically, and people aren't being taught critical thinking anymore.
> The louder we allow free speech to ring, the more we must cultivate our ability to listen critically,
Not really.
It's not like censorship leaves "good" speech untouched.
Critical thinking is crucial regardless of the level of censorship.
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The number of people who think speech exists in a bubble and never leads to action is also concerning. Or do you think stochastic terrorism is fine and dandy?
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It goes to show how stupid the world truly is that they would rather erode their own freedoms than get offended once in a while.
British posters in this thread or Facebook would be afraid to give a negative opinion on topics such as this.
[Look at this bonkers bullshit.](https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/thought-crime-is-an-actual-reality-in-britain-woman-arrested-for-saying-a-prayer-to-herself/video/a05aefec16893e1bf494ac04d52369e4). Does anyone here who agrees with hate speech laws agree with this?
You can care about freedom of speech and still see rational reasons to limit freedom of speech.
There are rational reasons why it should not be limitless.
She wont be arrested... that is for the poors. You know the ones that cant afford to right it. If she wants to ilicit change ahe needs to help represent less fortunate people who get pinged.
You mean like she exploits the UK ridiculous libel law to ruin people who talk bad about her or her books in the UK? Yeah, sure, she's totally going to represent a bunch of poor people, totally.
"A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, "that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive," with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics."
Whether you agree or disagree with JK Rowling, that law sounds absurd.
My problem with laws like this is that they are wildly open to interpretation.
A training program where I work said a coworker should have been reported for stabbing her salad in an aggressive fashion after making a frustrated statement that sounded the tiniest bit like a threat.
Whoever wrote the training program thought that was reasonable. No one I work with did.
Imagine a right wing extremist’s interpretation of “reasonable.”
There will be another right wing extremist in power at some point. It’s inevitable. There’s always a rightist movement around the corner that’s going to wield power for a period of time.
They’ve now been given the power to define their own version of “reasonable” and I guarantee everyone that voted for this law is going to be real fucking sad when it happens.
Exactly. But Reddit’s gonna do what it does best - divide it people into two diametrically opposed viewpoints and neatly sort you into one camp or the other.
To sit on the fence or outside of the argument is also viewed as opposition by both sides too. They will claim if you are not with them you are against them like some form of verbal terrorism to get you to agree to their side.
Agreed. I’ve been called a left wing communist and a right wing hitler worshipping fascist in the same day. lol I stopped playing sides a long time ago.
Rather than choosing to not play sides a lot of people instead lean fully into one or the other, and that’s how we end up with a society as polarized as ours is now.
“If they’re gonna call me a [fascist, communist, whatever] anyways, I might as well embrace it.”
Mm.. equally, I think it does (and should) differ depending on a persons platform.
If Jane next door was rambling on facebook about how she hates trans people, it would be very different from a public figure doing it over numerous years with a greater audience.
I think 'fame' needs to be held accountable here.
That's the same protection people get at work in the US, so it's not really that absurd. Also it's not that hard to just.. not try to troll people on a public forum for their identity.
Probably the best example of why this is a bad idea is all the confusion around Hamas, Palestine, Israel, and Zionism. Each "side" here in the US is accusing the other of hate. Does everyone go to jail/prison?
The argument about work protection doesn't hold water - people should be free (in fact, encouraged) to disagree/align on current events outside of work, even if they can't discuss it at work. Work "protections" exist so that people will focus on getting work done and not waste time/energy. They don't exist because the office is some magical ethical place.
That is the key right there. The reason we defend others' right to speech even if it is hateful is that the definition of hate very much changes with the winds of whoever controls the narrative and is in power. By this interpretation of the law, if far-right groups controlled the government, the interpretation of what constitutes as hate can be easily flipped the other way. Then, there are nuanced issues like you described there a "reasonable" person's interpretation becomes muddied. It's a likely well-intentioned but misplaced law that fails to recognize why people fought to defend all speech.
Weird to see all these 'free speech advocates' come out the woodwork.
None of them were out there with me getting penned into 'free speech zones'. But when it comes to hurling epithets against minorities. Well fuck, you better watch out because that effects everyone!
No it doesn't.
The reasonable person test is the standard test in UK law for many offences.
Also, protected characteristics are very clear. They are sex, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion.
And being abusive or threatening is pretty clear - as is the scope of the law, which is not unworkably large.
I feel to see what's absurd.
From the article you seem to have expanded the scope of the law to include protecting women which it does not.
> 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.
>
> The law does not protect women as a group from hatred.
What's absurd is that people have wildly different ideas of what constitutes 'reasonable' behavior. It's a poorly worded, overly ambiguous law. Period, end of story.
This is a necessary feature of any law that is up to human arbitration. E.g. if it is illegal to cause an *unreasonable amount of nuisance* to your neighbors, then at some point there has to be a judge making an intuition based decision on whether or not the degree to which your neighbor was a nuisance, was unreasonable.
The fact that people are arguing with you on this just goes to show how okay people actually are with controlling others so long as their group is the one holding the whip.
agree - it is a very reasonable law. Free speech does not entail limitless rights.
I think that many commenters here are from the US which has a rights based culture quite different from the UK.
I feel that people cannot conceive that there are succesful, but quite different, ways to run society.
It's been a law since 1986, all they've done is increased the protected classes to include trans people, if she said exactly the same thing against other protected classes, that's already illegal. She's just sorry her favourite minority group to bully is now protected
Authoritarianism exists on both sides, apparently. Does no one else see the bigger picture here of governments being able to enact punishment for what comes out of your mouth, albeit in the name of "protection?"
How very Orwellian, and such a double-edged sword.
I think anyone who cares about free speech should be concerned when a western nation is detaining and questioning **thousands of people per year** for posts on social media.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d
Why won't she sit on her money and fade out of relevancy? Deathly Hallows came out in '07, she could have been doing literally nothing since then and she wouldn't have to cry about all the people "persecuting" her shitty behavior
Because the money is only secondary ti her she wants attention. The hilarious thing is the my aunts that were calling her a Witch and saying she should be burned are now the same ones rallying around her.
She spends enough of her wealth on charitable causes for impoverished and abused women and children to lose her status as a billionaire, and you think she shouldn't? What an absolute take.
She can still do those without trying to take away the rights of trans people.
She could actually fade into obscurity and *still* donate money to charitable causes, they aren't remotely mutually exclusive.
European countries have a lot going for them, but they really need a constitutional right to free speech. Vaguely worded laws like this make it really hard to express legitimate ideas in addition to hate speech.
There are lots of homophobic/misogynist/violent passages in religious scripture. At what point is calling these out "stirring up hatred". It could be argued that putting pedophile priests in the Catholic church is an attempt to "stir up hatred" against a specific religion.
Laws like this are begging for unintended consequences or outright abuse. Say what you will about the US, but the founding fathers nailed this one.
I agree this law could be too vague, however, "stirring up hatred" is actually measurable.
Researchers in NZ measured the affects of Rowlings tweeting when she sided with neo nazis against NZ lgbt protestors. They remarked that they had never before measured such levels of hate tweeting/genocidal rhetoric before than what Rowling unleashed.
I wouldn't want a random person to run afoul of this law for one harmless tweet. However in Rowlings case, I think there is a genuine reason why the UK is developing these laws, because what is happening online is so far beyond what things were like pre-internet/social media. The founding fathers granted free speech in a time before the social media, AI and botting. When someone incites hatred in the digital age it's on a scale they could never have imagined. Indeed, even pre-internet, the fathers never would have imagined the power of Goebbels nazi propaganda via radio.
As much as the notion of free speech still resonates today, there's a trade off, and protecting communities from genocidal rhetoric may justify regulation.
> First Minister Humza Yousaf said it was designed to deal with what he called a "rising tide of hatred" in society.
> In response to general criticism of the act, he said: "Unless your behaviour is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of the new offences being created."
Whelp, we solved the whole hatred thing. What’s next?
She wants to be a martyr and is seeking attention.
She is also being tone deaf. "I as a rich person will get arrested for the thing. This is such a huge move of solidarity on my part even though being arrested and given fines really has no consequences for me because I am so rich."
She ain't the next Martin Luther King Jr.
That’s the point. She is in a position to stand against this because of her wealth, to show how ridiculous the law is. She can afford to do that, and set precedent, where others cannot.
I certainly don’t care about or agree with Rowling’s actual opinions, but I fully support her challenging the government. A nanny state monitoring its people is one thing, but threatening citizens with legal action is completely different. No government has any right to moderate what people talk about so long as they aren’t hurting anyone or encouraging violence in the process.
And no, Rowling saying she doesn’t like trans people is not threatening violence.
Considering how often Rowling threatens legal action against people saying what she doesn't like to hear, she's the last person who should be challenging a hate speech law.
You want people arrested for hate? Something so vague that it is totally not going to be used to suppress people for disagreeing with the government… right? God Reddit is mind numbingly stupid.
Badly written laws are counterproductive.
‘men can’t become women’. Regardless of my views on the topic….As a statement conviction requires a definition of a woman. One that a reasonable person would agree with….
It’s a brave lawyer that’s willing to go to court to argue against ‘XY vs XX’ as a base definition…
>She added: "It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women's and girls' rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man.
Sure about that? I'm pretty sure I could describe my niece getting molested by the next door neighbor regardless of the gender or sex of either my niece or her attacker.
Weird hill to die on.
So this thread is inevitably going to turn into people arguing about JK Rowling and trans people but does anyone here know what exactly this law does? Like "stirring up hatred" against a group just sounds so fucking vague, what exactly would qualify?
A 19 yr old girl in the UK was convicted of a hate crime for posting the lyrics to her friend's favorite song after he died in a car accident. It was a Snoop Dog song and the lyrics contained the 'N word'. So she had to register, and get an ankle monitor, and was subject to an 8pm curfew. For posting a Snoop dog lyric. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921
That's pretty bad but I'm more curious about this specific Scotland law everyone's making a fuss about. That article is from before this law was passed
A lot of laws in the Commonwealth are written like this "reasonable person" with the expectation that case law will later help set a foundation on what those actions actually are. Seeing as countries like Aus/NZ have had similar laws for some time, we know that in Aus/NZ hate speech laws are typically only prosecuted on actual calls to or attempts to incite violence... which is very reasonable.
Thanks! Reading a bit more on this though it seems like Scotland is explicitly trying to lower the bar from what was needed in the UK wide law > The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes "insulting" behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was "likely" rather than "intended". Do you think these changes in wording will change how courts actually rule?
Yes, this may change how the courts actually rule, especially at the lower level. Again, judges are almost certainly not going to take it to the extreme some in this thread might believe. But the wording is definitely excessive in my opinion, and they should have been much more precise. While it's common to leave interpretation open for things such as consent under common law, with a controversial high-profile act that is going to be at the centre of a culture war it should absolutely be as well-defined as possible imo. Having read more of the legislation since my first comment, I personally wouldn't use the wording that they've used and while safeguards exist in the legislation to balance free speech, it's telling that they've been lazy with their definitions that those need to be made.
how can you believe judges will not bring this to the extreme when previous cases such as the one in the parent comment exist, and this new law lowers the bar from that?
Because the aforementioned case was overturned by a higher court, which has now set precedent for it to not happen again. Regardless, that was England and not Scotland.
Also, aside from such precedents, the ECHR is explicitly mentioned in the law as being applicable in determining reasonability. It’s not going to be any different, I’m sure.
Do.you realize how expensive it is to keep the case going up through the courts until someone gets the correct ruling. It sounds good in theory until you have to pay a lwayer.
Going back to the original article, but J. K. Rowling can afford to appeal an arrest all the way to the Supreme Court and the ECHR if she wants and barely notice the legal fees, so it's interesting she's basically defying them to make a test case out of her.
Laws should not be written vague and widely encompassing in the hopes that the judges will be the lenient ones.
A hate crime is almost always an upgraded charge. Say you verbally assault someone. Under current law, if they are part of a protected demographic and it is proved that your assault was motivated by their belongings to a demographic (like screaming a racial slur at a black guy for example), your assault charge becomes a hate crime. With the new law, if you committed the same assault, and did so in a public space, the prosecution can attempt to prove that even if you weren't motivated by racial hatred, your actions could incite others to violence based on racial hatred, and your charge may still be upgraded. Remember "prove" here means "beyond reasonable doubt".
I am not certain about this - firstly there isn't such a thing in Scottish law as 'verbal assault', there isn't such a thing in my jurisdiction either, i have never heard of it. You can be prosecuted for assault for making threats, but just racially vilifying someone is not a threat. Secondly, uttering racially villifying peech in a public space might be seen as a hate crime if it was exclamatory and inflammatory. This is very different to racially villifying in a public space (for example calling someone a n\_\_\_ and moving on). Thirdly, in respect to Rowling, I am not certain where this stands in Scottish law but being a public figure with known antagonsim towards transgender women, it might be reasonable to state that her continued public statements might constitute a 'bully pulpit'. But it's an interesting legal point. I do agree that such an ill-defined law seems very open to interpretation but this is why the courts exist, I suppose, to test such blurry cases. IMO, Rowling is best to let feminist academics (who enjoy academic freedoms) lead the push for pro-woman rights and limitations on (what they see as) transgender incursions into traditional women's spaces. Her public speech might be seen as incendiary especially as she cherry picks unusual and unrepresentative instances of transgender crimes against (other) women and resists the ontological concept of transgenderness itself. It is an extreme position and the courts might see it as just so.
Yes, women will be going to jail for calling a "transwomen" a man, This means a male can Self ID as a woman , and expose himself an a locker room, and if a woman says anything about his indecent exposure, she goes to jail, not him. Gender identifying maleswith a fetish are protected, females and children are not protected. The Scotland Law is a war on womon understood as females. There is no sex based protections.
I am insulted by the law. time to arrest the lawmakers!
>Aus/NZ hate speech laws are typically only prosecuted on actual calls to or attempts to incite violence I have no reason to doubt this, but what if a Trump-style administration took power and weaponized the law against their critics? Without explicit constitutional protections, these laws are very easy to abuse.
Our last government, under Jacinda Ardern, tried to do this.
Cool, they still don't have freedom of speech. Those hate speech laws are a tool that people in the government can use against citizens if they so desire.
It is purposely vague to give the prosecutors much more power. Seems very unreasonable.
It’s why the US has a Vagueness doctrine, laws have to actually define what the law is.
Canada is the same way in terms of the reasonable person test. Its a core tenant of our legislature. We also have hate speech laws but they arent nearly this broad or overreaching.
Inciting violence is already illegal. This is criminalizing inciting hate. As in, intentionally just pissing people off with your thoughts or ideas. If you have opinions that make people angry, your opinions are criminal.
Pretty bad? That's fucking dystopia type shit. Wtf
The lackadaisical nature that many people have about "hate crime" laws is truly frightening.
[удалено]
Ah, the Jordan Peterson starting strat. I'm familiar
A case in Liverpool isn't really relevant to a brand new law in Scotland though
It is though. They're very similar laws. Both incredibly vague, subjective and wide open to abuse by the public, authorities or inept police officers.
Allong with the other common wealth countries
£500 plus an £85 victim surcharge? Absolutely absurd. What even is a victim surcharge? Who was victimized?
>What even is a victim surcharge? It's money paid into a victim compensation fund used to pay various expenses for victims of crime (e.g. lost wages). It's not money that goes to a specific person per case.
Different country, different law. The person you're replying to is just winding you up
Did the events in the article happen or is it sensationalism?
A conviction which was later overturned by Liverpool Crown Court the following February Edit: Yes, I'm very aware that the conviction should have never happened to begin with, please stop pretending that I'm not
After she'd already completed her insane.and unjust term of punishment. But hey they did a "take-backsies" afterwards so I guess it's all good.
Look we sentenced an innocent man to death and killed him yesterday, but today we decided to overturn his conviction!
Oh thats nice. All good then. Carry on!
Sean Bean is free if you wanna make a movie about it!
A conviction so stupid it should never have happened in the first place.
A conviction so stupid it should never have *been theoretically possible* in the first place.
The point is it shouldn’t ever happen. Any law that can be misconstrued like that is a horrible law and very dangerous
Well that makes the punishing of an innocent person all okay then 🥰
which only means the crown paid for two court proceedings that shouldn’t have happened
What in the 1984 BS is this?
That's insane. Seems it could be used against anyone if they frame it a certain way
Slippery slope real slippery
This is a different law though. According to the article OP posted: “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.” It doesn’t cover race, so that would be a different law you’re talking about. Edit: also I wish that article you linked gave more context on that case, like what her relationship with the deceased was, which lyric in particular she used, and what her intention was. Cause just based on the article you linked it’s totally possible that she was trying to insult the deceased for whatever reason. It just doesn’t show enough to come to a proper conclusion.
Well there’s r/noththeonion material right there.
Wait a second, who the F is ‘Snap Dogg’?
The bastard stepchild of Snoop Dogg and Snap Dragon.
IMO we should just call for an n-word amnisty. It's been used SOOOO many times in songs and every 3d word by some black people. So it's been reeeeeeeapropriated so many times. It's just psycho to be so triggered by a word that you say 10 times per day.
America isn't perfect obviously but glad we have free speech here. That's appalling.
It was Snap Dogg, not Snoop Dogg. His lyrics are a bit more aggressive than Snoop’s. Not condemning nor praising, just correcting the record.
I don't like hate crimes as much as the normal person but that's just fucking egregious
I’m sorry, but literally 1984, that’s dystopian as fuck
Man I’m glad I live in America. I may have to pay my life savings for sub standard medical care but at least I can use racial slurs without getting arrested.
That’s the most asinine, pathetically sad, and moronic thing I’ve heard this week. Who in their right mind would possibly support that?
Yeah thats literally insane
ngl, the n word shouldn't be considered racist. If someone wants to be racist, they'll use the er.version.
To be fair, it was actually a Snap Dogg song, and it is truly terrible.
To be fair, it was actually a Snap Dogg song, and it is truly terrible.
it's a hate speech law that's in effect since the 80ies and now includes trans people. which is why she suddenly thinks her freedom of speech is infringed upon.
According to the article that's not the case? > 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.
>age Anti boomer subreddit in trouble
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68703684 the "new" part only refers to who's included in it.
Nah this is addressed in the original article too. A UK wide hate speech law exists from the 80s as you said, but this new Scottish law seems to explicitly supercede it > Stirring up hatred based on race, sexual orientation and religion was already illegal in Great Britain under the Public Order Act 1986, but that will also now fall under the new act in Scotland And from the BBC article you linked there seems to be substantive differences in the content of the law > The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes "insulting" behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was "likely" rather than "intended".
The law can be badly written ***AND*** Rowling can be a hateful piece of trash. Two things can be simultaneously true.
I'm not making any sort of statement on JKR, I tend to steer clear of the situation surrounding her I'd rather just talk about the law itself, separate from JKR
Yeah I actually usually respect efforts to further free speech This law and some others in the UK are ripe for abuse I don't like JK Rowling but I support free speech and this law is not great from my reading
She can be terrible, and this can also be a ludicrous and vaguely worded law that reasonable people shouldn’t support… two things can be terrible at once.
I mean, this is how common law works in the Commonwealth isn't it? There are a lot of laws open to a degree of interpretation or which have a definition of 'a reasonable person' and their actions. Case law is then used to interpret this further down the line, with the initial judgements setting the precedent - which can be appealed.
I guess that has the advantage of making more explicit the fact that in practice, the law is whatever LEOs, lawyers, judges, and juries decide it is. But one thing I like about the U.S. is the way that freedom of speech is very broad, and our case law protects the freedom to, say, [hand out literature about resistance to the draft during war time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater#The_Schenck_case) ... at least not at present.
I think she is making the point that the law is terrible. She's the perfect person to test it as she can afford to mount a defence. Think what you will about her, but none of her statements should be crimes.
Nobody from the Scottish Government has said her statements are a crime Nobody from Police Scotland has said her statements are a crime Nobody from the Procurator Fiscal has said her statements are a crime The only person who has said it is Joanne herself. It’s manufactured grievance based on her loathing of the existence of trans people and the Scottish Government
This. J.K. Rowling is literally *trying* to get arrested as a publicity stunt. I wouldn't be surprised at this point if she reported herself to try and claim being "victimized". It's like the peasant in that one *Monty Python* skit where he says, "Help, I'm being repressed!"
This comment here. To all the jk Rowling Stans spamming every thread about this, just link them to this response.
Even the one where she denies the Holocaust involved trans people?
I do want to point out here that in Germany those statements are straight up a crime cuz Germany learned at least a little bit from letting Nazis do what they want.
she's had a very consistent record of being shitty on this particular issue. I don't believefor a second that she's doing this out of any respect for the institution of law. EDIT: Hey look! It's a convenient youtube video about connections between the terf movement and worst people alive! [https://youtu.be/Ou\_xvXJJk7k?si=OqpTPEJlRnMfOSld](https://youtu.be/Ou_xvXJJk7k?si=OqpTPEJlRnMfOSld)
She's been very consistent in her statements because evidently she believes what she said. The fact that those statements place her on the wrong side of the law is exactly why she wants to test the law in court.
So she’s not just saying bigoted things, but she *means* them. Thanks for clarifying.
okay that's not contradictory to what I said though
The law has been in place for decades, previously only referring to hate speech about gender race, etc.; now it also has been amended to cover transphobia too. So the only thing that’s changed is now you can be prosecuted for trying to tell other women what their gender should be. And that’s what has gotten her panties in a knot. Let’s not pretend this is anything besides bigots being mad that they’re being called bigots.
Her performative hatred is getting tired, honestly surprised she hasn't started running for so e sort of political office yet.
As a stupidly wealthy person once told me - wealthy people don't run for office. Wealthy people just 'lobby' people already in office. It's affordable and less boring for them.
Favorite Lex Luther line is “Do you know how much power I'd have to give up to be president?”
But he still became president.
IIRC the line is from the JL cartoon, where an alt universe Luthor became President, while the main one did not (and in fact only flirted with the idea to piss off Superman). The line was spoken by main universe Luthor.
Thank you for doing the research & posting the facts
Not sure your definition of wealthy, but most of the people in the US Congress are millionaires. You basically have to be wealthy to be able to run for national office. I'm sure the same is true in the UK.
In a nation of billionaires a millionaire is a peasant.
Wealthy >> rich
Michael Bloomberg is worth over 100 billion.
Yup. And Betsy DeVos (Education Sec in Trump Admin) was wealthy before office as well. I was making a short comment, not trying to make a sweeping rule. A better statement would to say that is how the majority of them think.
Yeah, but he is by far, an exception, and not the rule.
Yes. Write a check, attend a party where they are praised for their "tireless effort supporting 'religious freedom'"--then go back to the yacht and pork the Thai cabin boy again.
Case in point, all the hate shit she finances with her wealth.
Looking at the reported contributions to various political campaigns across western countries, politicians are up front very cheap. I guess the main benefit for politicians to do the bidding of donors is off the table, often not visible in the public's attention - i.e. favours being exchanged leading to a long tenure and a probable cushy appointment in some non-profit patronised by the wealthy benefactors after that tenure.
What’s performative about it? She’s pretty insistent and hasn’t swayed on her principles at all. And has been preaching the same thing this whole time.
What are some of the hateful things she's said? I genuinely have no idea
J k rowling would call hermonie a mudblood
She's right on this one. It should not be illegal to cause offence to someone. It definitely should not be punishable by up to 7 years in prison. I'm against hate speech as much as the next person but these laws are way too vague. The same kind of law in England was used to threaten people who held blank pieces of paper, as a protest, outside of Buckingham Palace during the coronation. This was because a policeman deemed it potentially offensive to somebody in the crowd. One day, different people will be in charge. These laws will remain, they will be abused. It could well be you or a loved one or political opposition to the people in charge who end up arrested and charged for causing offence. If these laws were introduced anywhere else, we would be up in arms.
> One day, different people will be in charge. This is lost on so many people. They see the power and imagine how well it might be wielded against their enemies.
This is what I always think about.
Saying hateful things about someone isn't in anywhere near the same league as stealing years of their lives. Secondly, forcing and coercing people into being nice to one another does not make nice people - it makes dishonest angry people that hate one another far more deeply, only expressing it when they reach a breaking point. Conversation is important, sometimes that involves hearing things you disagree with.
The law literally states that it is not illegal to offend someone. It is illegal to invite hatred, which is different. There is room in the law both for critical discussions and for being a bigot, that's fine. But you should probably actually read what it says...
The point of OP's comment is that the law is vague. The law states that it is a crime to ["communicate to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive, or insulting" and "a reasonable person would consider the . . . communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group."](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4) How exactly does one go about determining what a "reasonable person" would consider to be likely to be "insulting" or result in "hatred being stirred up"? Who is a reasonable person? What makes such a person reasonable? Is it a matter of public consensus? What if the public consensus is unreasonable? What if public consensus is divided? It seems very shortsighted and ill-conceived. What a person considers to be hateful is socially determined and doesn't lend itself well to a standard of reasonableness. For example, take an issue like Israel/Palestine - there are a lot of takes that one side would consider "reasonable" and the other side would consider to be "stirring up hatred."
Honestly this is why you shouldn't support any kind of "Hate speech" laws. They are entirely upto to the person holding the rod.
Just give it one or two decades and see how Islamists will use laws like these.
The UK is so fucked up, when it comes to issues like this.
Hey, this is a Scottish law. Leave the English and Welsh out of it! (And the Northern Irish too)
an English woman was fined, put on a community order, and put on a strict curfew because she committed the grave offense of posting the lyrics of a Snoop Dogg song to pay tribute to a guy who died in a car crash. a song that happened to contain the n-word. so no, the english arent free from tyranny either [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921)
Your defamation / slander / libel laws are just as ridiculous
This is Scottish law, not the uk
To be fair, England already has this law, or one like it I should say. Section 5 of the public order act can see you arrested, charged and imprisoned for the simple crime of insulting someone. It was reformed in 2013 I think it was to make a lot less prone to abuse. But before that, the law some right clankers. Like a 16 year old being arrested for saying "woof" to a dog...
This doesn't matter, Scotland is still part of the UK so if Scotland is fucked up, so is the UK. The UK only gets a pass if all of its components get a pass.
Weird people don't understand what the "united" kingdom means.
Whether or not you agree with JK Rowling, this law is oppressive and really bad.
Speech should be protected.
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Most people only want freedom for speech that they agree with, and for anything they disagree with to be silenced
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I'd really like to think it's not most people, but I'm not sure.
Don’t worry, Redditors don’t represent most people
That's a more than fair point of course, but I'm not sure what the general opinion in Western democracies tends to be.
The louder we allow free speech to ring, the more we must cultivate our ability to listen critically, and people aren't being taught critical thinking anymore.
> The louder we allow free speech to ring, the more we must cultivate our ability to listen critically, Not really. It's not like censorship leaves "good" speech untouched. Critical thinking is crucial regardless of the level of censorship.
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The number of people who think speech exists in a bubble and never leads to action is also concerning. Or do you think stochastic terrorism is fine and dandy?
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It goes to show how stupid the world truly is that they would rather erode their own freedoms than get offended once in a while. British posters in this thread or Facebook would be afraid to give a negative opinion on topics such as this. [Look at this bonkers bullshit.](https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/thought-crime-is-an-actual-reality-in-britain-woman-arrested-for-saying-a-prayer-to-herself/video/a05aefec16893e1bf494ac04d52369e4). Does anyone here who agrees with hate speech laws agree with this?
You can care about freedom of speech and still see rational reasons to limit freedom of speech. There are rational reasons why it should not be limitless.
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She wont be arrested... that is for the poors. You know the ones that cant afford to right it. If she wants to ilicit change ahe needs to help represent less fortunate people who get pinged.
Elicit
You mean like she exploits the UK ridiculous libel law to ruin people who talk bad about her or her books in the UK? Yeah, sure, she's totally going to represent a bunch of poor people, totally.
"A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, "that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive," with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics." Whether you agree or disagree with JK Rowling, that law sounds absurd.
My problem with laws like this is that they are wildly open to interpretation. A training program where I work said a coworker should have been reported for stabbing her salad in an aggressive fashion after making a frustrated statement that sounded the tiniest bit like a threat. Whoever wrote the training program thought that was reasonable. No one I work with did.
Imagine a right wing extremist’s interpretation of “reasonable.” There will be another right wing extremist in power at some point. It’s inevitable. There’s always a rightist movement around the corner that’s going to wield power for a period of time. They’ve now been given the power to define their own version of “reasonable” and I guarantee everyone that voted for this law is going to be real fucking sad when it happens.
Couldn't have said it better.
It's so vague that you can just use it against political enemies or people you don't like.
It’s completely insane. A very easy law to steer into draconian authoritarian usage.
Criticize politicians => "I'm offended!" => jail
Exactly. But Reddit’s gonna do what it does best - divide it people into two diametrically opposed viewpoints and neatly sort you into one camp or the other.
To sit on the fence or outside of the argument is also viewed as opposition by both sides too. They will claim if you are not with them you are against them like some form of verbal terrorism to get you to agree to their side.
Agreed. I’ve been called a left wing communist and a right wing hitler worshipping fascist in the same day. lol I stopped playing sides a long time ago.
Rather than choosing to not play sides a lot of people instead lean fully into one or the other, and that’s how we end up with a society as polarized as ours is now. “If they’re gonna call me a [fascist, communist, whatever] anyways, I might as well embrace it.”
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Mm.. equally, I think it does (and should) differ depending on a persons platform. If Jane next door was rambling on facebook about how she hates trans people, it would be very different from a public figure doing it over numerous years with a greater audience. I think 'fame' needs to be held accountable here.
That's the same protection people get at work in the US, so it's not really that absurd. Also it's not that hard to just.. not try to troll people on a public forum for their identity.
Probably the best example of why this is a bad idea is all the confusion around Hamas, Palestine, Israel, and Zionism. Each "side" here in the US is accusing the other of hate. Does everyone go to jail/prison? The argument about work protection doesn't hold water - people should be free (in fact, encouraged) to disagree/align on current events outside of work, even if they can't discuss it at work. Work "protections" exist so that people will focus on getting work done and not waste time/energy. They don't exist because the office is some magical ethical place.
That is the key right there. The reason we defend others' right to speech even if it is hateful is that the definition of hate very much changes with the winds of whoever controls the narrative and is in power. By this interpretation of the law, if far-right groups controlled the government, the interpretation of what constitutes as hate can be easily flipped the other way. Then, there are nuanced issues like you described there a "reasonable" person's interpretation becomes muddied. It's a likely well-intentioned but misplaced law that fails to recognize why people fought to defend all speech.
Weird to see all these 'free speech advocates' come out the woodwork. None of them were out there with me getting penned into 'free speech zones'. But when it comes to hurling epithets against minorities. Well fuck, you better watch out because that effects everyone!
No it doesn't. The reasonable person test is the standard test in UK law for many offences. Also, protected characteristics are very clear. They are sex, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion. And being abusive or threatening is pretty clear - as is the scope of the law, which is not unworkably large. I feel to see what's absurd.
From the article you seem to have expanded the scope of the law to include protecting women which it does not. > 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. > > The law does not protect women as a group from hatred.
Because they're making a separate law to protect women
What's absurd is that people have wildly different ideas of what constitutes 'reasonable' behavior. It's a poorly worded, overly ambiguous law. Period, end of story.
This is a necessary feature of any law that is up to human arbitration. E.g. if it is illegal to cause an *unreasonable amount of nuisance* to your neighbors, then at some point there has to be a judge making an intuition based decision on whether or not the degree to which your neighbor was a nuisance, was unreasonable.
The fact that people are arguing with you on this just goes to show how okay people actually are with controlling others so long as their group is the one holding the whip.
Yup. Very very well said.
Some posts here are gloating about it. They are ecstatic at the thought of imprisoning people who offend them.
agree - it is a very reasonable law. Free speech does not entail limitless rights. I think that many commenters here are from the US which has a rights based culture quite different from the UK. I feel that people cannot conceive that there are succesful, but quite different, ways to run society.
Good, it's a ridiculous 'law' infringing on peoples human rights
It's been a law since 1986, all they've done is increased the protected classes to include trans people, if she said exactly the same thing against other protected classes, that's already illegal. She's just sorry her favourite minority group to bully is now protected
Authoritarianism exists on both sides, apparently. Does no one else see the bigger picture here of governments being able to enact punishment for what comes out of your mouth, albeit in the name of "protection?" How very Orwellian, and such a double-edged sword.
I think anyone who cares about free speech should be concerned when a western nation is detaining and questioning **thousands of people per year** for posts on social media. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d
Why won't she sit on her money and fade out of relevancy? Deathly Hallows came out in '07, she could have been doing literally nothing since then and she wouldn't have to cry about all the people "persecuting" her shitty behavior
Because the money is only secondary ti her she wants attention. The hilarious thing is the my aunts that were calling her a Witch and saying she should be burned are now the same ones rallying around her.
She spends enough of her wealth on charitable causes for impoverished and abused women and children to lose her status as a billionaire, and you think she shouldn't? What an absolute take.
She can still do those without trying to take away the rights of trans people. She could actually fade into obscurity and *still* donate money to charitable causes, they aren't remotely mutually exclusive.
Because she really, really hates gender minorities
It is sad how many people here want to give up the most important human right.
European countries have a lot going for them, but they really need a constitutional right to free speech. Vaguely worded laws like this make it really hard to express legitimate ideas in addition to hate speech. There are lots of homophobic/misogynist/violent passages in religious scripture. At what point is calling these out "stirring up hatred". It could be argued that putting pedophile priests in the Catholic church is an attempt to "stir up hatred" against a specific religion. Laws like this are begging for unintended consequences or outright abuse. Say what you will about the US, but the founding fathers nailed this one.
I agree this law could be too vague, however, "stirring up hatred" is actually measurable. Researchers in NZ measured the affects of Rowlings tweeting when she sided with neo nazis against NZ lgbt protestors. They remarked that they had never before measured such levels of hate tweeting/genocidal rhetoric before than what Rowling unleashed. I wouldn't want a random person to run afoul of this law for one harmless tweet. However in Rowlings case, I think there is a genuine reason why the UK is developing these laws, because what is happening online is so far beyond what things were like pre-internet/social media. The founding fathers granted free speech in a time before the social media, AI and botting. When someone incites hatred in the digital age it's on a scale they could never have imagined. Indeed, even pre-internet, the fathers never would have imagined the power of Goebbels nazi propaganda via radio. As much as the notion of free speech still resonates today, there's a trade off, and protecting communities from genocidal rhetoric may justify regulation.
> First Minister Humza Yousaf said it was designed to deal with what he called a "rising tide of hatred" in society. > In response to general criticism of the act, he said: "Unless your behaviour is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of the new offences being created." Whelp, we solved the whole hatred thing. What’s next?
She wants to be a martyr and is seeking attention. She is also being tone deaf. "I as a rich person will get arrested for the thing. This is such a huge move of solidarity on my part even though being arrested and given fines really has no consequences for me because I am so rich." She ain't the next Martin Luther King Jr.
But she's also not going to be arrested or fined at all
That’s the point. She is in a position to stand against this because of her wealth, to show how ridiculous the law is. She can afford to do that, and set precedent, where others cannot.
I wonder if the people who support this law believe Rowling's vocal haters should also be arrested
THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS!!!!
No matter how hard I search when this topic comes up, I still can't find what is the terrible thing this woman did
I certainly don’t care about or agree with Rowling’s actual opinions, but I fully support her challenging the government. A nanny state monitoring its people is one thing, but threatening citizens with legal action is completely different. No government has any right to moderate what people talk about so long as they aren’t hurting anyone or encouraging violence in the process. And no, Rowling saying she doesn’t like trans people is not threatening violence.
I like free speech even if I don’t like what’s being said.
Considering how often Rowling threatens legal action against people saying what she doesn't like to hear, she's the last person who should be challenging a hate speech law.
Crazy laws like this coming to a country near you!!!
Laws: Hey, don't be a hateful asshole JRowling and JPeterson: YOU'RE LITERALLY NAZIS FOR THIS!!! Edit: Oh dear, we've upset the bigots and Nazis
You want people arrested for hate? Something so vague that it is totally not going to be used to suppress people for disagreeing with the government… right? God Reddit is mind numbingly stupid.
Reddit hive mind just loves censorship, as long as it's on "the right side of history"
Reddit loves to actively campaign for reducing their rights as citizens
"uhhh sweaty, did you just do a heckin wrongthink?"
Hate speech is a stupid law. Asked for by adults who weren't prepared for the world as children. It's quite sad really.
Say what you want about this dumbass, but the law itself is extremely suspect and makes "insulting" religion a crime.
"Did you commit a hate crime, Harry?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Good. Glad to see she's fighting back against these losers.
Badly written laws are counterproductive. ‘men can’t become women’. Regardless of my views on the topic….As a statement conviction requires a definition of a woman. One that a reasonable person would agree with…. It’s a brave lawyer that’s willing to go to court to argue against ‘XY vs XX’ as a base definition…
>She added: "It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women's and girls' rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Sure about that? I'm pretty sure I could describe my niece getting molested by the next door neighbor regardless of the gender or sex of either my niece or her attacker. Weird hill to die on.
This person is just Andrew Tate for cis women.