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US Won't Support Hate Speech Ban in Int'l Treaty
Posted by Steven Wu on Friday, November 15 @ 13:50:06 EST Free Expression
Good news for (some) fans of the First Amendment: according to News.com, the United States has refused to support a cybercrime treaty, proposed by the Council of Europe, that would criminalize "any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as pretext for any of these factors." The reason for the US's demurral? A Justice Department spokesperson cited a long history of Supreme Court decisions protecting hate speech under the First Amendment.

The treaty itself was made at the encouragement of and with the participation of the US; it deals with computer crime and intellectual property laws, which the US generally wants to promote. But the online hate-speech provisions really do seem to go a bit too far, according to this Wired story: among other things, the treaty would criminalize hyperlinks to pages that contain hate speech.

The News.com article is here.

 
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