Probe Ordered Against Actor Payal Rohatgi Over Alleged Hate Posts 👏👏 - Page 2

Originally posted by: Daechwita

Free speech /= Free from consequence . Free speech allowed her to spew her bigotry but that doesn’t make her immune from being sued in this case.

Government interfering in free speech makes it unfree.

Private agencies meting out consequences is not the same. Private agents are also perfectly within their rights to sue her.

Here, she is being persecuted (word intended) by the authorities. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

The fact that what she says is despicable makes no difference. If offensive speech is not free, then no speech is free.

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

Government interfering in free speech makes it unfree.

Private agencies meting out consequences is not the same. Private agents are also perfectly within their rights to sue her.

Here, she is being persecuted (word intended) by the authorities. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

The fact that what she says is despicable makes no difference. If offensive speech is not free, then no speech is free.

It’s a lawyer who filed a complaint against her and the court just ordered investigation based on that. Unless government bans her from social media for good or jails her following social media posts then that would be concerning.

Originally posted by: Maroonporsche

Hope Kangana is next

Amen.

Your freedom ends where my nose begins..😎

Originally posted by: blue-ice.1

Your freedom ends where my nose begins..😎

That's supposed to be literal. As in no one has a right to commit physical assault. Hurt feelings don't count.

Or anyone could be sued for looking at someone the wrong way or for smirking or an insult or rudeness.

I'd be very careful of going down that slippery-slope of *insult* being punishable by law. Because what might not offend you might offend someone else, and you could get hauled to court, too.

Take it up a notch, you have Charlie Hebdo.

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

That's supposed to be literal. As in no one has a right to commit physical assault. Hurt feelings don't count.

Or anyone could be sued for looking at someone the wrong way or for smirking or an insult or rudeness.

I'd be very careful of going down that slippery-slope of *insult* being punishable by law. Because what might not offend you might offend someone else, and you could get hauled to court, too.

Take it up a notch, you have Charlie Hebdo.

It works the opposite way too . You can allow Hate speech to go unfettered against a community and it makes them a target. Case in point:

attacks against Asian community

Christchurch shooting

Orange Cheeto supporters attempting coup

Originally posted by: Daechwita

It works the opposite way too . You can allow Hate speech to go unfettered against a community and it makes them a target. Case in point:

attacks against Asian community

Christchurch shooting

Orange Cheeto supporters attempting coup

That argument doesn't hold water because -

1. Hate speech leading to physical attacks (crime) is done by private actors. And they are punished for the crime (not the speech).

2. Government going after supposed speech offenders with all the nation's collective might is vastly different. There is no punishment for those misdeeds. Essentially, leads to servitude. Authorities telling you what to think or suffer consequences.

Once again, what's not offensive to you will likely be offensive to someone else. And that gets prosecuted. If a Muslim says pantheism/polytheism is stupidity, is that offensive? Or if there is the name of Hindu goddess used in a vulgar song? What if a Hindu says Mary is w***e? Or if a call girl wearing skimpy clothes dances to Mera Naam Mary? What if a Jew calls an atheist the son of satan? What if a vegetarian calls a non-vegetarian a murderer?

Will the government then punish those speech/thought crimes? Like say, Iran putting people to death for blasphemy. Or throwing women in jail for showing hair.

Where do you then go for justice? At least the anti-Asian attack - which, btw, was an attack on sex workers no matter what the media tried to portray it as (equally bad, but not race-related) - is being handled by the government.

3. It is this same government mollycoddling of sensitivities which led people to believe they are perfectly entitled to kill someone for drawing a cartoon.

Am going to leave some quotes here from peeps much more articulate than me. I hope better sense prevails despite the collective disgust at the antics of Payal R and Kangana.

“1. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or taste, or whatever). They’re also entitled to express them online.

2. Sometimes those opinions will be ones you don’t like.

3. Sometimes those opinions won’t be very nice.

4. The people expressing those may be (but are not always) assholes.

5. However, if your solution to this “problem” is to vex, annoy, threaten or harrass them, you are almost certainly a bigger asshole.

6. You may also be twelve.

7. You are not responsible for anyone else’s actions or karma, but you are responsible for your own.

8. So leave them alone and go about your own life."

[Bad Reviews: I Can Handle Them, and So Should You (Blog post, July 17, 2012)]”

― John Scalzi

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” ― United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” ― Benjamin Franklin

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” ― Noam Chomsky

“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” ― Salman Rushdie

“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.

If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people." ― Salman Rushdie

“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.” ― George Bernard Shaw

"If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” ― Noam Chomsky

“We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.” ― Daniel Gilbert

“The only security of all is in a free press.” ― Thomas Jefferson

“Freedom of speech gives us the right to offend others, whereas freedom of thought gives them the choice as to whether or not to be offended.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” ― Henry Louis Gates Jr

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

That argument doesn't hold water because -

1. Hate speech leading to physical attacks (crime) is done by private actors. And they are punished for the crime (not the speech).

2. Government going after supposed speech offenders with all the nation's collective might is vastly different. There is no punishment for those misdeeds. Essentially, leads to servitude. Authorities telling you what to think or suffer consequences.

Once again, what's not offensive to you will likely be offensive to someone else. And that gets prosecuted. If a Muslim says pantheism/polytheism is stupidity, is that offensive? Or if there is the name of Hindu goddess used in a vulgar song? What if a Hindu says Mary is w***e? Or if a call girl wearing skimpy clothes dances to Mera Naam Mary? What if a Jew calls an atheist the son of satan? What if a vegetarian calls a non-vegetarian a murderer?

Will the government then punish those speech/thought crimes? Like say, Iran putting people to death for blasphemy. Or throwing women in jail for showing hair.

Where do you then go for justice? At least the anti-Asian attack - which, btw, was an attack on sex workers no matter what the media tried to portray it as (equally bad, but not race-related) - is being handled by the government.

3. It is this same government mollycoddling of sensitivities which led people to believe they are perfectly entitled to kill someone for drawing a cartoon.

Black - I don’t support government going after any individual person since it can easily be easily weaponised against anyone who does dissent ( current government already tried with farmers’ protests, Chinese government going after Uyghurs, Hong Kong protests ).

Blue- It was race related given how Asian women are fetishised in America( evangelical Christianity being the other factor). Racist White guys who fetishise Asian women don’t see them beyond objects of their sexual desire and that’s why it was convenient for him to specifically target Asian massage parlours .

Also this isn’t the only anti-Asian crime that had occurred in recent months (it’s just the one that got most attention). When rhetoric like Kung Flu, China virus is allowed to continue online it gets reflected offline too.

Free speech often is used as an excuse to escape accountability altogether( Celebrities crying about cancel culture or hate speech scapegoating a community leading to escalated to violence ). I support tech companies banning people like her from their platform for hate speech ( so no government persecution but not people like her having a platform either to spew more hate and people following her lapping it up ).

That being said , I am out since Payal Rohatgi is way too irrelevant for us to be arguing about implications of free speech over .

( Not commenting on Charlie Hebdo thing since I don’t know much about French government treated Muslims before that happened).

Noam Chomsky defended holocaust denier having free speech and signed that letter against cancel culture along with TERF Rowling so cannot really take his opinion seriously😒.