Meloni heads Italy’s most rightwing government since the second world war. Italy’s criminal code punishes with a fine ranging from €1,000 to €5,000 anyone who “publicly defames the republic”, which includes the government, parliament, the courts and the army.
It’s almost like making laws against free speech is a slippery slope.
It can be, but not all speech is free, not even in the US.
Them’s fighting words.
Nope. There’s a bunch of thoughts and speech acts that don’t contribute anything. There’s a reason the swastika and other Nazi codes/insignia are outlawed in Germany. “We just need to exterminate the Jews for a better life for everyone else” is similarly outlawed under an incitement to genocide clause.
There are very good reasons to put barriers on absolutely free speech.
What i meant was actually, fighting words are not protected under free speech in the USA. Not disagreeing, just making a funny.
Not just that, slander, defamation, hate speech, harassment can all be speech yet you can get sued and will have to pay for that sort of speech. Actually the US is basically the same as most other western countries, the „only the US allows free speech“-simpletons couldn’t be further off.