It was no April Fool’s joke.
Harry Potter author-turned culture warrior J.K. Rowling kicked off the month with an 11-tweet social media thread in which she argued 10 transgender women were men — and dared Scottish police to arrest her.
Rowling’s intervention came as a controversial new Scottish government law, aimed at protecting minority groups from hate crimes, took effect. And it landed amid a fierce debate over both the legal status of transgender people in Scotland and over what actually constitutes a hate crime.
Already the law has generated far more international buzz than is normal for legislation passed by a small nation’s devolved parliament.
Attacking someone at random is wrong and illegal.
Attacking someone specifically because of their gender, sexuality, politics, religion, race, ethnicity, etc is worse and more illegal.
The new law adds ‘transgender’ to that list.
JK Rowling thinks that is a problem.
Attacking meaning what? Verbally?
Yes it is true I agree with both of those statements, I don’t know specifically about Scottish laws- but I remember hearing about this especially dumb case.
The dumbness was on the part of the government. It was censorship then, and it is still censorship now. I am nowhere near a fan of celebrating someone’s death. Still censorship, expanding what is censored is expanding censorship.
Limiting any speech is censorship. Speech is censored in some capacity everywhere, to use that as a basis for redefining it to not actually be censorship is very disingenuous.
Yes. “Fighting words,” credible threats, and other such aggressive language are generally illegal, even in the USA.
If any language being illegal is automatically censorship, then I don’t think censorship isnecessarily bad in every case.
Yes it is censorship, and it’s fair think sometimes censorship is okay, I generally disagree but I’m sure you could think of a case where I would tolerate it. Censoring fighting words I definitely oppose though for example.
I guess you’re welcome to that opinion. Just as one would be welcome to the opinion that literally stalking someone should be legal.
Many kinds of speech are very broadly considered okay to restrict, even in places like the USA where “unlimited free speech” is a big motto. It’s illegal to slander and libel people, for example. That it’s illegal in many cases to verbally harass and abuse as well should be fairly non-contentious.
Yes. Another is copywrited material, which I oppose the considered censoring off. I also oppose the censoring of slander.
But regardless, all of that, and especially this law is censorship
When you define a word loosely enough, it can cease to be meaningful. When most people hear “opposition to censorship,” they’re not going to expect the reference to be advocating for the legalization of public and deliberate slander or open threats of violence and attempts to incite violence.
Using the phrase in that way may not be technically incorrect, but it is still misleading at best and disingenuous at worst. Again, you are welcome to your view of what constitutes censorship and the belief that it is always, ipso facto, abhorrent, but I don’t think that view leaves any room for meaningful discussion about this case, so I don’t think I’ll be engaging any further. Call it self-censorship if you like.