It's going to get a lot quieter around here (New Hate Speech Legislation)

_Kaiser_

So it seems McEntee is about to bring forward new laws to prosecute those who share "hate speech" online

The sharing of hate speech on social media is to become a criminal offence under Government proposals to combat racism and bigotry.

This will mean that the sharing or retweeting of hateful speech on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will be a crime, even if the person sharing it was not the author.

Under the Government plan, to be published on Thursday by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, there will be protections for social-media companies from prosecution. For example, it will be a defence for a company to show it had existing measures in place to prevent hate speech and was complying with these.

The proposed Bill will involve the complete repeal of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989, which the Department of Justice viewed as ineffective at combating hate speech.

The planned law will, for the first time, provide protection to trans and disabled people alongside ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants and other members of the LGBT community.

The platforms themselves though will be immune .. cute!

There will be a high bar for hate-speech prosecutions and the law will include protections for free speech. “Good faith” contributions to public debates, academia and the arts would be exempt.

In theory of course this is a good thing but the lack of detail of what constitutes "hate speech", and who decides what is a legitimate opinion vs overstepping the mark (although more here which does sound more reasonable) is a question, but I have concerns that we're putting laws in place to deal with "hurt feelings"

I can see many threads or legitimate topics and points of discussion in CA alone being closed pre-emptively, and future discussion on "controversial" topics banned if this passes

So.. good thing, or bad thing?