Ireland is about to pass one of the most radical hate speech bills yet. Merely possessing “hateful” material on your devices is enough to face prison time.

5 comments

1. This still isn’t true, but at least now we know where the marching orders came from this evening.

2. I was surprised to see a post at this time in the morning, particularly being so divisive I immediately jumped to the suspicion of yank conspiratorially bollocks. I fully accept the hypocrisy of me also being awake, but I blame buying that bottle of Bushmills and listening to William Shatner’s album.

   Why did you even come here to post this misrepresentation if you didn’t even read the image linked. I haven’t found the source material but the fact the tweet highlighted half the subsection when the second half specifies the conditions required is hilarious. “Merely” possessing my arse.

   Maybe you yanks think convincing people to join the KKK and lynch blacks should be legal provided you don’t do it yourself, but that isn’t the case over here. Jesus, 70% of Americans thought Iraq was involved in 9/11 and supported an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands. If anything that proves the power of hate speech can drive mass murder.

   If you are a yank as I suspect, try posting hateful material calling for people to lynch your President, you will find you actually have a law against that. So much for free speech eh?

3. This is the bill in question:
   https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2022/105/

4. Big brother is watching

5. ElI5, but isn’t ‘presumed unless proven otherwise’ the antithesis of presumption of innocence?