SPRINGFIELD, Ohio —The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday.
Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.
Isn’t racism and hate speech a crime in the USA?
In many countries you can get a fine or even jail time for blatant racism and hate speech like this.
From my understanding, and please, someone correct me:
Hate speech has to be tied to a crime. If you knock someone’s mailbox over it’s destruction of property, if you do it while yelling a racist phrase at the person then it may be considered a hate crime which depending on the state can carry additional, often heavier punishment. Racism isn’t illegal, just bad taste.
As far as American free speech is concerned, outside of inciting violence or injury (rallys that turn violent, yelling fire in a movie theater) you can pretty much say whatever the fuck you want… Unless it’s towards a corporation or rich person who can sue you into the floor for years debating your use of “satire, irony, fantasy, parody” if they kinda choose to. Legal system is beyond fucked, and with all the deep fake shit coming and going it’s most likely give more power to these kinda cases. Also, it feels like there’s a rise both legally and socially for thought crimes. A whole new bag of fun.
Edit: Obviously, threatening someone with violence is indeed illegal. Can’t tell folks you’re going to kill them.
Free speech can exist perfectly fine with rules against this kind of stuff. In a lot of western countries where racism and hatespeech can get you in trouble, you are still totally allowed to criticize cultures, immigrants and other stuff like that.
I’d love a list of examples by country and their specificities? If not it just feels like you’re saying, “your free speech is too free”?