Most interesting part, imo: "Today's decision doesn't have any direct legal effect. It simply finds that Estonia's laws on site liability aren't incompatible with the ECHR. It doesn't directly require any change in national or EU law. Indirectly, however, it may be influential in further development of the law in a way which undermines freedom of expression. As a decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR it will be given weight by other courts and by legislative bodies." So yeah, this is a precedent for other cases. This decision could bring forth bad things, but the decision doesn't really have any effect right now.
Of course it has an effect right now. It's the chilling effect. The idea that website operators should be personally liable for comments other people made is just as irrational as white people feeling guilty about things their ancestors did. But it sure serves to make people cautious about what they say online, when anything can be deemed "hate speech" (which ultimately translates into "thought-crime" anyway). So a question arises: Are politicians as irrational as they sound, or are they just pretending? If they're irrational, should they be in charge? Do you want the captain of the airplane you're in to be sane? If they're just pretending, then the most likely explanation for the decision is that it was meant to advance the chilling effect, and then we're right back to "should they be in charge?" again.This decision could bring forth bad things, but the decision doesn't really have any effect right now.
I had to read this several times to make sure I wasn't mistaken. I'm 99% sure you don't understand what white guilt is. If this is supposed to be a metaphor of some sort, I'm lost.The idea that website operators should be personally liable for comments other people made is just as irrational as white people feeling guilty about things their ancestors did.
What's the problem? I just wrote out what white guilt "means", because it was a fitting comparison.
You most certainly did not write what white guilt "means". You interpreted an idiom literally and nothing more, and even in that case, I still don't understand the comparison. We live in a historical context and a cultural milieu. I have Mayflower ancestors, for example. Therefore, it is quite likely that some of my forebears were slave owners. I don't feel guilty about that in the sense that I would feel guilty if I made some transgression against a friend. The term "white guilt" has become somewhat pejorative, because it doesn't imply that one actually feels shame or guilt about some else long ago committing a specific act against black people, but that whites go out of their way nonetheless to try to recognize and compensate for their better relative position in life (collectively). Sometimes this manifests itself in ways that seem silly or nonsensical--hence the pejorative. But really, what "white guilt" implies is that you have the ability to recognize the milieu and that you're not dense enough to think that we are born on equal footing due specifically to the context in which we're raised. If you think that everyone is born with a more or less equal chance in life to succeed, then there's no help for you. I suggest reading some history. This is a fantastic place to start.
The bottom line is that black people are responsible for their choices and actions too, just like we are. It's ultimately up to them to change their circumstances for the better. In reality, in the US for example, racism against black people is frowned upon so hard, that it's really not a factor in why they're not successful. Neither does it explain why black people are vastly overrepresented in crime statistics. Sure, it's complicated, but it doesn't get any better by white people sympathizing with them even more than we already do. It's crazy how we've got a bunch of white people lecturing other white people about how racist white people are, and any attempt at refuting any of it is automatically invalidated by being white.
Whom did I call a racist? That's the point, really. That even if you or I aren't racists in the sense of the term we all understand it to mean (i.e. that we think whites are superior by nature), we live in a society that is set up to have black people at a disadvantage just by being born black. Thinking about individual behavior gets us nowhere. The historical contingency which brought us to this moment is what we need to think about. Institutional failure is bigger than any given individual.
Here's an example of how society is set up to have black people at an advantage over white people, just by virtue of being black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_United_States Seriously. What basis does your claim have? How have blacks been disadvantaged and by whom? (Please don't bother with complaining about me saying "blacks". I just don't want to keep typing out "black people" all the time, in an effort to.. avoid accusations of racism, pretty much :p)we live in a society that is set up to have black people at a disadvantage just by being born black
Could this be related?
Well, there's a systematic campaign to strip us of our civil liberties going on, so yeah, I guess that's just another part of it.