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Over the past several days, there has been some degree of consternation over on r/IncelTears. A Reddit post titled "incels have a thread for watching women suffer irl" features four Bunker threads.
Incels.is has a standing policy to remove material that is unlawful under U.S. law. The Incels.is moderation team has reviewed all four threads (the "Bunker Threads") and determined that they contain no material that is unlawful under U.S. law. Therefore, Incels.is will not remove any of their contents.
This is unlikely to satisfy the many Redditors who find themselves very triggered by our content. Some comments are reproduced verbatim:
For educational purposes, I will thoroughly explain why these Redditors are misinformed, and why the distribution and receipt of videos of mass shootings, as well as videos depicting the injury, abuse or murder of women, are protected by the First Amendment.
The starting point
As a general matter, "the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 573 (2002).
Needless to say, free speech is not absolute. The First Amendment has “permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas,” and has never “include[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations.” Id., at 382–383. There exist “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571–572 (1942). These categorical exceptions to the First Amendment include, among other things, obscenity, incitement, fraud, defamation, and child pornography—but they do not include depictions of violence per se.
Furthermore, whether a certain category of speech receives the protection of the First Amendment does not depend on whether it "survives an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits." United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 470 (2010). In other words, the government may not add new exceptions (such as "depictions of violence [against women]") to the list of existing exceptions to the First Amendment, merely by "conclud[ing] certain speech is too harmful to be tolerated." Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786, 791 (2011).
Therefore, in order for the government to constitutionally proscribe videos of mass shootings, as well as videos depicting the injury, abuse or murder of women, the government must establish that such videos fall within an already-established categorical exception to the First Amendment. In our case, this would be an insurmountable burden for the government. I will explain why, with reference to the two closest categories of speech: obscenity and incitement.
The Bunker Threads do not contain "Obscenity"
For material to be considered "obscene" under the First Amendment, the material must depict or describe "sexual conduct" in a "patently offensive" way in accordance with "contemporary adult community standards". Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973). The material must also lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Id.
The vast majority of the material in the Bunker Threads do not depict sexual conduct at all. To the extent that any sexual conduct is depicted, there is 1) a video of a woman whose buttocks are whipped, 2) a photo of depicting the aftermath of a similar act, and 3) a video of a woman performing fellatio on a man before being briefly throttled by him. Legally, these acts are not "patently offensive"; depictions of similar acts are readily available on virtually every pornographic site. They are well within the range of acts that are now accepted by the contemporary adult community.
The remaining bulk of the material depicts not sex but violence. Some of it is mild, in the case of men and women knocked out during bar fights or robberies. Some of it is severe: women are struck by vehicles, attacked by large animals, and shot by Mexican cartel gunmen. And then there is the footage from the Christchurch mosque shootings. Thus the key question is: Can the First Amendment's definition of "obscenity" be widened to encompass gore or violence more generally?
The courts, for the past several decades, have repeatedly answered: "No." In Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507 (1948), New York lawmakers passed a statute "forbid[ding] the massing of stories of bloodshed and lust in such a way as to incite to crime against the person.” A New York state court upheld the statute as a law against obscenity. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed: It held that violence and obscenity are distinct categories, and the law was unconstitutional. Id. at 518-520.
More recently, in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786 (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court (at 792) similarly noted that the Government could not regulate speech depicting violence by broadening the legal definition of "obscenity":
In that case, the Court invalidated a California law that forbid the sale of violent video games to minors. This was even though the Court was aware certain small publishers developed extremely nasty games. As Justice Alito (concurring) writes (at 818-820):
Justice Scalia, writing for the majority (at 798), responds as follows:
I encourage any one of you with a genuine interest in American constitutional law to read the Brown decision in full. It will leave you with no doubt that "speech about violence is not obscene." Id. at 793. Brown also responds to the Redditor's claim that "it is illegal to allow access to any gore content to under 18s on the internet in most countries," because evidently, "most countries" is not inclusive of the United States.
Furthermore, the First Amendment protection afforded to many of the videos in the Bunker Threads is even stronger than that of the gory video games in Brown. While video games depict fictional events, the videos depict real-life assaults, robberies, organized crime, and mass murder. These videos highlight policy failures and furthers public interest in the study of crime and policing, and is therefore speech on a public issue. Such speech "occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 145 (1983).
The Bunker Threads do not contain "Incitement"
"Incitement" refers to the unprotected category of speech that is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 448. That is, for the Government to punish speech on the basis that it is "incitement," the Government must establish three elements:
The speech was intended to;
and likely to;
incite imminent lawless action.
This is a high bar. Two out of three will not suffice, but none of the material in the Bunker Threads comes even close to meeting the Brandenburg test. Of course, I do not have a mind reader and do not presume to know the subjective intent of a user who posts a video of a mass shooting, or a video of a woman being injured, abused, or murdered. Perhaps he genuinely is interested in the study of crime and policing. Or he believes that such videos are "funny," which is an entirely legal opinion to express, shocking as it may be.
Regardless of the intentions of the user, because of the "imminence" requirement in the Brandenburg test, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects the general advocacy of violence at some unspecified future time. See Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973). Furthermore, it is unlikely that a person would immediately rush to plan to assault, rob, or shoot a woman, or shoot up a mosque, right after watching a video of a similar crime unfolding.
The Redditor states his belief that the Bunker Threads are "very much illegal i think because the sharing of such videos are intended to spread hate regarding a specific group of people (may demonstrate intent to commit harm)", which of course misses the mark. The First Amendment very clearly protects "spreading hate". In Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 246 (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate." And as discussed, the idea that a speaker or listener "may demonstrate intent to commit harm" is sufficient to label a particular instance of speech as "incitement," simply falls short of the Brandenburg test.
Perhaps Redditors have confused the legal definition of "incitement" with its colloquial one, and in this sense they believe that depictions of violence might inspire a crime. But it is not unlawful to inspire another to commit a crime; it is only unlawful to incite. Nor does the law permit one to be punished based on a mere prediction that their speech will inspire one to commit a crime in the unspecified future.
Conclusion
Finally, I want to briefly address the Redditor's claim that Incels.is is violating the law because "hypothetically speaking a 12 year old can access these videos with no barriers". This implies that Incels.is has an existing duty under U.S. law to implement some sort of ID verification, at least for the Bunker Threads. Certainly, in the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) 1998, Congress attempted to criminalize "mak[ing] any communication for commercial purposes that is available to any minor and that includes any material that is harmful to minors". See 47 U.S.C. § 231. But the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an injunction against COPA in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656 (2004), and COPA never took effect. Even if it did, we do not exist "for commercial purposes," so COPA would not apply to us.
Many may find the moral values of the participants in the Bunker Threads to be hateful and repulsive. Certainly, many of the videos are a little gratuitous. But under the First Amendment, “esthetic and moral judgments...are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, 529 U.S. 803, 818 (2000). Some of you may also believe that the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten it wrong. Unfortunately for you, we have to prioritize the Court's opinions over your own.
Because U.S. law is clear that there can be no exception to the First Amendment for "depictions of violence (against women or otherwise)", and the Bunker Threads do not fall within the legal definition of the exceptions that do currently exist, Incels.is has no obligation to "take down" the Bunker Threads.
Are you the admin? Where it is said where this site is located in or how do you know? I wish sites like these would be under law which allowed much larger freedom of speech, like child porn etc. which are not allowed here, because for some reason you follow US laws. I support freedom of speech, including child porn, bomb-making instructions etc.
Are you the admin? Where it is said where this site is located in or how do you know? I wish sites like these would be under law which allowed much larger freedom of speech, like child porn etc. which are not allowed here, because for some reason you follow US laws. I support freedom of speech, including child porn, bomb-making instructions etc.
I am not aware of any other jurisdictions which "allows much larger freedom of speech" relative to the United States, as opposed to jurisdictions that are weak and unstable and consequently have "freedom of speech" in the sense that they don't have a working legal system (i.e. Libya and Somalia have no laws regulating child pornography, but that has less to do with having a free speech jurisprudence and more to do with not having much of a functional government).
Among the few dozen countries with a strong rule-of-law tradition, the United States has the broadest free speech protections by far. U.S. law also immunizes site owners from civil liability for user speech.
This site will NEVER allow child pornography. Child pornography is "unique" from other categories of unlawful speech in the sense that criminal liability is conferred to not just the "speaker" but also the recipients of such speech, so necessarily we have to have the harshest possible position on it. If you have a problem with this, you can leave and build your own forum.
Bomb-making instructions are allowed insofar as the speaker does not intend that the instructions are to be used to commit a crime, and does not know that another person to whom the instructions are given will use the instructions to commit a crime.
I am not aware of any other jurisdictions which "allows much larger freedom of speech" relative to the United States, as opposed to jurisdictions that are weak and unstable and consequently have "freedom of speech" in the sense that they don't have a working legal system (i.e. Libya and Somalia have no laws regulating child pornography, but that has less to do with having a free speech jurisprudence and more to do with not having much of a functional government).
Among the few dozen countries with a strong rule-of-law tradition, the United States has the broadest free speech protections by far. U.S. law also immunizes site owners from civil liability for user speech.
This site will NEVER allow child pornography. Child pornography is "unique" from other categories of unlawful speech in the sense that criminal liability is conferred to not just the "speaker" but also the recipients of such speech, so necessarily we have to have the harshest possible position on it. If you have a problem with this, you can leave and build your own forum.
Bomb-making instructions are allowed insofar as the speaker does not intend that the instructions are to be used to commit a crime, and does not know that another person to whom the instructions are given will use the instructions to commit a crime.
Where it is said that this place operates under US law? How do you know that?
I am not into child porn, I have never seen any and I am not sexually interested in sexual child material (biological adults doing sexual things is NOT child porn even if it is under law if they are under certain age). Still, it is a good test case of whether places allow free speech or not. Hand-drawn or computer-generated child porn where no one was hurt making it, no real person is depicted, why is that illegal? France banned whole website-store because of sex-doll that looked too young! YouTube hasn't had Hitler speeches for years now. Facebook deleted political speech very easily (I don't know the situation now). Video-games can't have many things in them, because all platform-holders, Walmart etc. other physical stores refuse to sell games that got the highest age rating (perfectly legal, but in practice speech is very restricted). Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo do not even allow the games in their platform that got the 18+ rating, while in Europe many games are 18+.
IT is full of foids. I don't except them to be logical like a man, the weapon they're using is the basic foid weapon, cry and bitch say "I'm wommhen and I'm equal, this should not exits, dehumanizing, empathy empathy"
Unless you live in an oppressive dictatorship such as the UK where criticizing women online is seen as a crime, nothing we do here is actually illegal. Even so-called "hate speech" is free speech.
WPD is filled with gynocentric cucks; they have no problem mocking men who die in brutal ways, but always sympathize with women and are appalled by any sentiment that does not align with their gynocentric worldview.
IT is full of foids. I don't except them to be logical like a man, the weapon they're using is the basic foid weapon, cry and bitch say "I'm wommhen and I'm equal, this should not exits, dehumanizing, empathy empathy"
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