A glimpse of the future, thanks to Europe

[heavenlyboy34]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/praise-vallaud-belkacem-hate-speech-twitter
If you're looking to diminish your faith in the future of humanity, a good place to start is always the left rail of Twitter's website, whose list of "trending topics" details the most popular inanities of the day. But in France, this December, the Justin Bieber hashtags dropped down the hit parade and a much more sinister one topped the charts. If you clicked #SiMonFilsEstGay (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SiMonFilsEstGay&src=hash) ("If my son is gay"), which trended for days, you could see thousands upon thousands of violently homophobic messages – suggesting that young people who come out should be imprisoned (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/praise-vallaud-belkacem-hate-speech-twitter#), castrated, murdered … you name it.
And that was not the only hateful hashtag of the month. There was also #SiMaFilleRamèneUnNoir ("If my daughter brings a black man home"), which brought together juvenile humor and appalling racism. Earlier in the month came #UnBonJuif ("A good Jew"), whose violent antisemitism seemed to revolve around cooking jokes; and if that was too subtle for you, there was also #UnJuifMort ("A dead Jew").
This whole vile outpouring may just be par for the course in the wilds of social media (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/social-media). But in France, hateful statements like this are more than contemptible. They're illegal – and the government noticed.
"These statements are prohibited by law," wrote Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the women's rights minister, in an op-ed this weekend (http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/12/28/twitter-doit-respecter-les-valeurs-de-la-republique_1811161_3232.html). "And those who make them are not less punishable and less likely to appear in court because they appear online."
To an American ear that may sound chilling, but it sounds quite different on the other side of the Atlantic. Like every other country in the European Union (http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/reg/tvwf/incit/index_en.htm), France has a law that criminalizes incitement to hatred based on race or religion. (Think of John Galliano, the fashion designer, who was convicted (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14833259) of "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity" after drunkenly ranting about his love for Hitler.)
Homophobic hate speech is also illegal in France and 11 other EU nations (http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/1226-Factsheet-homophobia-hate-speech-crime_EN.pdf). So whether or not anyone is prosecuted, making the point that hateful tweets are illegal is not an extraordinary step (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/praise-vallaud-belkacem-hate-speech-twitter#). (continued at link)

Yes, RPFers, this is your future. No thought criminals will go unpunished. As AF would say, the future is full of FAIL. :(

[emazur]

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be this:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/why-49-is-a-magic-number/
Not a related article, but yep, it involves those cheese eating surrender monkies once again:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/01/02/business/economy/02economix-sub-jobs/02economix-sub-jobs-blog480.jpg

The chart shows a couple of odd patterns at the 50-employee mark. First, there are sharply fewer employers (by more than a factor of two) with exactly 50 employees than with exactly 49 employees. Second, although the number of companies usually falls with the number of employees, there are actually more employers with 49 employees than with 45 employees.

The authors show how this pattern reflects deliberate efforts by employers to stay below the 50-employee threshold where several employment and accounting regulations take effect. For example, they note that French companies employing 50 or more workers are, among other things, obligated “to establish a committee on health, safety and working conditions and train its members,” whereas companies with 49 employees are not. France also has regulations kicking in at employment levels of 10, 11, 20 and 25.

...

But the United States has added some major regulations with its Affordable Care Act and its Dodd-Frank regulations. Beginning this time next year, for example, the Affordable Care Act will put new requirements on businesses with 50 or more full-time employees, whereas businesses with 49 or fewer employees will be exempt.