Free Speech's Outer Edge: Hate Speech Law

Logosofia no Dia a Dia · Oct 9, 2026 · 23m

In 1969, a unanimous Supreme Court threw out a Ku Klux Klan leader's conviction and replaced fifty years of doctrine with a single sentence: speech can only be punished when it's directed at, and likely to produce, imminent lawless action. That's the closest any wealthy democracy has come to a truly laissez-faire approach to hate speech and incitement — and it still has holes. This episode traces the doctrine from Brandenburg through Hess, Claiborne Hardware, and Skokie, then asks the harder question: which countries have actually come closest to zero criminal penalty, zero civil liability…