I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide".
I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion.
It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care about a teen who died in police custody, specifically that this teen was a, "good for nothing, spice smoking, Toxteth monkey" (Toxteth being a fairly rough inner-city area of Liverpool).
The teen he was insulting was dead and unable to take offence, but the police officer on Reddit at the time took offence and decided to prosecute the guy anyway.
I'm bringing this up because I don't think most people in the UK realise this. Insulting people online or just saying something mildly offensive will often lead to prosecution. I mean just this week an autistic child got arrested for calling a lesbian police officer a lesbian here in the UK.
We all have something to hide when what's right and wrong is this arbitrary.
Legal notes:
I do not agree with the views of the Redditor referenced in my comment. I understand how someone may be offended by what he said, but disagree specifically with it being an offence to state an offensive position online.
I also do not agree with the behaviour autistic child mentioned in my comment. I understand that being autistic is not an excuse for being offensive. Again, I am only bringing this up because I do not believe it should be an offence to offend.
The offensive language used in my comment were direct quotes used specifically to make a point.
So how do you codify this? Legislation can't have specific words and actions in it, it would be out of date before it became law!
So to target "offensive things", depends upon the opinion of the officers, the prosecutor, and so on! And can change at a moments notice!
Oh bewoe to thee, which does not watch twitter and be ware of new words this week!
Here's an example. Where I grew up, colloquially, women were called 'chicks' and men 'boys'. "What are you chicks/boys up to", one might say.
This was used by extreme feminists too, with zero objection.
Flash forward a few years, and in a city 1000km away, I started to describe how I was deeply impressed with the clarity of <female author>, she's a chick to watch.
Zero offense at home. None. New city? All the women, and some men in the room, went ballistic.
Note that:
* I was complementing the intellect of a person
* The tone and mannerism I used, was as if I said "woman to watch"
Point is, a word which was encouraged and approved by feminists I grew up with, used 1000km away in the same province of my country, meant I was an anti-feminist, woman hater.
And how do you legislate that?!
And... what you say in one place, can be dangerous in another, all with no ill intent!
Just don't make laws apply retroactively. Sounds like a trivial problem with a trivial solution. A woman misgendered etc doesn't matter that it was ok 20 years ago. It's not ok now and she did it now.
You might think your a woman, I might disagree.
Can we just agree to disagree? Does anyone need to be charged with a criminal offence over that?
If you feel motivated to take female hormones and chop ya dick off, you’ve got problems, but being called a man really isn’t one of the ones worth worry about.