7 ms·

While I struggle to empathize with the sorts of folks negatively impacted by hate speech laws, making speech of any sort illegal seems dangerously close to crim

• eridius 9y ago
  Hate speech isn't just ideas or thoughts. It's an incitement to violence, it's horrifically bad for the mental health of people subjected to it, and it acts as a form of discrimination against those people.
  • psyc 9y ago
    Hate speech is a broader category than incitement to violence.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • ethbro 9y ago
    The problem is who do you trust enough to endow them with authority to decide whether something is hate or free speech? I'd probably draw the line at a limit number of items (e.g. 5 or 10 or 100 specifically named items, I believe similar to Germany). If the government decides something new is important enough to be regulated, they must decide whether it's important enough to replace one of the previous items.
    • tdb7893 9y ago
      We trust the same people we trust with everything else, judges. The legal system is a nuanced mess and the reason we have judges is while some of it is black and white some of it is in a sort of gray area. We would give them guidelines and through an analysis of the language of the law and current precedent they would make a ruling. It's not a perfect system but often it's better to have an imperfect system than none at all.
  • NikolaeVarius 9y ago
    How does that argument not also apply to blasphemy laws?
    • davidw 9y ago
      Blasphemy laws regard a victim that is not real.
      • jimmywanger 9y ago
        You realize that in itself is hate speech right. You are denying my diety.
      • PeterisP 9y ago
        Blasphemy laws often frame the deed as (a) hurting the feelings of believers and/or (b) causing social unrest and/or (c) disturbing public order. You certainly can consider a very large set of potential victims - there are a lot of real people who get gravely offended by cases of blasphemy. Your statement that God isn't real is, in the eyes of such court, saying something clearly untrue that offends others and harms the social order. The existence and reality of God is an undisputed axiom in many legal systems - the court will rule that God is real, the legal acts will explicitly state that God is real, and it might even be enshrined in their constitution as a fact above all law. It's even plausible that the holy text e.g. Quran is the basis of all law there; there may be additional regulations but the core of law comes from God.
        • acqq 9y ago
          There's no "god" in the constitution. What states like Saudi Arabia or Iran do in their law should simply not be accepted. Even Turkey was officially secular until at least recently.
          • PeterisP 9y ago
            Which constitution? There's no "the" constitution, it's just as valid to say that there's no free speech in the constitution because, frankly, having free speech in constitution in just as rare as having god in constitution. I'd agree that it would be nice that if it was differently, but saying "shouldn't be accepted" is just like wishing for a pony, it has no connection to reality - we simply don't get a say in such matters, and I'd bet dollars to pennies that a magical totally fair democratic vote in those countries would prove that the average voter there definitely supports prohibiting blasphemy and restricting speech to do so. It's ridiculous to simply unilaterally declare that your moral system is more valid than someone else's, and forcing your constitution on some other place is just as reasonable as someone else wanting to replace your constitution with theirs.
  • theseatoms 9y ago
    Direct and credible threats are the only exception to the first amendment's free speech clause that I'm aware of. So those are already covered.
    • ssambros 9y ago
      Actual calls to violence are also covered. So "all liquor stores deserve to be burned!" is protected speech, but "let's go burn that liquor store now!" is not.
      • theseatoms 9y ago
        Thanks. IANAL, which I probably should've said up top.
  • ebfd 9y ago
    No, they aren't. Statements such as "the majority of U.K. Muslims support the death penalty for apostates" or "the average IQ of indigenous populations differs from that of east-Asians" constitute hate speech (and are therefore illegal) in Canada, despite having nothing to do with violence.
  • jksmith 9y ago
    What you just said hurts my feelings and makes me want to be violent. The greatest freedom is the freedom to be personally responsible. Laws that curtail speech generally are orthogonal to that freedom. Think about it.
    • infinite8s 9y ago
      Says the person who's probably never been on the receiving end of hate speech.
  • randyrand 9y ago
    I don't like the other responses to your comment. > It's an incitement to violence No, it's not. Otherwise, wouldn't that imply we should outlaw being mean altogether? Is being mean always an incitement for violence? Yes/No? I think it's clear, it's not. > it's horrifically bad for the mental health Citation needed. > as a form of discrimination against those people Again, no. Discrimination requires that it be 'unjust or prejudicial treatment', hate speech does not. Hate speech could be as little as explaining factual reasons you don't like another race.
    • blamarvt 9y ago
      > Hate speech could be as little as explaining factual reasons you don't like another race. Part of the problem in this discussion seems to be that people have different definitions of 'hate speech'. That definition could be applicable to their country of origin or personal belief but it's pretty clear that definitions aren't even remotely compatible and it makes any sort of level-headed debate very difficult.
      • johnnyhillbilly 9y ago
        The real problem is that the concept of "hate speech" is nonsensical. It is a term created exactly to polarize debates and prevent rational discourse. Calmly explain that to any one that attempts to use the term - or ask them to clarify exactly what they mean. We must reject politically engineered attempts to ruin the public debate.
    • ItendToDisagree 9y ago
      If someone is yelling "Kill all $racialslur" are they practicing hate speech yet? They are most certainly openly advocating violence against a specific group not just "being mean" Hate speech can indeed be quantified. Though definitions will vary (as with anything.)
      • shawndumas 9y ago
        So if a University Professor said, "$race people may need to die to achieve $goal" would that be free speech or hate speech?
  • eridius 9y ago
    It's clear from the responses here and the downvotes that I'm receiving that a lot of you have never actually witnessed real hate speech, never seen what it does to people, never seen people killed by people who were inspired by hate speech.
• 6stringmerc 9y ago
  Exactly! Language is power because it allows communication, and controlling language is effectively controlling communication. Persuasion and enlightenment involves taking on all sorts of, err, troublesome concepts.
• arjie 9y ago
  While I'm on the side of allowing hate speech this is clearly a discussion of degrees not an absolute choice. Besides the obvious "fire in a crowded theatre" there a raft of things you may not say: • you are not permitted to reveal to people material classified in certain ways • you are not permitted to broadcast copyrighted material • you may not make death threats against people even if you can prove that you are not a threat to them • you may not reveal information about certain companies if you are in certain positions These are speech of 'any' sort and I'm comfortable with the penalties (sometimes criminal) for them. I don't think they're dangerously close to criminalising certain ideas and thoughts. In almost every case you're free to think what you want and imagine what you want. Any opposition to laws that attempt to abridge hate speech cannot derive from a general opposition to abridging freedom of speech unless one also objects to the restrictions I mentioned earlier.
  • armenarmen 9y ago
    Not sure of the actual legal structure but in terms of "not broadcasting copy written material" it seems that property rights preeminate free speech. This was the justification for banning so-called trolls from twitter.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • ctdonath 9y ago
    It's the consequences of those that you're liable for. You have rights; you are responsible for the consequences of exercising them.
    • jtuente 9y ago
      The caveat to your argument is that the government cannot be responsible for the consequences by a very liberal reading for free speech.
  • jtuente 9y ago
    > fire in a crowded theater - threat against life > classified material - potential threat against life > copyrighted material - protected by the constitution elsewhere > death threats - direct threat against life (ability is irrelevant) > corporate espionage - generally falls under contract law Any and all of these may be abused regularly, that doesn't mean that any of them are protected under free speech.
• avn2109 9y ago
  >> "I struggle to empathize with the sorts of folks negatively impacted by hate speech laws..." That's only because your pet ideology (whatever it is, I have no idea who you are or what your politics are) hasn't yet been criminalized as hate speech. Recall that there's no objective definition of "hate speech," and in practice the definition will always be tuned by the loudest faction as a weapon against its enemies.
  • marcosdumay 9y ago
    Are you saying that places that prohibit "hate speech" have only generic laws or that there isn't one definition that is internationally valid? Because if it's the first, I suggest you look again, and if it's the later, I don't see how it is relevant.
    • avn2109 9y ago
      I mean that there exists no classifier which consumes as input arbitrary speech, and emits as output a foolproof classification of "hate" or "not hate." Therefore humans are required to emulate that classifier. Perhaps we call them "judges" or "arbitration panels" or whatever, the name doesn't matter. My point is that politics will guide the emulation of the classifier, such that it emits results favorable to the loud faction and unfavorable to that faction's enemies.
      • marcosdumay 9y ago
        > I mean that there exists no classifier which consumes as input arbitrary speech, and emits as output a foolproof classification of "hate" or "not hate." So, that's like every other criminal law ever created. I do agree this is something bad (for Law in general). But it does not lead to your point that the definition will increase unexpectedly in scope.
• Goladus 9y ago
  They don't need your empathy. They need their rights respected. Society needs their rights respected. If you don't like their ideas, it's your duty as a member of a free society to engage with with them in meaningful dialog to show them (and everyone else paying attention) what's wrong with those ideas. Free speech is the mechanism by which people resolve their disagreements without killing each other - Jordan B. Peterson