The best, most effective, and only correct way to fight hate speech is not to censor it. It's to TALK BACK. The thing about speech is it's only a paper trail

The best, most effective, and only correct way to fight hate speech is not to censor it. It's to TALK BACK. The thing about speech is it's only a paper trail of sorts. Sounds or printed symbols are not bullets being shot. But what they do is connect and mobilize minds and ideas, and hence the fear. But since they are only a paper trail, censorship never solves the cause. It's like burying it. Silencing does have an impact... in that we no longer hear those words. But where they came from - unless they're funded by the speech itself (like a newspaper or something) - are still live and kicking. You have to kill the people that spoke those words, or else they'll continue to influence (hence the assassination of MLK, and so on). It's the equivalent of putting a silencer on a gun. The point is, we need to engage the cause. The "gun" needs to be made the issue, not the sound of bullets firing. And not fight as in war, because that would lead to justifying offensive tactics that lower our moral standards. Censorship in media is the equivalent of murder on the battlefield. Engaging is to connect. It is diplomacy. And for engagement, SPEECH IS THE ONLY WAY. So silencing goes against the cause. It makes things worse. When we bury what cannot be buried, we get Silk Road and the drug war and the political backlash which is Mr. T. Instead, if we engage these PEOPLE as non-criminals for who they truly are - people just like you or I with different ideas - then we might actually get somewhere. They are here to teach us what we needed to know, and vice versa. We must talk back, and not silence or punish or annihilate. That is the only civil and progressive solution.