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I'm not even sure there's a real objective definition of "hate speech" - there's certainly speech you hate. And speech I hate. But its all rather subjective.
by SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
I'm not even sure there's a real objective definition of "hate speech" - there's certainly speech you hate. And speech I hate. But its all rather subjective. Best we can say is that some speech grossly offends a shared, widespread, moral consensus, and so seems hateful from that perspective. But... lots of genuinely progressive speech is also this way.
Free speech policies that would effectively harbor hate speech - also protect your speech from being labelled as such, and then censored, or worse. There are a disturbing number of places still left in this world, where controversial speech can get you jailed, or killed - with the blessing of, or by a government.
Humans can't be trusted, by and large, to be benevolent censors.
- naasking 9y ago> I'm not even sure there's a real objective definition of "hate speech" Speech promoting violence against some group of people, and not for defense purposes. No subjectivity there.
- mrkstu 9y agoSo "punch a Nazi" should be censored, right?
- blackbagboys 9y agoThe argument is that since the Nazi will inevitably punch you, preemptively punching the Nazi is inherently defensive, and thus urging people to punch Nazis is not hate speech. Of course, you may very well ask, isn't it trivial to construct an almost identical argument to justify violence against almost any particular category of people you'd care to name? Hopefully your interlocutor won't respond by punching you in the face.
- tormeh 9y agoYes? Righteous hate is still hate, even if enjoyable.
- naasking 9y agoAbsolutely. There is no excuse for violence except defense. The other comment talks about "proactive defense", but that too seems dubious.