7 ms·

The idea that these "hate speech" venues have caused deaths is thrown around quite often, but I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. Gap

by ctlby 8y ago

The idea that these "hate speech" venues have caused deaths is thrown around quite often, but I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. Gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality.

TearsInTheRain 8y ago
I wonder how many lives have been saved because hateful people on public forums had their views challenged and were able to change themselves.
- dictum 8y ago
  My idealistic younger self would like to believe many people have done so on different issues, but what I've been noticing on the sidelines is that it seems to be working the opposite way: people are reinforcing beliefs and acquiring beliefs they didn't previously have by way of conforming to ideological purity ("you're part of the problem", "if you do X stay away from me") or cynical pragmatism (centrism/compromising as a thing for "cucks").
rst 8y ago
Here are a few off the top of my head: the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville last summer, the nine people killed by Dylann Roof in Charleston, and the two killed by Jeremy Christian in Portland Oregon after they interrupted his anti-Muslim rants. Note that the perpetrators in all these cases are on record as citing racial, ethnic, or religious hatred as motives for their acts.
- str33t_punk 8y ago
  You are being incredibly disengenious. For all these cases, there it is not shown that they going to online forums radicalized these characters and caused them to kill people. Just as you would not say there is blood on Black activist forums hands because that one radical guy killed all those cops last year. Unless there is a clear link that people in these forums are encouraging terrorism, the forums are not responsible
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Just as you would not say there is blood on Black activist forums hands because that one radical guy killed all those cops last year. Funnily enough, extreme right-wingers do say this.
DavidVoid 8y ago
>I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. I'd argue that the psychopaths who're attracted to such forums have their hateful beliefs reinforced and amplified by them. Whether or not they would've ended up killing people even if they'd never started hanging out on those forums is hard to say, but it seems pretty naïve to me to assume that those "hate speech" venues didn't have an effect on them. See the many murderers who've been active on Stormfront for example. White Homicide Worldwide, SPLC (2014) [pdf]: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_filesW/downloads/publication/white-homicide-worldwide.pdf https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_file...
- naasking 8y ago
  > I'd argue that the psychopaths who're attracted to such forums have their hateful beliefs reinforced and amplified by them I agree. I think the echo chamber effect is well documented at this point, and it's something that's happening even in mainstream media. I would still hesitate to say that we should lay the blame on these forums though, or undeniably conclude that that's where we should be making changes to prevent such problems. If we hold free speech as a principle in high regard, we shouldn't so easily sacrifice it.
  - DavidVoid 8y ago
    >I would still hesitate to say that we should lay the blame on these forums though, or undeniably conclude that that's where we should be making changes to prevent such problems. I wouldn't say lay the blame on the forums for the actions for their members, however I do think it would be somewhat justified to lay the blame on forums for knowingly allowing these hateful ideologies to spread to more and more people due to their lack of action/moderation. It's been shown that banning hateful subreddits reduces the amount of hate speech on the site by users who used to post on those banned subreddits.[1] It's hard to say if those users simply took their hate speech to some other website, but even if they did their sphere of influence would then most likely be much smaller than it was on reddit. >If we hold free speech as a principle in high regard, we shouldn't so easily sacrifice it. This is a difficult topic but I think that there definitely should be some limits. After all we're talking about what rules private companies should have for what kind of content is allowed on their websites (i.e. what content they are okay with hosting on their servers) and not what kind of content the government should allow/disallow. A viewpoint I found interesting (and reasonable) in regards to limiting speech is Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." [1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
dleslie 8y ago
That question is being hotly debated in the Canadian press at the moment, due to the actions of a terrorist.[0] 0: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-alexandre-bissonnette-profile-1.3959581 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-al...
TomMckenny 8y ago
If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here? And if words never contribute to actions then there are allot of correlations to explain from the American revolutionary pamphleteers to the Zimmerman telegram to Jihadist Imams to Coca Cola commercials. Now maybe this is a price we're wiling to pay for unlimited free speech, I dunno. But we mustn't convince ourselves there is absolutely zero causation between words and deeds.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  > If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here? Because people like the self-satisfaction of thinking they are right on the internet.

by ctlby 8y ago

The idea that these "hate speech" venues have caused deaths is thrown around quite often, but I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. Gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality.

TearsInTheRain 8y ago

I wonder how many lives have been saved because hateful people on public forums had their views challenged and were able to change themselves.

dictum 8y ago
My idealistic younger self would like to believe many people have done so on different issues, but what I've been noticing on the sidelines is that it seems to be working the opposite way: people are reinforcing beliefs and acquiring beliefs they didn't previously have by way of conforming to ideological purity ("you're part of the problem", "if you do X stay away from me") or cynical pragmatism (centrism/compromising as a thing for "cucks").

rst 8y ago

Here are a few off the top of my head: the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville last summer, the nine people killed by Dylann Roof in Charleston, and the two killed by Jeremy Christian in Portland Oregon after they interrupted his anti-Muslim rants. Note that the perpetrators in all these cases are on record as citing racial, ethnic, or religious hatred as motives for their acts.

str33t_punk 8y ago
You are being incredibly disengenious. For all these cases, there it is not shown that they going to online forums radicalized these characters and caused them to kill people. Just as you would not say there is blood on Black activist forums hands because that one radical guy killed all those cops last year. Unless there is a clear link that people in these forums are encouraging terrorism, the forums are not responsible
- rhizome 8y ago
  Just as you would not say there is blood on Black activist forums hands because that one radical guy killed all those cops last year. Funnily enough, extreme right-wingers do say this.

DavidVoid 8y ago

>I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. I'd argue that the psychopaths who're attracted to such forums have their hateful beliefs reinforced and amplified by them. Whether or not they would've ended up killing people even if they'd never started hanging out on those forums is hard to say, but it seems pretty naïve to me to assume that those "hate speech" venues didn't have an effect on them. See the many murderers who've been active on Stormfront for example. White Homicide Worldwide, SPLC (2014) [pdf]: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_filesW/downloads/publication/white-homicide-worldwide.pdf https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_file...

naasking 8y ago
> I'd argue that the psychopaths who're attracted to such forums have their hateful beliefs reinforced and amplified by them I agree. I think the echo chamber effect is well documented at this point, and it's something that's happening even in mainstream media. I would still hesitate to say that we should lay the blame on these forums though, or undeniably conclude that that's where we should be making changes to prevent such problems. If we hold free speech as a principle in high regard, we shouldn't so easily sacrifice it.
- DavidVoid 8y ago
  >I would still hesitate to say that we should lay the blame on these forums though, or undeniably conclude that that's where we should be making changes to prevent such problems. I wouldn't say lay the blame on the forums for the actions for their members, however I do think it would be somewhat justified to lay the blame on forums for knowingly allowing these hateful ideologies to spread to more and more people due to their lack of action/moderation. It's been shown that banning hateful subreddits reduces the amount of hate speech on the site by users who used to post on those banned subreddits.[1] It's hard to say if those users simply took their hate speech to some other website, but even if they did their sphere of influence would then most likely be much smaller than it was on reddit. >If we hold free speech as a principle in high regard, we shouldn't so easily sacrifice it. This is a difficult topic but I think that there definitely should be some limits. After all we're talking about what rules private companies should have for what kind of content is allowed on their websites (i.e. what content they are okay with hosting on their servers) and not what kind of content the government should allow/disallow. A viewpoint I found interesting (and reasonable) in regards to limiting speech is Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." [1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

dleslie 8y ago

That question is being hotly debated in the Canadian press at the moment, due to the actions of a terrorist.[0] 0: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-alexandre-bissonnette-profile-1.3959581 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-al...

TomMckenny 8y ago

If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here? And if words never contribute to actions then there are allot of correlations to explain from the American revolutionary pamphleteers to the Zimmerman telegram to Jihadist Imams to Coca Cola commercials. Now maybe this is a price we're wiling to pay for unlimited free speech, I dunno. But we mustn't convince ourselves there is absolutely zero causation between words and deeds.

pathseeker 8y ago
> If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here? Because people like the self-satisfaction of thinking they are right on the internet.