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"Hate speech" has specific functional meanings when it comes to legal jurisdictions in which it applies. The idea that it's a tool for arbitrary suppression of

"Hate speech" has specific functional meanings when it comes to legal jurisdictions in which it applies. The idea that it's a tool for arbitrary suppression of disagreement is approximately correct as the idea that any other limitation on free speech (libel, slander, fire in a crowded theater, verbal assault, time place manner, etc) can be used arbitrarily -- which is to say, generally incorrect, although interpretation and application of the law matters (libel or time place manner judgments have been used to mute speech). Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED. Private companies: not that different in the fundamentals, but there are additional issues that lean towards both the right of ownership to speak and restrict speech that comes through them. You likely wouldn't want anyone to force you to repeat ideas you believe are incorrect, or contrary to key personal interests even where narrowly correct, or even lead to effects you find personally undesirable. If freedom of speech means anything, it has to include some measure of judgment about what your personal faculties are used to express, and to some more moderated extent what/how your property is used. There may be balancing concerns in the latter case, but whether we're at that point is another issue. Again, I can think of very little in the realm of valuable discourse that's been walled off here; if there's anything at all, I suspect the relevant mechanism is essentially social values that are held widely enough that contrary expressions bring social consequences, and while you can create some spaces for robust contrary discussion ("safe spaces", if you like), you can't eliminate the kickback from broad social consequences without treading more heavily on other liberties of equal or greater importance to speech. Honestly, if there's any issue at all here, it's that there has never been an EASIER time to express ideas -- even very unpopular ones -- quite widely, and it's the way that these ideas carry widely that's leading to a level of tension that people are still figuring out how to manage. And really, this is the weaponization issues: 50 years ago, authoritarian countries didn't have the capabilities of broadcasting ideas or disinformation into your average household, much less an individual handheld device. A world-of-ends internet means that they do.

1000units 7y ago
I too am alarmed by these spooky disinformation campaigns. I just googled "what party was abraham lincoln in" and a big box popped up at the top saying "National Union Party". I've never even heard of this party. I assume its a euphemism sinister people use like "Democratic People's Republic".
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  Is this sarcasm? Lincoln was in the National Union Party during the civil war since he wanted to keep the Union together. It was a temporary 'rebranding' of the Republican party for the Presidential Election to attract members who wouldn't take the Republican name but were sympathetic to the Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_S...
  - 1000units 7y ago
    Oh My God-- he was a Republican? Excuse me, I have to sit down.
    - tejtm 7y ago
      all semantics drift
      - 1000units 7y ago
        It's literally the same party. Policy has evolved for this dramatically different world, but its ideological foundations are still closer to its heritage than any real alternative.
  - ailideex 7y ago
    He was elected initially as a republican and was a republican for much longer than he was in the "National Union Party" - I think the result from google is clearly deceptive.
    - 7y ago
forrestthewoods 7y ago
> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws Citing your ignorance of events is not a compelling argument. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/02/social_media_arrests_up_37pc_london_section_127_communications_act/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/02/social_media_arrest... Literally thousands of people have been arrested in recent years for things they've said on Twitter. That's just in the London. Here's a man who was arrested and convicted of a hate crime. What did he do? Taught his girlfriend's dog to give a Nazi salute. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7785225/Supreme-Court-upholds-YouTuber-Markus-Meechan-Count-Dankula-hate-crime-conviction-pug-Hitler-salute.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7785225/Supreme-Cou... Now I would not exactly consider this an "important idea". But arresting and convicting someone for that is egregious and, dare I say, offensive. At the same time, I could not possibly care less which ideas _you_ consider important or not. Or anyone for that matter. That's the whole point of free speech.
- wwweston 7y ago
  > Citing your ignorance of events is not a compelling argument. If you're going to make a case that there are harms from imposition on speech, then you need to be able to point to harms. An absence of demonstrable harms does not necessarily constitute ignorance on my part (though demonstrable harms might, although the good news for me is that can be easily remedied). > Now I would not exactly consider this an "important idea". But arresting and convicting someone for that is egregious and, dare I say, offensive. Your objection here is apparently to either the fact that the law was enforced, or to the specific punishment. I assume it's not the former, or laws protecting speech don't matter either. There's legitimate room for discussion of the later, but all conversations about what constitutes a reasonable consequence for violating the law are distinct from whether it's reasonable to have a law regarding any specific activity in the first place. And it's worth pointing out that there are other forms of speech such as fraud and perjury that can result in prison time. > I could not possibly care less which ideas _you_ consider important or not. Or anyone for that matter. That's the whole point of free speech. Actually the whole point of free speech is that ideas matter. Broad allowances aren't the primary value; the search for value in discourse is. Where broad allowances exist they flow from that central point. When you understand that, it's easier to see why even societies which hold free speech as a high value do not consider every form of expression equally valuable, and why exceptions to allowances exist both by informal social construction and in legal formalisms. Including those that distinguish even crude expressions like "The Prime Minister is an Asshole" from slurs, or the idea that freedom is for teaching animals to pass on Nazi signifiers.
SmirkingRevenge 7y ago
What a great comment. > "Hate speech" has specific functional meanings when it comes to legal jurisdictions in which it applies. The idea that it's a tool for arbitrary suppression of disagreement is approximately correct as the idea that any other limitation on free speech (libel, slander, fire in a crowded theater, verbal assault, time place manner, etc) can be used arbitrarily As I understand it (could be wrong), hate crime/speech regulations only actually act as punishment modifiers for existing crimes. They don't criminalize otherwise legal acts or speech (in the US, at least). For example, it's illegal to vandalize a synagogue with spray paint. Hate crime/speech laws generally might mean that a person who spray paints an immature, lewd picture/message on a synagogue, is treated differently that a person who spray paints a swastika. The latter would be treated more harshly - which seems reasonable to me.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  That would be hate crimes, not hate speech, which are different legally speaking (though in common parlance we use them interchangeably). Hate speech from my own understanding legally is relatively narrowly defined (in the US) for direct calls of violence that can reasonably be interpreted to incite action. Eg "Kill Hitler!" isn't hate speech, but inducing someone to assassinate a particular person would be. The issue is that platforms and some countries often use an expansive definition which is frequently weaponized against "the other side" (whomever that might be). The case which got JK Rowling on twitter's angry side, the Maya Forstater case, is an example of non-citing speech which had legal consequences.
- stOneskull 7y ago
  I think only if there's a direct threat of violence. It could be argued that a swastika on a synagogue is a threat of violence but it'd be on a case by case basis for those edge cases. A kid doing it for giggles is different to a violent gang doing it
AmericanChopper 7y ago
> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED. So you believe it’s fine for any expression that doesn’t fit in with whatever it is that you perceive to be “reasonable discourse” to be a criminal offence? A vast majority of the worlds population is religious, and most religious texts contain “hate speech”. Arresting and prosecuting people for expressing their religious beliefs has happened numerous times. There are also many political and moral issues where the views of one side are simply declared hate speech. Many people have been arrested and prosecuted for such views. A lot of the most ridiculous cases get thrown out, but not before somebody is arrested, potentially spends several days incarcerated, potentially loses their job, potentially loses future employment opportunities, and would have to pay thousands of dollars for lawyers. Whatever it is that you, or I, or anybody else considers to be “reasonable discourse” should be completely irrelevant in the eyes of the law. You either believe that views you consider to be offensive, or vulgar, or obscene should be protected, or you believe that all views falling outside the political orthodoxy should be oppressed. Not only is this tyrannical, but it’s completely stupid. If your views happen to fall within the political orthodoxy today, that’s merely a coincidence, and you can guarantee that at some point in the future, they won’t.
- wwweston 7y ago
  > So you believe it’s fine for any expression that doesn’t fit in with whatever it is that you perceive to be “reasonable discourse” to be a criminal offence? "Any expression?" Way to strawman. There are broad areas of expression that should remain entirely open. There are perhaps some that are borderline but nevertheless deserve respect or at least spaces in which they can be examined. None of that keeps us from identifying categories of speech that are broadly recognizable as outside reasonable discourse, several of which beyond hate speech I identified in my comment above should you want to engage this topic thoughtfully.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    I didn’t strawman you at all. Your stated rationalization is that such laws are fine because they do not impact whatever it is you perceive to be “reasonable discourse”. I’ve stated the very immediate dangers of criminalizing unreasonable discourse above. Unreasonable discourse has been instrumental in much of our progress as a society, I can’t imagine why anybody would have so much contempt for it.
zo1 7y ago
>"Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED." The definition of "reasonable discourse" is the problem here. I'd reckon a good chunk of people don't see problems with "hate speech" censorship because they only see them applied to things that they don't seem to be reasonable discourse, so "why not". Then again, the general internet is a cesspool a lot of the time anyway and "reasonable discourse" is quite often very bad-sounding, nasty and personal. The other side of it is that "hate speech" is not being applied legally at all. Platforms are using some sort of nebulous definition of it and a few other semi-related concepts in order to appease to offended people (from the perspective of the people it's being applied to). This is what a lot of the people are fighting back against, they're not fighting against "legal censorship for the legal definition of hate speech", which practically never happens anymore in the west. On a side note now that I think about it, you could argue what's going on in the UK, Germany & South Africa among other places as being examples of reasonable criticism & discourse online being silenced under hate-speech laws. And some people even going to jail over some of it. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung Yes, the laws are phrased in "feel-good" ways such that at the surface it looks like they're just there to prevent bad things like "inciting racial hatred/violence", etc. But the way they get applied is not exactly that because it's open to interpretation and attempts to legislate offense and feelings which are very grey-terms. Also, these laws get "cited" by various platforms in pro-active justifications for why they remove/de-platform individuals on them, without legal or criminal proceedings ever actually taking place.
SkyBelow 7y ago
>Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED. Now that paraphilias have been removed from the DSM and are no longer considered a mental illness, the idea that they need an acceptance and support group (of course, acting on them in a way that harms someone is still unacceptable). This has been taken to be hate speech against sexual minorities that were removed from even earlier editions of the DSM. There is also some evidence that having some level of social acceptance results in less anti-social behavior including hurting other people (I think Germany has begun to incorporate this in therapy programs).
- wwweston 7y ago
  Upvoted because I think you're the first response indicating an understanding of the challenge: the prospect of walling off discourse regarding support groups for a paraphilia may plausibly be a loss (vs, say, what might be lost if the freedom to train a dog to perform nazi signifiers is limited). OTOH, it's an example I'm skeptical is functioning as a loss, because it's as easy to construct the idea of such groups as affinity gatherings as it is to construct them as remediation meetings. As far as I can tell from secondhand familiarity with, say, BDSM-involved folks (which I'd assume is a reasonable parallel for most paraphilias and maybe even an example of something DSM-demoted), there's never been a better time to find other similar people for communal discussion and exploration of what it means to live ethically and well in that way. Are there concrete examples of related legal trouble for people? If so, are they from people incorrectly construing affinity gatherings as remediation meetings, or are they from people suggesting that remediation should be the primary purpose of gathering paraphilia'd people together? If there are speech-related restrictions, I assume we're talking about a context outside the US. Here AFAICT it would be quite legal to discuss support groups as outright reform efforts (and in many jurisdictions actually run such support groups as ostensibly legitimate therapy).
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    In general I have not seen any legal trouble or even social consequences falling on people, but that is because I've never seen anyone even attempt such a discussion without the veil of anonymity (be it advocating for themselves or advocating for others). As for laws, the US generally has few legal consequences but the social consequences are so assumed it is like finding people who can confirm jumping off a bridge hurts you. It is taken as such an absolute truth that most do not know someone who has tested the premise. For other countries with far stricter laws on speech, I do not know of many examples but have rarely searched. I do remember there being a related case involving a claim concerning the prophet Muhammad. But at the same time, I want to acknowledge while I raise this issue for general discussion, I have personally seen many use similar arguments only as weapons against minority groups. Thus the challenge of someone using an argument as weapon against minorities vs. someone who uses an argument as a means to increase tolerance.
sdinsn 7y ago
> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws What is "reasonable" discourse? The purpose of freedom of speech is that all discourse is allowed; "reasonable" or not.

1000units 7y ago

I too am alarmed by these spooky disinformation campaigns. I just googled "what party was abraham lincoln in" and a big box popped up at the top saying "National Union Party". I've never even heard of this party. I assume its a euphemism sinister people use like "Democratic People's Republic".

mikeyouse 7y ago
Is this sarcasm? Lincoln was in the National Union Party during the civil war since he wanted to keep the Union together. It was a temporary 'rebranding' of the Republican party for the Presidential Election to attract members who wouldn't take the Republican name but were sympathetic to the Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_S...
- 1000units 7y ago
  Oh My God-- he was a Republican? Excuse me, I have to sit down.
  - tejtm 7y ago
    all semantics drift
    - 1000units 7y ago
      It's literally the same party. Policy has evolved for this dramatically different world, but its ideological foundations are still closer to its heritage than any real alternative.
- ailideex 7y ago
  He was elected initially as a republican and was a republican for much longer than he was in the "National Union Party" - I think the result from google is clearly deceptive.
  - 7y ago

forrestthewoods 7y ago

> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws Citing your ignorance of events is not a compelling argument. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/02/social_media_arrests_up_37pc_london_section_127_communications_act/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/02/social_media_arrest... Literally thousands of people have been arrested in recent years for things they've said on Twitter. That's just in the London. Here's a man who was arrested and convicted of a hate crime. What did he do? Taught his girlfriend's dog to give a Nazi salute. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7785225/Supreme-Court-upholds-YouTuber-Markus-Meechan-Count-Dankula-hate-crime-conviction-pug-Hitler-salute.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7785225/Supreme-Cou... Now I would not exactly consider this an "important idea". But arresting and convicting someone for that is egregious and, dare I say, offensive. At the same time, I could not possibly care less which ideas _you_ consider important or not. Or anyone for that matter. That's the whole point of free speech.

wwweston 7y ago
> Citing your ignorance of events is not a compelling argument. If you're going to make a case that there are harms from imposition on speech, then you need to be able to point to harms. An absence of demonstrable harms does not necessarily constitute ignorance on my part (though demonstrable harms might, although the good news for me is that can be easily remedied). > Now I would not exactly consider this an "important idea". But arresting and convicting someone for that is egregious and, dare I say, offensive. Your objection here is apparently to either the fact that the law was enforced, or to the specific punishment. I assume it's not the former, or laws protecting speech don't matter either. There's legitimate room for discussion of the later, but all conversations about what constitutes a reasonable consequence for violating the law are distinct from whether it's reasonable to have a law regarding any specific activity in the first place. And it's worth pointing out that there are other forms of speech such as fraud and perjury that can result in prison time. > I could not possibly care less which ideas _you_ consider important or not. Or anyone for that matter. That's the whole point of free speech. Actually the whole point of free speech is that ideas matter. Broad allowances aren't the primary value; the search for value in discourse is. Where broad allowances exist they flow from that central point. When you understand that, it's easier to see why even societies which hold free speech as a high value do not consider every form of expression equally valuable, and why exceptions to allowances exist both by informal social construction and in legal formalisms. Including those that distinguish even crude expressions like "The Prime Minister is an Asshole" from slurs, or the idea that freedom is for teaching animals to pass on Nazi signifiers.

SmirkingRevenge 7y ago

What a great comment. > "Hate speech" has specific functional meanings when it comes to legal jurisdictions in which it applies. The idea that it's a tool for arbitrary suppression of disagreement is approximately correct as the idea that any other limitation on free speech (libel, slander, fire in a crowded theater, verbal assault, time place manner, etc) can be used arbitrarily As I understand it (could be wrong), hate crime/speech regulations only actually act as punishment modifiers for existing crimes. They don't criminalize otherwise legal acts or speech (in the US, at least). For example, it's illegal to vandalize a synagogue with spray paint. Hate crime/speech laws generally might mean that a person who spray paints an immature, lewd picture/message on a synagogue, is treated differently that a person who spray paints a swastika. The latter would be treated more harshly - which seems reasonable to me.

vorpalhex 7y ago
That would be hate crimes, not hate speech, which are different legally speaking (though in common parlance we use them interchangeably). Hate speech from my own understanding legally is relatively narrowly defined (in the US) for direct calls of violence that can reasonably be interpreted to incite action. Eg "Kill Hitler!" isn't hate speech, but inducing someone to assassinate a particular person would be. The issue is that platforms and some countries often use an expansive definition which is frequently weaponized against "the other side" (whomever that might be). The case which got JK Rowling on twitter's angry side, the Maya Forstater case, is an example of non-citing speech which had legal consequences.
stOneskull 7y ago
I think only if there's a direct threat of violence. It could be argued that a swastika on a synagogue is a threat of violence but it'd be on a case by case basis for those edge cases. A kid doing it for giggles is different to a violent gang doing it

AmericanChopper 7y ago

> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED. So you believe it’s fine for any expression that doesn’t fit in with whatever it is that you perceive to be “reasonable discourse” to be a criminal offence? A vast majority of the worlds population is religious, and most religious texts contain “hate speech”. Arresting and prosecuting people for expressing their religious beliefs has happened numerous times. There are also many political and moral issues where the views of one side are simply declared hate speech. Many people have been arrested and prosecuted for such views. A lot of the most ridiculous cases get thrown out, but not before somebody is arrested, potentially spends several days incarcerated, potentially loses their job, potentially loses future employment opportunities, and would have to pay thousands of dollars for lawyers. Whatever it is that you, or I, or anybody else considers to be “reasonable discourse” should be completely irrelevant in the eyes of the law. You either believe that views you consider to be offensive, or vulgar, or obscene should be protected, or you believe that all views falling outside the political orthodoxy should be oppressed. Not only is this tyrannical, but it’s completely stupid. If your views happen to fall within the political orthodoxy today, that’s merely a coincidence, and you can guarantee that at some point in the future, they won’t.

wwweston 7y ago
> So you believe it’s fine for any expression that doesn’t fit in with whatever it is that you perceive to be “reasonable discourse” to be a criminal offence? "Any expression?" Way to strawman. There are broad areas of expression that should remain entirely open. There are perhaps some that are borderline but nevertheless deserve respect or at least spaces in which they can be examined. None of that keeps us from identifying categories of speech that are broadly recognizable as outside reasonable discourse, several of which beyond hate speech I identified in my comment above should you want to engage this topic thoughtfully.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  I didn’t strawman you at all. Your stated rationalization is that such laws are fine because they do not impact whatever it is you perceive to be “reasonable discourse”. I’ve stated the very immediate dangers of criminalizing unreasonable discourse above. Unreasonable discourse has been instrumental in much of our progress as a society, I can’t imagine why anybody would have so much contempt for it.

zo1 7y ago

>"Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED." The definition of "reasonable discourse" is the problem here. I'd reckon a good chunk of people don't see problems with "hate speech" censorship because they only see them applied to things that they don't seem to be reasonable discourse, so "why not". Then again, the general internet is a cesspool a lot of the time anyway and "reasonable discourse" is quite often very bad-sounding, nasty and personal. The other side of it is that "hate speech" is not being applied legally at all. Platforms are using some sort of nebulous definition of it and a few other semi-related concepts in order to appease to offended people (from the perspective of the people it's being applied to). This is what a lot of the people are fighting back against, they're not fighting against "legal censorship for the legal definition of hate speech", which practically never happens anymore in the west. On a side note now that I think about it, you could argue what's going on in the UK, Germany & South Africa among other places as being examples of reasonable criticism & discourse online being silenced under hate-speech laws. And some people even going to jail over some of it. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung Yes, the laws are phrased in "feel-good" ways such that at the surface it looks like they're just there to prevent bad things like "inciting racial hatred/violence", etc. But the way they get applied is not exactly that because it's open to interpretation and attempts to legislate offense and feelings which are very grey-terms. Also, these laws get "cited" by various platforms in pro-active justifications for why they remove/de-platform individuals on them, without legal or criminal proceedings ever actually taking place.

SkyBelow 7y ago

>Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws, but, you know, feel free to make a list of the important ideas that you feel are being SILENCED. Now that paraphilias have been removed from the DSM and are no longer considered a mental illness, the idea that they need an acceptance and support group (of course, acting on them in a way that harms someone is still unacceptable). This has been taken to be hate speech against sexual minorities that were removed from even earlier editions of the DSM. There is also some evidence that having some level of social acceptance results in less anti-social behavior including hurting other people (I think Germany has begun to incorporate this in therapy programs).

wwweston 7y ago
Upvoted because I think you're the first response indicating an understanding of the challenge: the prospect of walling off discourse regarding support groups for a paraphilia may plausibly be a loss (vs, say, what might be lost if the freedom to train a dog to perform nazi signifiers is limited). OTOH, it's an example I'm skeptical is functioning as a loss, because it's as easy to construct the idea of such groups as affinity gatherings as it is to construct them as remediation meetings. As far as I can tell from secondhand familiarity with, say, BDSM-involved folks (which I'd assume is a reasonable parallel for most paraphilias and maybe even an example of something DSM-demoted), there's never been a better time to find other similar people for communal discussion and exploration of what it means to live ethically and well in that way. Are there concrete examples of related legal trouble for people? If so, are they from people incorrectly construing affinity gatherings as remediation meetings, or are they from people suggesting that remediation should be the primary purpose of gathering paraphilia'd people together? If there are speech-related restrictions, I assume we're talking about a context outside the US. Here AFAICT it would be quite legal to discuss support groups as outright reform efforts (and in many jurisdictions actually run such support groups as ostensibly legitimate therapy).
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  In general I have not seen any legal trouble or even social consequences falling on people, but that is because I've never seen anyone even attempt such a discussion without the veil of anonymity (be it advocating for themselves or advocating for others). As for laws, the US generally has few legal consequences but the social consequences are so assumed it is like finding people who can confirm jumping off a bridge hurts you. It is taken as such an absolute truth that most do not know someone who has tested the premise. For other countries with far stricter laws on speech, I do not know of many examples but have rarely searched. I do remember there being a related case involving a claim concerning the prophet Muhammad. But at the same time, I want to acknowledge while I raise this issue for general discussion, I have personally seen many use similar arguments only as weapons against minority groups. Thus the challenge of someone using an argument as weapon against minorities vs. someone who uses an argument as a means to increase tolerance.

sdinsn 7y ago

> Additionally, I have yet to encounter any example of reasonable discourse that's being legally suppressed by hate speech laws What is "reasonable" discourse? The purpose of freedom of speech is that all discourse is allowed; "reasonable" or not.