13 ms·
The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of
by manigandham 6y ago
The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of gratuitous outrage.
- shadowgovt 6y agoSadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.
- manigandham 6y agoWhat do you mean by not "actually working"? What is a "conflict-free environment"? What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other? How do you know they never participated in any forums? This sounds like an awful lot of assumptions.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- foldr 6y ago>What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Come on. There's a debate to be had about hate speech and free speech, but it can't even get started on a reasonable footing if some of the participants don't know enough history to be able to answer this question.
- manigandham 6y agoInstead of claiming that I lack the history, why don't you explain what the connection is? The definition of minority is just as subjective.
- foldr 6y agoThere are a number of well-known historical cases where hate speech targeted at certain minority groups has precipitated genocide (in the worst case) or other forms of violence.
- umvi 6y agoIn a nutshell: hate speech causes people to commit suicide. In many peoples' opinion, life is more valuable than pure freedom, therefore we should take away (some) freedom in order to save lives. To be clear, I am not in the camp that believes that, but I try to understand their point of view.
- manigandham 6y agoWhat does this have to do with minority populations? Speech that incites violence is already a crime.
- PeterCorless 6y agoMinorities are most often the targets of hate speech. Which is why LGTBQ youth are often bullied both IRL and online and they commit suicide. And yes, it is a crime. But this thread is talking about deleting comments; not about law enforcement.
- manigandham 6y agoThis thread is about hate speech and the ambiguous subjective definitions that have lead to this unending censorship problem. If the core agreement is that it's about hate against a group, then saying "minority" is nothing more than just a shortcut for a certain group and doesn't really add anything to the discussion of what is hate speech.
- manfredo 6y ago> In a nutshell: hate speech causes people to commit suicide. Can you elaborate on how we establish a causal relationship between hate speech and suicide? Let alone specifically hateful comments on YouTube? This doesn't seem corroborated by the suicide rates in the US over time. Rates were just as high (and in fact, higher in some years) in pre-internet days [1]. This claim is made even more questionable when taken in conjunction the previous comments' emphasis on its impact on minorities. Minorities in the US actually have substantially lower suicide rates than Whites [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Crude_US_suicide_rate_by_age_1981-2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Age_adjusted_US_suicide_rate_by_race_1981-2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/...
- curiousgeorgio 6y ago> it can't even get started on a reasonable footing if some of the participants don't know enough history to be able to answer this question. Perhaps you're conflating hate speech with hateful (and harmful) actions. History is full of examples of the latter, but it's also full of examples of the former where no one was actually hurt, minority groups included. Speech can be a precursor to action, but that doesn't make it a crime in itself (unless you're living in "1984"). What's that old rhyme about "sticks and stones..."?
- komali2 6y agoYou acknowledge that speech can be a precursor to action. We have seen direct evidence of this. Following a speech by president trump where he uses coded hate speech, violence against minorities increases. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3102652 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3102652 I'm not arguing we make hate speech illegal, or have thought crime. In fact if it were up to me racists would be even more up front about their deplorable worldview. But I think it's very important that the employees of companies are allowed to exercise their own value systems by denying users of hate speech a platform. This isn't a defense of banning anti-PRC posters though. Calling xi jinping Winnie the Pooh isn't hate speech. Discussing what constitutes hate speech could be another valuable discussion perhaps held elsewhere - I don't agree that a definition is impossible, if that's where you're thinking of going. I don't agree that there's a slippery slope.
- curiousgeorgio 6y ago> But I think it's very important that the employees of companies are allowed to exercise their own value systems by denying users of hate speech a platform. I completely agree. That doesn't mean I have to agree with their value systems or stay silent about my discontent (and I'm not implying that you claimed that either). I'm just tired of hearing the phrase "hate speech" used whenever these discussions happen, as if there were some fundamental human law that we have to protect people from ideas that might offend them - either via regulation or private company policy. Illegal or not, I don't think it helps to talk about "hate speech" in the context of censorship and free speech. It's like having a debate about which curse words are the worst, when really that's missing the point.
- type0 6y agoThere's a debate to be had about undesirable and uncomfortable speech as well
- cwhiz 6y agoThere are no laws in the United States against hate speech. It is a made up term that changes with the wind. It used to describe speech that was encouraging violence towards a person or group but then it just became "speech that expresses hate." Nowadays it is mostly used to describe speech from a majority group that a minority group found offensive. What is hate? What is offensive? It's whatever you want it to be! When in doubt, err on the side of freedom and liberty.
- foldr 6y agoYes, I know there aren't. My comment was just pointing out that there is indeed a connection between hate speech and minority groups.
- hrktb 6y ago> There are no laws in the United States against hate speech An interesting part of this discussion is that Youtube is operating globally. There are a number of countries with the concept of “hate speech” in the law. Saying it doesn’t exist in US law is only a partial answer.
- cwhiz 6y agoThis is true. I sometimes forget that people from all over the world are on HN. Good point.
- dgellow 6y agoThat’s true. But as a consequence, content can be blocked/deleted per country, it doesn’t have to be global. Otherwise countries with most restrictive laws basically dictate what is allowed or not to the rest of the world (though in practice that’s already in part the case).
- potatoz2 6y agoEvery term is a made up term. Hate speech is generally understood as sexist/racist/homophobic speech (in general, discrimination against a minority group with no justification based in reality). It doesn't need to be encouraging violence in the immediate against such a group, that's a subset of hate speech. You may disagree with the definition, but that's what people are talking about. If you want to elevate the discussion, you should avoid pointless semantic arguments IMO.
- jshevek 6y agoThe problem is that there is not a single, universal correct answer. Answering this question requires that we uncover built-in assumptions, and make them explicit.
- derefr 6y ago> How do you know they never participated in any forums? Large amounts of anecdata of people reporting (e.g. with the first post on a new blog) that they have finally found places where they can freely engage in Internet discourse; and explaining that they hadn’t been engaging in Internet discourse up until then, because any attempt previously was met with people reacting to the cultural “outgroup” signifiers in their message, rather than to the content of the message itself. > What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Pretty much every country other than the US has an official legal definition of hate speech—but even the US has a definition of hate crime. Both terms are defined in terms of prejudice toward a group. Wikipedia’s definition of “hate crime”, for example: “A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or race.” > Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other? “Hate speech” doesn’t literally mean “hateful speech.” If just say something with hatred, you’re not engaging in hate speech. If you say something with prejudice, intending injury to the victim because of that prejudice, you’re engaging in hate speech. Keeping that in mind, you can certainly commit an act of hate speech (or a hate crime generally) against someone in the same intersection of groups as you. It probably implies that you hate yourself (or don’t consider yourself a part of such group/groups), though.
- manigandham 6y agoThe discussion is about speech, and speech is not action. Harmful action is already a crime, and any crime can be upgraded to "hate crime" based on the motivation. Group membership doesn't have anything to do with minorities though. You can define groups however you want, so a "minority" is entirely dependent on the context of the situation and just as subjective as the hate speech. So who are you considering minorities and what is this anecdotal data that claims they did not participate in forums? Must every forum be welcoming to everyone? Did no other forum exist? Could they not have created their own forum? If they talked to each other, does that mean a forum exists? And if so, doesn't that mean they are free to engage in their own discourse after all?
- 6y ago
- BeetleB 6y agoYou made a claim here.[1] Then to virtually every response, you ask lots and lots of questions like "What does this mean?" "Why.." "What..." While your questions are fair, it is noteworthy that you haven't clarified or backed up your original claim. As someone reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised people are engaging with you. Personally, I would not engage with someone who makes an unsubstantiated claim, and instead of backing it up keeps trying to poke holes in others' responses. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223793
- manigandham 6y agoWhich part of that statement are you referring to? The rules are the First Amendment, stated here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224929 The fact that hate speech is subjective is evidenced by my questions which examine just how loose and vague the definitions are. There still is no clear answer on what hate speech is, beyond the 1st Amendment which I think is good enough. If you mean something else, then please state what it is that's unsubstantiated.
- BeetleB 6y agoThe part where you say "The solution is..." and then don't substantiate it, but instead focus on knocking down other solutions. That other solutions have problems does not make your one any better. (At least in this comment you are providing a qualifier ("I think..."))
- manigandham 6y agoMy solution is a lack of implementing any of the solutions, therefore that's the only focus there is. Freedom (by the 1A) instead of vague, complicated and heavy-handed policies that are currently causing an American company to side with an authoritarian regime. I don't claim that the 1A has no problems, but it does have less problems and that's still an improvement, and it has worked for more than a century for this great nation. What other evidence would you like to see?
- dleslie 6y agoConflict isn't necessarily a bad thing. Conflict can resolve tension and raise long-hidden concerns to the forefront. Conflict is a natural part of human interaction.
- awild 6y agoBut the conflict was and still is directed at minority groups for their being a minority. There is nothing to resolve there, a Trans person will not stop being trans, a gay person stop being gay or a woman stop being a woman. These people genuinely need protection and safe spaces. (I'm also aware that these are not easy issues to tackle but they haven't been met with a lot of care in the last few years)
- dleslie 6y agoA bigot can stop being a bigot, but first they must express their bigotry in order to confront it. Allowing conflict does not obviate a need to allow safe spaces, either.
- jshevek 6y ago>* They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments* No, they did not. They looked they were creating environments in which inevitable conflict was common, and in which the discussion of that conflict sometimes lead to helpful resolutions and improvements, and sometimes did not.
- linuxftw 6y ago"Hate speech" was only ever a tool of political control. It's contemporary usage is no accident.
- oneiftwo 6y agoAbsolutely. You're being downvoted because we're once again forgetting history as this modern wave of left-leaning pearl clutchers feels justified in having biased moderation which is aligned with their political views.
- AlexMax 6y agoThose rules applied today would result in indecipherable cesspools of memes at best or a community of authoritarian sympathizers at worst, who would be oh-so-happy to start conditioning their like-minded members to force undesirables away, either explicitly through bans or implicitly through non-stop hatred and coordinated harassment. Neither one is the type of community I have any interest in participating in, and if some sort of mandate came down enforcing it on any of the large social networks I would no longer participate in them.
- chipperyman573 6y agoYour first paragraph describes subs like r/esist, r/againsthatesubreddits, r/fragilewhiteredditor, etc. They just don't do what many people would consider hate speech so they don't get banned. I think this highlights that while your goal many occur in parallel with banning hate speech in some cases, on its own it will not accomplish much because the same thing will just happen on whatever side nobody thinks is "spewing hate" And fwiw, blocking these subs (and subs like r/trumpforpresident! You can block both sides this way) made me completely forget about them until this comment, which I think also shows that self moderation is a perfectly acceptable answer. Why can't everyone make their own bubble? Why do we have to let other people decide how our bubble looks?
- ausbah 6y agowhat a topsy turvy world to live in where calling out bigotry is equated with hate subs. maybe on the fronts of brigading or the like, but content wise I don't see how they're morally equivalent
- chipperyman573 6y agoGenerally the comments have pretty bad stuff in them, or at least they did before I blocked them.
- Veen 6y agoI'd agree the world is topsy-turvy when the New York Times thinks "are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins" is cool but a white guy wearing a sombrero is beyond the pale.
- jayd16 6y agoWhat were those clear rules we apparently abandoned for no reason?
- daenz 6y agoI think the parent is referring to the idea that even hate speech is free speech.
- manigandham 6y agoThe First Amendment of the US Constitution.
- Leary 6y ago"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
- jayd16 6y agoThat never applied to privately owned forums.
- manigandham 6y agoI know, they are the clear rules that I’m referring to though.
- komali2 6y agoWhat law did Congress pass that violates the first amendment to the Constitution? You of course acknowledge that that limitation of the first amendment is explicit - Google, not being an aspect of the government, can do whatever it pleases regarding speech.
- manigandham 6y ago
- barneygale 6y agoPlease go back to reddit, thanks.
- root_axis 6y agoWhat if moderation of hate speech is part of the product?
- manigandham 6y agoHow do you moderate something you can't define?
- root_axis 6y agoHate speech can be defined. Of course, not everyone will agree on the definition, but that's beside the point.
- koheripbal 6y agoI mean, isn't that exactly the point the person above is making?
- root_axis 6y agoI'm not sure, but either way my question remains. What if moderation of hate speech is part of the product?
- koheripbal 6y agoWell that's why we need more choices. ...so that they have to compete to levy the most reasonable, well articulated, and transparent policies.
- root_axis 6y agoThere are other choices, consumers just don't want them.
- chillacy 6y ago> I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. Hasn't stopped the government from moderating other things that can't be defined crisply.
- Flantastical 6y agoI think part of the issue is the power of comments like yours that pretends there's a simple solution. In some conversations bad actors can gain more power in a debate using misleading information than a good actor can by using the truth. Most conversations, such as this one about free speech, are so complex that it's tough for a 'good actor' to offer solutions. They may discuss the pros / cons of each side, talk about where further research is needed, talk about experts that are more informed, etc. They can still offer solutions but they shouldn't be pretending an unconfident solution is complete if they really are a good actor. Bad actors, on the other hand, can simplify the complexities. They can provide confident solutions to complex problems and do so without worrying about the information they don't know or about misleading others. Fortunately bad actors are often weeded out in discussions, but in conversations that abuse humans fear we become more demanding of answers. Explaining to fearful people "it's complex" isn't satisfying so we become more susceptible to lies / misinformation spread by bad actors. Conversations abusing this fear / anger is where there is an argument about whether misinformation should be limited.
- manigandham 6y agoWhy is the simple solution just "pretending"? What evidence is there that a complex solution exists or works? What is the basis of the assumption that good actors are not as effective as bad actors? Why has society not devolved into chaos if that's the case? How did this work before social media and online anonymity?
- Flantastical 6y agoI would say it's pretending because it's not 100% certain to be the solution. As mentioned, the situation is incredibly complex and can't be properly argued in a one-liner. There is no evidence that a complex solution exists, but I would say it's better if you know you don't have the solution to imply uncertainty. Good actors are almost certainly more effective than bad actors. That's likely why the world hasn't devolved into chaos. But societies DO devolve into chaos, such as revolutions and wars. These also obviously take place at times when society is most fearful / angry. But it's possible that many societal wars and revolutions would be unnecessary if good actors used rational discourse to reach solutions.
- birdyrooster 6y agoNo. The great opening of the Internet brought points of view onto the internet at scales that hitherto were unknown. There are so many asshats on the Internet that old tactics of manual moderation do not work anymore. Doing nothing is a pathetic excuse for a solution.
- manigandham 6y agoWhat if someone considers you an "asshat"? What should they do? Sounds like the real issue is scale and anonymity then. What solution do you propose?
- birdyrooster 6y agoSelf service moderation which serves as training for machine learning algorithms. Perhaps a system where messages aren’t whitelisted for the entire platform by default but instead must pass scrutiny as a canary. At first you could seed this with employees for users with no audience. During this time the sentiments of those who view the message are used to determine if wider distribution is desired.
- koheripbal 6y agoPart of that is that the average age of participants on the internet has dropped very significantly since mobile applications become ubiquitous.
- freeflight 6y agoThat's belittling a very serious issue. A lot of these recent anti-lockdown protests have been fueled out of social media by actors peddling extremely questionable narratives. Holocaust denial has seen a massive revival in Germany, to such a degree that sentiments like that are intermixing with conspiracy theories about the "NWO" supposedly using COVID-19 to finalize their "2000 years old rule", with the help of Bill Gates who apparently wants to microchip everybody on the planet to "depopulate" it. Trump is supposedly the last and only defense against this take-over by the "deep state", and will soon end it all when he reveals "Obamagate", he apparently also federalized the FED. Tho none of these people could even tell me when that supposedly happened. While individually these ideas and movements have been floating around the web for quite a while, it's absolutely scary how they are now merging together [0] and being chanted by people in the streets after they got their "Information on the Internet" which regularly means: Facebook groups, YouTube channels and now even Twitch streams, places they usually arrive at after using search engines in the most misleading way possible. It's like peak Eternal September where people will just believe the most obscure sources when they confirm their already established beliefs, over well-established data, and factual reality, which apparently is all controlled and manipulated by "dark powers behind the scenes". It's depressing and scary because so far I thought rationality will pull trough, people will learn to properly parse information for its validity and sources for their credibility. That did not happen, the bad actors are now taking over to a point where they stage events in the meat world, openly threatening democratic institutions. I do not know how to stop this, but this can't keep on going like this, it will take us no place good. [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazis-qanon-nuts-and-hardcore-vegans-unite-to-protest-germanys-lockdown https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazis-qanon-nuts-and-hardc...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]