4 ms·

You can't count until you know the (subjectively chosen) boundary of the whole. For example, a minority in your city may not be the minority in another country.

You can't count until you know the (subjectively chosen) boundary of the whole. For example, a minority in your city may not be the minority in another country. Either way, so what if it affects minorities more often? The question is What is hate speech? and saying "it affects minorities more" does not solve for that definition at all. Hence why the connection does not matter/exist.

foldr 6y ago
Obviously you choose the ‘boundary of the whole’ according to the location of the instance of hate speech. E.g., Jews were a minority in 1930s Germany; LGBTQ individuals are a minority more or less everywhere; Muslims are a minority in London, etc. etc. There’s nothing about this that’s difficult to understand, and you really just seem to be trolling at this point. As to your ‘so what’, you now seem to accept that there is a connection between minorities and hate speech, which was the point at issue.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  To pick a concrete (if inflammatory) example of the subjectivity of "minority", perhaps it is worth considering the example of "Trump voters". Within the context of the US, they are less than 50% of the population, so would it be hate speech to insult his supporters? To pick a smaller minority, what about "Baby Boomers". Should the "OK, boomer" meme be banned as hate speech? At 22% of the US population, they constitute a smaller minority than the proportion of non-white Americans (28%, excluding White Hispanics).
  - foldr 6y ago
    No-one thinks that anything insulting said to any minority automatically qualifies as hate speech. This is a straw man. The point is that e.g. ethnic, religious and sexual minorities have historically been some of the primary victims of hate speech.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Thanks for clearing that up. Maybe the problem then is the misleading nature of the phrase "hate speech". The speech that is being banned isn't distinguished by being "hateful", but because it is targeted at certain subjectively chosen minorities. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't give extra protections to groups of people who have historically faced disproportionate amounts of violence (and other harms), just that we should maybe call it "selected minority endangering speech" instead of "hate speech", and be clear about the specific cost-benefit trade-off we are making by how we choose and delineate those categories of people and how much speech is covered.
      - foldr 6y ago
        It's pretty easy to find out what people mean by hate speech. What you're doing seems a bit like people who derail discussions about homophobia by pointing out that homophobes aren't literally afraid of homosexuals. In both cases, the terminology is well established. Fussing over it just serves as an excuse to avoid addressing the problem.
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        I'm not trying to derail the discussion by pointless complaints about etymology, I'm saying that part of the problem with the concept of hate speech is that the name given to it obscures (accidentally) the nuances of how it is applied in practice. A better analogy would be if the critics of homophobes genuinely thought that homophobia was literally a fear of homosexuals, causing the homophobes to complain that this framing of their position made it hard for them to explain their objection to homosexuality. By hiding the subjectivity of "hate speech", people then get surprised or angry when it does or doesn't get applied to terms like "communist bandits" or "OK, boomer", or "eat the rich". The real debate isn't about whether the terms are hateful (as the name suggests), but whether the specific groups that are targeted need the specific protections being implemented.
        foldr 6y ago
- manigandham 6y ago
  There's no connection. It's an observation at best, based on what you define as a minority. For example, billionaires are also a minority group and frequent recipients of hate speech. Do you disagree?
  - foldr 6y ago
    I don't disagree that they are a minority group. I haven't seen examples of hate speech directed at billionaires per se. In this context, people are usually thinking of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities - but of course you know that, right?

foldr 6y ago

Obviously you choose the ‘boundary of the whole’ according to the location of the instance of hate speech. E.g., Jews were a minority in 1930s Germany; LGBTQ individuals are a minority more or less everywhere; Muslims are a minority in London, etc. etc. There’s nothing about this that’s difficult to understand, and you really just seem to be trolling at this point. As to your ‘so what’, you now seem to accept that there is a connection between minorities and hate speech, which was the point at issue.

dane-pgp 6y ago
To pick a concrete (if inflammatory) example of the subjectivity of "minority", perhaps it is worth considering the example of "Trump voters". Within the context of the US, they are less than 50% of the population, so would it be hate speech to insult his supporters? To pick a smaller minority, what about "Baby Boomers". Should the "OK, boomer" meme be banned as hate speech? At 22% of the US population, they constitute a smaller minority than the proportion of non-white Americans (28%, excluding White Hispanics).
- foldr 6y ago
  No-one thinks that anything insulting said to any minority automatically qualifies as hate speech. This is a straw man. The point is that e.g. ethnic, religious and sexual minorities have historically been some of the primary victims of hate speech.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Thanks for clearing that up. Maybe the problem then is the misleading nature of the phrase "hate speech". The speech that is being banned isn't distinguished by being "hateful", but because it is targeted at certain subjectively chosen minorities. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't give extra protections to groups of people who have historically faced disproportionate amounts of violence (and other harms), just that we should maybe call it "selected minority endangering speech" instead of "hate speech", and be clear about the specific cost-benefit trade-off we are making by how we choose and delineate those categories of people and how much speech is covered.
    - foldr 6y ago
      It's pretty easy to find out what people mean by hate speech. What you're doing seems a bit like people who derail discussions about homophobia by pointing out that homophobes aren't literally afraid of homosexuals. In both cases, the terminology is well established. Fussing over it just serves as an excuse to avoid addressing the problem.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        I'm not trying to derail the discussion by pointless complaints about etymology, I'm saying that part of the problem with the concept of hate speech is that the name given to it obscures (accidentally) the nuances of how it is applied in practice. A better analogy would be if the critics of homophobes genuinely thought that homophobia was literally a fear of homosexuals, causing the homophobes to complain that this framing of their position made it hard for them to explain their objection to homosexuality. By hiding the subjectivity of "hate speech", people then get surprised or angry when it does or doesn't get applied to terms like "communist bandits" or "OK, boomer", or "eat the rich". The real debate isn't about whether the terms are hateful (as the name suggests), but whether the specific groups that are targeted need the specific protections being implemented.
        foldr 6y ago
manigandham 6y ago
There's no connection. It's an observation at best, based on what you define as a minority. For example, billionaires are also a minority group and frequent recipients of hate speech. Do you disagree?
- foldr 6y ago
  I don't disagree that they are a minority group. I haven't seen examples of hate speech directed at billionaires per se. In this context, people are usually thinking of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities - but of course you know that, right?