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"Beyond hate speech" lol. That's kinda the problem, isn't it? Who gets to define "hate"? And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) an

"Beyond hate speech" lol. That's kinda the problem, isn't it? Who gets to define "hate"? And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway? And if it's worthy of banning on a major platform, why not just make it explicitly illegal? These are serious and important questions (among others) that seem to get conveniently glossed over.

mc32 6y ago
Yes it’s a very difficult problem and one with bad solutions (see fictitious chatter below): I like Indian curry. Yes, Indian curry is the best curry. Yes, Indian curry in Japan is not the same. They don’t know how to make it. Yes, Indians are better at making curry. After all it was invented in India and we have the local spices. Definitely, I would not buy curry inJapan unless it’s made by an Indian who knows how to make it. I mean you can see this potentially going in an unwanted direction. But is it hate? To me hate is when you have immediate violent outcomes in mind.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  For real though, if you haven't tried Japanese curry, try to find some. It's really tasty (sweeter and not spicy) and not at all like Indian curry. (Indian curry is good too but most people have access to try it)
  - mc32 6y ago
    Ha! I like Japanese curry too. But I meant Indian curry prepared in Japan. I did not mean Japanese curry. My point was that people can have discussions about who or what is better and it can diverge into other areas that could be considered hate by very sensitive people. Japan notoriously claimed for example that their snow is unique[1] and thus made it difficult to import European skis some time ago. Today this would be viewed and xenophobic or something when all it was was protectionism. [1] kinda true. It’s ‘wetter’ than snow in some other places, but doesn’t mean Rosignol should not be sold in Japan.
- r00fus 6y ago
  What's your point? I think the line is drawn when people are put at risk of life or liberty or have died/suffered. At that point, warning then excising those users and groups, reporting them to authorities (if crimes have been committed) is what's needed. And it needs to be timely. As I understand it Facebook, if it did anything at all, did id months/years after the fact, essentially doing CYA not anything meaningful.
- bedhead 6y ago
  "In mind" - what does this mean? Who exactly gets to define "in mind"? Like, you're now literally reading people's minds about their intentions? So I don't need to explicitly tell people to go do bad things, I can just say I'm upset about something and that's enough? I can make some bogus claim and that's enough? Because there aren't that many people spewing bullshit all day long on twitter? And let me take a wild guess on what your conclusion will be for people who say vague things on "your" side vs the "other" side...
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Endlessly peppering people with questions is sometimes called Sealioning. How about engaging with the point(s) made by the person you're replying to, and offering your own suggestions for how you'd go about things. Also, the HN guidelines (link at the bottom of the page) encourage you to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what was said, rather than the worst.
    - bedhead 6y ago
      But that's the ENTIRE point here! This supposed itty-bitty exception - "Hey, just no bad stuff, okay?" - is actually EVERYTHING. You say something like "Just no hate speech" or "Only if they have violence in mind" and those statements inherently violate the very notion of free speech the people are erroneously saying they're in favor of, and those innocent-sounding qualifiers are why things are devolving so rapidly. We've taken a simple concept that worked brilliantly for 250 years (free speech) and in the blink of an eye, now that online life has (for better or worse) usurped the government's role in setting rules for society, we're just rearranging how the game is played. This is the broader issue, online life (for lack of a better phrase, but I hope you get my point) has become so ubiquitous that it's like some sort of alternate society with a new governance. We wouldn't/couldn't insert these qualifiers into the constitution, but here we are giddily doing it for our new alternate world.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        By all means offer your own proposals, ideally taking account of widely known priors such as the events of last Wednesday.
rat87 6y ago
> why not just make it explicitly illegal That violates freedom of speech
- bedhead 6y ago
  Wow it's almost like the the founding fathers had a good idea when they drafted the bill of rights and the literal first thing that came to mind was freedom of speech. I'm sure this experiment of ripping up the constitution in our de facto new online lives that usurp what the government is capable of doing will go just fine...
mratzloff 6y ago
Pick a point and draw a line in the sand. Then enforce it. So many HN replies amount to "we all agree this is a problem, but we can't fix the entire problem perfectly, and it has some hypothetical drawbacks, so we shouldn't even try." (Never mind that as a result of inaction in the face of disinformation and hate speech our societies are rotting from the inside, and many, many real-world atrocities are being carried out as a direct result.) This is, by the way, a fundamentally conservative viewpoint. Cf. gun violence, homelessness, living wage, etc. Just because something is a complex issue with imperfect solutions doesn't mean we have permission to do nothing.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The big problem is that if you draw a line, everyone is going to toe it and try to push past it. Trump has shown that he is willing to push the boundaries of what is acceptable his entire presidency. That’s the “slippery slope” argument. If you define what’s allowed, people will ask for more, and others will push past it saying it’s not much different than previous. And besides that, the line has been drawn many times by the Supreme Court. Hate speech is allowed by the First Amendment, but inciting violence may not be. There’s “tests” for these sorts of issues that lower courts are supposed to apply.
- bedhead 6y ago
  But now you're back to square one - who defines "hate"? That's the line you're talking about. Keep in mind mind that in many cases, some speech you consider "hate" is totally vague, and opinions will inevitably just fall along convenient ideological lines. SO, outside of some really explicit cases, it's really not definable at all.
  - yibg 6y ago
    Why does there need to be a single definition? You can have a different definition of what hate is compared to me. For example, you can choose not to associate with someone because you think they're hateful, where as I find them just find and we're buddies. Facebook is influential yes, but they are still one private organization of many. Why do we need a consistent definition of hate speech between facebook, twitter, reddit etc?
nend 6y ago
>Who gets to define "hate"? I really dislike this argument. A lot of democratic countries have defined hate speech. In the US, individual companies define it and moderate it as they see fit. In other countries, their legislators and courts define it. The US has defined lots of difficult terms to define already. >And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway? I mean if we're talking about why companies should ban it, I'm sure they have a variety of reasons that range from bad PR and loss of revenue, to the founders/owners/employees don't want to build a product that's used for violence. If we're talking about at the society level, because it threatens democracy, peace, individuals safety >And if it's worthy of banning on a major platform, why not just make it explicitly illegal? A lot of democratic countries already have. UK, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland (and yes, they managed to define it somehow): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country
- bedhead 6y ago
  If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Odd, the speech you're talking about being legal hasn't seemed to affect things much at all. Actually, we've done nothing but thrive despite hate speech being legal. Why haven't people been clamoring for decades to change the constitution because of all the mayhem caused by hate speech?
  - spaced-out 6y ago
    >If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Because we've generally dealt with that by deplatforming that sort of speech socially and/or in the private sector. The history of the civil rights movement is filled with boycotts and other sorts of social pressure campaigns.
  - nend 6y ago
    >If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government Because of the first amendment, and how the courts have very consistently interpreted to allow hate speech. >and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? If by "do so well for centuries" you mean the US's economic output and world status over the centuries, I would argue that profiting off of Europe rebuilding itself after two world wars probably outweighed the detrimental effects of hate speech (among probably several dozen other reasons). If you mean "how has the US done so well handling the negative effects of hate speech for centuries without making it illegal", I would argue that hate speech has contributed to some of the most shameful and barbaric social dynamics over the centuries, and the US is historically well behind other modern countries on this front.
wesleywt 6y ago
How would you define calling for the genocide of the Rohingya people? Would you define that as hate speech? This is an important question for right wingers to answer. Should we be tolerant of your intolerance?
MrMan 6y ago
lots of democratic countries have come up with workable definitions. I propose to make hate speech illegal, so banning it won't be in any way contradictory. I am not glossing over anything.
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  Do you have an example of a workable definition?

mc32 6y ago

Yes it’s a very difficult problem and one with bad solutions (see fictitious chatter below): I like Indian curry. Yes, Indian curry is the best curry. Yes, Indian curry in Japan is not the same. They don’t know how to make it. Yes, Indians are better at making curry. After all it was invented in India and we have the local spices. Definitely, I would not buy curry inJapan unless it’s made by an Indian who knows how to make it. I mean you can see this potentially going in an unwanted direction. But is it hate? To me hate is when you have immediate violent outcomes in mind.

klmadfejno 6y ago
For real though, if you haven't tried Japanese curry, try to find some. It's really tasty (sweeter and not spicy) and not at all like Indian curry. (Indian curry is good too but most people have access to try it)
- mc32 6y ago
  Ha! I like Japanese curry too. But I meant Indian curry prepared in Japan. I did not mean Japanese curry. My point was that people can have discussions about who or what is better and it can diverge into other areas that could be considered hate by very sensitive people. Japan notoriously claimed for example that their snow is unique[1] and thus made it difficult to import European skis some time ago. Today this would be viewed and xenophobic or something when all it was was protectionism. [1] kinda true. It’s ‘wetter’ than snow in some other places, but doesn’t mean Rosignol should not be sold in Japan.
r00fus 6y ago
What's your point? I think the line is drawn when people are put at risk of life or liberty or have died/suffered. At that point, warning then excising those users and groups, reporting them to authorities (if crimes have been committed) is what's needed. And it needs to be timely. As I understand it Facebook, if it did anything at all, did id months/years after the fact, essentially doing CYA not anything meaningful.
bedhead 6y ago
"In mind" - what does this mean? Who exactly gets to define "in mind"? Like, you're now literally reading people's minds about their intentions? So I don't need to explicitly tell people to go do bad things, I can just say I'm upset about something and that's enough? I can make some bogus claim and that's enough? Because there aren't that many people spewing bullshit all day long on twitter? And let me take a wild guess on what your conclusion will be for people who say vague things on "your" side vs the "other" side...
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Endlessly peppering people with questions is sometimes called Sealioning. How about engaging with the point(s) made by the person you're replying to, and offering your own suggestions for how you'd go about things. Also, the HN guidelines (link at the bottom of the page) encourage you to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what was said, rather than the worst.
  - bedhead 6y ago
    But that's the ENTIRE point here! This supposed itty-bitty exception - "Hey, just no bad stuff, okay?" - is actually EVERYTHING. You say something like "Just no hate speech" or "Only if they have violence in mind" and those statements inherently violate the very notion of free speech the people are erroneously saying they're in favor of, and those innocent-sounding qualifiers are why things are devolving so rapidly. We've taken a simple concept that worked brilliantly for 250 years (free speech) and in the blink of an eye, now that online life has (for better or worse) usurped the government's role in setting rules for society, we're just rearranging how the game is played. This is the broader issue, online life (for lack of a better phrase, but I hope you get my point) has become so ubiquitous that it's like some sort of alternate society with a new governance. We wouldn't/couldn't insert these qualifiers into the constitution, but here we are giddily doing it for our new alternate world.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      By all means offer your own proposals, ideally taking account of widely known priors such as the events of last Wednesday.

rat87 6y ago

> why not just make it explicitly illegal That violates freedom of speech

bedhead 6y ago
Wow it's almost like the the founding fathers had a good idea when they drafted the bill of rights and the literal first thing that came to mind was freedom of speech. I'm sure this experiment of ripping up the constitution in our de facto new online lives that usurp what the government is capable of doing will go just fine...

mratzloff 6y ago

Pick a point and draw a line in the sand. Then enforce it. So many HN replies amount to "we all agree this is a problem, but we can't fix the entire problem perfectly, and it has some hypothetical drawbacks, so we shouldn't even try." (Never mind that as a result of inaction in the face of disinformation and hate speech our societies are rotting from the inside, and many, many real-world atrocities are being carried out as a direct result.) This is, by the way, a fundamentally conservative viewpoint. Cf. gun violence, homelessness, living wage, etc. Just because something is a complex issue with imperfect solutions doesn't mean we have permission to do nothing.

colejohnson66 6y ago
The big problem is that if you draw a line, everyone is going to toe it and try to push past it. Trump has shown that he is willing to push the boundaries of what is acceptable his entire presidency. That’s the “slippery slope” argument. If you define what’s allowed, people will ask for more, and others will push past it saying it’s not much different than previous. And besides that, the line has been drawn many times by the Supreme Court. Hate speech is allowed by the First Amendment, but inciting violence may not be. There’s “tests” for these sorts of issues that lower courts are supposed to apply.
bedhead 6y ago
But now you're back to square one - who defines "hate"? That's the line you're talking about. Keep in mind mind that in many cases, some speech you consider "hate" is totally vague, and opinions will inevitably just fall along convenient ideological lines. SO, outside of some really explicit cases, it's really not definable at all.
- yibg 6y ago
  Why does there need to be a single definition? You can have a different definition of what hate is compared to me. For example, you can choose not to associate with someone because you think they're hateful, where as I find them just find and we're buddies. Facebook is influential yes, but they are still one private organization of many. Why do we need a consistent definition of hate speech between facebook, twitter, reddit etc?

nend 6y ago

>Who gets to define "hate"? I really dislike this argument. A lot of democratic countries have defined hate speech. In the US, individual companies define it and moderate it as they see fit. In other countries, their legislators and courts define it. The US has defined lots of difficult terms to define already. >And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway? I mean if we're talking about why companies should ban it, I'm sure they have a variety of reasons that range from bad PR and loss of revenue, to the founders/owners/employees don't want to build a product that's used for violence. If we're talking about at the society level, because it threatens democracy, peace, individuals safety >And if it's worthy of banning on a major platform, why not just make it explicitly illegal? A lot of democratic countries already have. UK, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland (and yes, they managed to define it somehow): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country

bedhead 6y ago
If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Odd, the speech you're talking about being legal hasn't seemed to affect things much at all. Actually, we've done nothing but thrive despite hate speech being legal. Why haven't people been clamoring for decades to change the constitution because of all the mayhem caused by hate speech?
- spaced-out 6y ago
  >If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Because we've generally dealt with that by deplatforming that sort of speech socially and/or in the private sector. The history of the civil rights movement is filled with boycotts and other sorts of social pressure campaigns.
- nend 6y ago
  >If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government Because of the first amendment, and how the courts have very consistently interpreted to allow hate speech. >and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? If by "do so well for centuries" you mean the US's economic output and world status over the centuries, I would argue that profiting off of Europe rebuilding itself after two world wars probably outweighed the detrimental effects of hate speech (among probably several dozen other reasons). If you mean "how has the US done so well handling the negative effects of hate speech for centuries without making it illegal", I would argue that hate speech has contributed to some of the most shameful and barbaric social dynamics over the centuries, and the US is historically well behind other modern countries on this front.

wesleywt 6y ago

How would you define calling for the genocide of the Rohingya people? Would you define that as hate speech? This is an important question for right wingers to answer. Should we be tolerant of your intolerance?

MrMan 6y ago

lots of democratic countries have come up with workable definitions. I propose to make hate speech illegal, so banning it won't be in any way contradictory. I am not glossing over anything.

_-david-_ 6y ago
Do you have an example of a workable definition?