5 ms·

I think preciously few people necessarily dislike the idea of quelling hate speech. The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech. When

I think preciously few people necessarily dislike the idea of quelling hate speech. The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech. When there is a large contingent of america chanting nonsense like "silence is violence" one moment and "punch terfs" the next moment, I'd rather that nobody gets to make the decision of what does and does not constitute hate speech.

ohhhhhh 5y ago
Thank you
logicalmonster 5y ago
I think there's a minority, but still substantial number of authoritarians, who absolutely do like the idea of quelling what they view as hate speech. The classification problem is not one that can ever be agreed to though as you point out, so I'd rather that larger platforms like Facebook simply provide tools to choose and mark the kind of content you'd prefer to see rather than blocking comments that a vocal group dislikes. The real solution to this problem was found many decades ago, and is of course ignored. Go back to teaching children stuff like the following rather than making victimhood into a currency. > Sticks and stones may break my bones, > But words can never hurt me.
- hairofadog 5y ago
  What qualifies as hate speech and what to do about it is certainly arguable, but the underlying issue is that in both the U.S. and rest of the world there's a long history of powerful social groups fomenting actual, measurable, real-world violence and suppression of minority social groups. It's true that social media is full of pearl-clutching, and that's what you propose to remedy with your "sticks and stones" curriculum, but it doesn't address the real problem of hate speech. And again, I can't stress this enough: I'm not saying that Facebook deleting posts is any kind of answer; what I'm saying is it seems you think the question of hate speech has to do with people being offended rather than people being actively harmed. Given the hyperbole in the media (social or otherwise) it's understandable why you would think that was the case, but social media isn't the best place to get your information.
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    Imagine making a phone-call and talking with your friend about some hot political topic and then an AT&T operator bursts in and says that this call is now blocked because you're engaging in hate-speech that might theoretically cause harm. Is this where we want society to go? As far as real world harm when it comes to permitting or not permitting speech goes, I'd put the danger of effective societal censorship creating authoritarianism that harms masses of people as so far beyond the level of harm created by some random insane person who sees some negative comments about some group on social media that it's not even on the same planet of harm. In and of themselves, words cannot cause anybody harm. As far as your concern about people being actively harmed, that's a big topic that's certainly debatable, both in terms of whether anybody is being harmed to a discussion of who is being harmed. I'm not sure if this is the best venue for this kind of debate because there's a lot that cannot be spoken about in a forum like this. But I think your preferred social media network of choice isn't the proper avenue for this task. Society has developed a police and criminal justice system over thousands of years to prevent and punish actual criminal acts (violations of life, liberty, and property) while at the same time taking great care to protect the rights of the accused. It's imperfect in many ways, yes of course, but at the moment it's the system that's actually credible. The idea that society is expecting people like Mark Zuckerberg to effectively become the society-shaping, crime-prevention czar seems insane to me.
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      It's like talking to a wall.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
> The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech. This is really hard because there are so many claims done in bad faith. For example, comparing Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee is incredibly racist, but people will claim it's not, and will claim it's no different than comparing Marjorie Taylor Greene to a neanderthal. But this is entirely a bad faith claim, since the comparison of black people to primates has been a racist trope that spans decades or even centuries.

ohhhhhh 5y ago

Thank you

logicalmonster 5y ago

I think there's a minority, but still substantial number of authoritarians, who absolutely do like the idea of quelling what they view as hate speech. The classification problem is not one that can ever be agreed to though as you point out, so I'd rather that larger platforms like Facebook simply provide tools to choose and mark the kind of content you'd prefer to see rather than blocking comments that a vocal group dislikes. The real solution to this problem was found many decades ago, and is of course ignored. Go back to teaching children stuff like the following rather than making victimhood into a currency. > Sticks and stones may break my bones, > But words can never hurt me.

hairofadog 5y ago
What qualifies as hate speech and what to do about it is certainly arguable, but the underlying issue is that in both the U.S. and rest of the world there's a long history of powerful social groups fomenting actual, measurable, real-world violence and suppression of minority social groups. It's true that social media is full of pearl-clutching, and that's what you propose to remedy with your "sticks and stones" curriculum, but it doesn't address the real problem of hate speech. And again, I can't stress this enough: I'm not saying that Facebook deleting posts is any kind of answer; what I'm saying is it seems you think the question of hate speech has to do with people being offended rather than people being actively harmed. Given the hyperbole in the media (social or otherwise) it's understandable why you would think that was the case, but social media isn't the best place to get your information.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  Imagine making a phone-call and talking with your friend about some hot political topic and then an AT&T operator bursts in and says that this call is now blocked because you're engaging in hate-speech that might theoretically cause harm. Is this where we want society to go? As far as real world harm when it comes to permitting or not permitting speech goes, I'd put the danger of effective societal censorship creating authoritarianism that harms masses of people as so far beyond the level of harm created by some random insane person who sees some negative comments about some group on social media that it's not even on the same planet of harm. In and of themselves, words cannot cause anybody harm. As far as your concern about people being actively harmed, that's a big topic that's certainly debatable, both in terms of whether anybody is being harmed to a discussion of who is being harmed. I'm not sure if this is the best venue for this kind of debate because there's a lot that cannot be spoken about in a forum like this. But I think your preferred social media network of choice isn't the proper avenue for this task. Society has developed a police and criminal justice system over thousands of years to prevent and punish actual criminal acts (violations of life, liberty, and property) while at the same time taking great care to protect the rights of the accused. It's imperfect in many ways, yes of course, but at the moment it's the system that's actually credible. The idea that society is expecting people like Mark Zuckerberg to effectively become the society-shaping, crime-prevention czar seems insane to me.
  - hairofadog 5y ago
    It's like talking to a wall.

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago

> The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech. This is really hard because there are so many claims done in bad faith. For example, comparing Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee is incredibly racist, but people will claim it's not, and will claim it's no different than comparing Marjorie Taylor Greene to a neanderthal. But this is entirely a bad faith claim, since the comparison of black people to primates has been a racist trope that spans decades or even centuries.