A complete definition of hate speech is not necessary to have this conversation, only examples that are definitely hate speech. Arguing that the holocaust did not happen is an example of hate speech for any possible reasonable definition of hate speech.
No offense at all, just honestly trying to understand your argument. Is holocaust denial hate speech because it is assumed that deniers know that the holocaust did indeed occur and are thus intentionally lying about it in order to hurt people? Thanks.
Hate speech can not be defined. Hate speech describes how the speech is interpreted by the audience. The same speech that is interpreted to be non-hateful by one person may be interpreted as being hateful by a different person. For any particular speech, chances are you’ll be able to find one or more people on this planet who consider it hateful. Therefor there’s as many different definitions of hate speech as there are people alive, and those definitions are just as likely to change from one moment to the next as people are. So if you want to censor hate speech, it is only possible to do so according to an opinionated perspective. The result being that you don’t actually end up censoring hate speech, you simply end up censoring speech that defies some established orthodox perspective. If you want to allow for free speech, then you must allow for the possibility that some people will consider some of that speech to be hateful (or offensive, or untrue, or dangerous...).
This reminded me of a dialog I witnessed many years ago. One guy was describing how offended he was when people used the term "black", because he considered himself "African American". The other guy, who considered himself "black", loathed the term "African American".
Hate does not exist in words. It exists in the mind of the person using the words. And we can never know what is in that mind without knowing the person on an intimate level. Until we all understand this, all this noisy anger and offense will never end.
Hate speech is like porn. It's a case of "I can recognize it when I see it." It's certainly not something objective and it depends on the cultural background of people to define it. The author can't define it because the very definition of hate speech will vary from place to place and person to person.
The author makes other mistakes too such as thinking history that was already written is an absolute truth when it's actually something subjective written by the "winners." I lived through that once, the history that I was taught as truth in my school many years ago was proven to be false a few years ago and the lies were based on what today you'd consider hate speech.
I think the moment we can solve detecting hate speech using a machine will be the same a machine can pass the Turing test because it's impossible to define hate speech in objective terms. Meanwhile we have two equally incomplete solutions: allow all speech or let some people subjectively censor things. Neither of those things will satisfy the author of this post (well maybe the latter will).
I completely agree with your first point. You've put it much better than me.
History is written by the winners, however, even if the Nazis had won the war, I think people would still understand that discrimination against any particular group is wrong. Who knows?
Censorship isn't something I stand for. However, in the UK I can be vocal about my opinions as long as I'm not harassing certain groups for no reason. Sure, thats censorship, but I can speak out against my government without showing hatred if they were to take the policy too far. Its a fine line.
>History is written by the winners, however, even if the Nazis had won the war, I think people would still understand that discrimination against any particular group is wrong. Who knows?
I think that had that been the case the people who remained alive would be people with ideologies aligned with Nazism and would consider discrimination against a particular group the right thing to do. Of course there will always be people who stand against the winners, real life proves this: Nazis still exist.
Sadly, they always will. There will always be people with ill intent in this world, because the world isn't perfect. However these neo-Nazis use free-speech to get a voice that they otherwise wouldn't have.
The paradox of tolerance is utterly vacuous. "Group X is justified in not tolerating group Y because of Y's intolerance of X." Fine, except it doesn't even matter what X and Y is; it works just as well for your opponents as it does for you.
It's amazing that people still quote that XKCD despite the glaring logical fallacy.
People are all too eager to grant powers (to their favorite vendors as well as politicians) that can later be misused against them. They seem to forget that the other team also bats.
Ah, "people." What are we going to do about them, right?
I'm not sure you and Mr. Throwaway & Hide are talking about the same thing, but what I'm talking about is not to grant powers, to leave the game.
I'm not sure how freezing someone out is supposed to give them more power, or increase their audience, or make their ideas any more viable, but using your enemies actions to determine your own is a form of ressentiment, what has been called a ruling principle of the lowest sort. It's related to reactionary behavior, tit-for-tat debate. There's nothing that says you have to participate in any of that.
"Hate speech, on the other hand, is not. There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence."
The issue is you can't pick the arbitrator of what is true. Once you do you create the tyrant. For once you have someone who will determine that which is true they can determine criticism of their decisions are also hate speech.
You don't need to decide up front for every possible statement whether it's true or not. You don't need to decide up front for every possible statement whether it's hate speech or not. When you come across a proposition, it's your responsibility to decide whether it's true or not. You have to be open to the possibility that you can make mistakes, even really bad ones. That's part of the responsibility.
Likewise it is an abdication of responsibility to just pretend like speech can't be destructive. It's your responsibility and the responsibility of your community to deliberate on what sort of speech is destructive to the purposes of that community. And you have to admit that you can make a mistake and deal with it. That's part of the responsibility.
Free speech absolutism is obviously on its face a dogshit principle because it is unlimited and thought-ending. Yes, the suppression of speech can cause harm, but this harm is not infinite and permanent. Any principle that does not allow thought, deliberation, and thus necessarily the ability to make a mistake and the ability to make up for mistakes is a stupid principle.
The harm of suppressing speech without good justification must be measured and balanced against the harm of allowing harmful speech. The existence of harmful speech is hardly debatable: If speech wasn't powerful then we wouldn't consider free speech important. If speech is powerful, then its power can cause damage and harm. Deal with it.
That is an interesting argument. Everything is fluid. Things have to carefully balanced. It is hard to argue with. Add to that shot about free speech being an absolutist position and it is hard defend 'free speech' position.
Most people recognize that the reason we protect free despite the damage it may cause is because of the risk of deciding what harmful speech is, can have on society.
> Add to that shot about free speech being an absolutist position and it is hard defend 'free speech' position.
If I say I'm against torture in all circumstances then is that an absolutist position? Do things need to be "carefully balanced" because "everything is fluid" with regards to torture?
The reason freedom of speech appears absolutist to those who wish to impinge on others' speech is that it denies them that power, either by dint of reason or (hopefully) by dint of law.
It is up to the individual what and when and to whom they speak or listen. The power rests with the individual. To impinge on that is to take away that power and give more to someone else - but on what basis?
That someone else doesn't like the content of their speech, or even worse doesn't like that person. Deep. Maybe we should try that for torture?
More recently, Sandy Hook denial is what lead to parents of Sandy Hook victims being harassed by people calling them actors, frauds, charlatans etc. Would you not agree that having people tell you that your child never existed or never died to be harmful?
> Would you not agree that having people tell you that your child never existed or never died to be harmful?
Since we're moving from destructive to harmful then I'll move it on to hurtful. Of course words can be hurtful and they can even be harmful - can they be destructive?
Still, I wouldn't relieve anyone of the right to deny Sandy Hook or The Holocaust because I can either:
a) choose to ignore them
b) argue
If I use (b) then I have nothing to fear because if I'm right and they are wrong then I have a better argument.
What's to fear? Is Holocaust denial more widespread than than disdain for it even in societies that have no injuction against it?
No, is the answer, most people think the Holocaust happened, and Sandy Hook for that matter.
Lies, deception, memetic contagions, going into what is already illegal slander and fraud.
The argument on the side of free speech is that the negative sides of such restriction outweigh the potential safety they grant; not that they do not exist.
So says you but I disagree. Would you ban me saying so? At least I'm able to give an explanation where you make a bare assertion. Maybe not bare, you added some snark.
Maybe that's why I wouldn't have your speech denied, I'm quite sure I'm able to defend my position. Maybe that's also why you wish for others to have their speech denied, because you aren't able to defend yours.
I am not sure what is the question you are asking. What do you mean by "destructive". Is it comparable to damages?
For example I can fake evidences for a crime to frame and innocent someone and send that person to prison for many years. I guess we agree this is a crime. (and also a strawman against free speech absolutist)
As another example you can start a revolution by planting seed of discontent in a previously serene society.
If this does not answer your question then I am not sure what your question is.
I'm not the one that originally used the word so I cannot be the one to clear up its use. My question is Socratic, to clarify the claim being made, and almost certainly to show it for the nonsense it is. Of course, danharaj does not want to answer because he can see the trap, which is why this thread is approaching the right hand side of the page and yet you do not know what he meant.
> I can fake evidences for a crime to frame and innocent someone and send that person to prison for many years. I guess we agree this is a crime.
Yes, we agree, because faking evidence is not about speech. Giving false testimony, in court, that is more to the point, although I struggle to think of anyone who is advocating for the right to lie in court, especially when they're not the accused.
> you can start a revolution by planting seed of discontent in a previously serene society
Such power! How do I attain this God-like level of manipulatory power over men? ;-)
More seriously: people are responsible for their own actions. If I tell you to jump off a bridge and you do it, that's on you.
But then you see how speech can be destructive and dangerous.
> More seriously: people are responsible for their own actions. If I tell you to jump off a bridge and you do it, that's on you.
The same can be said of drug dealers.
We agree that speaking words never kills anyone, but the same is true for selling drugs, still we can agree that drugs contain incredible destructive potential.
I feel like this is not an argument about the limits of free speech, it is about the validity of a specific argument.
Going more in a personal sense the existence of psychiatric theory and the significant help that people can obtain by "just talking" suggest that the opposite is also possible.
I do not think that the argument for free speech should be "all speech is always safe" rather it should be "this restriction will be misused in the future". Otherwise you are arguing for an anarchist position, which is fine, but it is not the status quo (or the status quo before hate speech laws)
> Such power! How do I attain this God-like level of manipulatory power over men? ;-)
Slightly facetiously, it is said that Germany sent Lenin to Russia in WW1 as weapon to start a revolution (not sure how true that is).
> But then you see how speech can be destructive and dangerous.
Name something that isn't dangerous. There isn't one because anything can lead to danger so that is a moot argument.
I do not see how speech can be destructive because you're begging the question - it is yet to be shown that speech is destructive, my question still has not been answered.
> We agree that speaking words never kills anyone, but the same is true for selling drugs, still we can agree that drugs contain incredible destructive potential.
Which is why I would not prohibit the selling of drugs.
> the significant help that people can obtain by "just talking" suggest that the opposite is also possible.
Where did I claim that speech cannot be helpful or unhelpful? Obviously it can be. That doesn't mean that unhelpful or dangerous speech should be a crime.
No harm, no foul. Show me where on the doll the speech touched you ;-)
> Name something that isn't dangerous. There isn't one because anything can lead to danger so that is a moot argument.
> it is yet to be shown that speech is destructive, my question still has not been answered.
I truly do no understand your question at a logical level then. Is your point that speech is not a physical object and cannot be smashed against things, in an opera singer breaking a crystal glass the counterexample you are looking for? Do dolls have eardrums?
This looks like a facetious interpretation of the question. We could apply similar level of deconstructionism to many other laws and regulations. The only way I can see this as relevant is to transform this into a conversation of whether governments have the right to pass laws at all?
The question I would like you to answer then is: Should all speech always be lawful? Are there any kind circumstances where speaking certain things should be a crime?
I guess we are trying to find a common ground, but I have no idea where you stand.
I'm sorry if the tone of this response is a tad vexxed but how many times will I need to repeat that I wasn't the one who made the claim nor used the word?
The Socratic method[1] is well known as an effective means of uncovering the problems in a line of reasoning. As I'm the one using it you can safely assume I have found a problem in the line of reasoning and am attempting to uncover it. To point out to me that there are problems with the line of reasoning and then attribute them somehow to me is, frankly, a bit dense.
The "facetious[ness]" of my question, as you put it, is simply part of the method, which is not facetious at all. If the challenge of a simple question cannot be met then it exposes the problem.
Please do not bother me again with this, ask the person that made the claim to justify it. Thanks.
Finally:
> Should all speech always be lawful?
No. As we've already pointed out, lying in court would be an exemption from protected speech. I can think of several others that are contentious (is following an order as a soldier a war crime?) and far more interesting than something as self-refuting as being pro- (or should that be anti?) "hate"speech.
I will now exercise my freedom not to say any more, and not to listen.
> Not as thought-ending as silencing a voice with the threat of legal action.
I obviously was talking about "thought-ending" in context of the conversation on what boundaries should be set on speech in which situation. What point are you trying to make? That telling people to shut up means that you want them to shut up? Yes, I think people who want to argue that the holocaust didn't happen or that white people should establish an ethnostate should shut the fuck up. But I wouldn't threaten legal action, no need to bring in a middleman.
> What's an example of hate speech that's infinite and permanent?
Inciting a pogrom.
> Who said otherwise?
If speech can cause harm then it is justifiable to redress that harm. If someone wants to argue for free speech absolutism while acknowledging that they are justifying without limit harm and damage to others, by all means they can do so. I think most reasonable people would see how stupid that position is.
> I obviously was talking about "thought-ending" in context of the conversation on what boundaries should be set on speech in which situation. What point are you trying to make?
You were saying how free speech absolutism is a "dogshit principle" because it is thought-ending. My point is that we could use the same argument against speech suppression, which is even more thought-ending. It's almost literally thought-ending, since people also think with their speech.
>> What's an example of hate speech that's infinite and permanent?
>Inciting a pogrom.
Talking about a murder can result in a murder. They're two different things. Both ought to be taken seriously, but one results in the permanent end of life. The other in and of itself does not.
> If speech can cause harm then it is justifiable to redress that harm. If someone wants to argue for free speech absolutism while acknowledging that they are justifying without limit harm and damage to others, by all means they can do so. I think most reasonable people would see how stupid that position is.
Doesn't insulting someone who is sensitive cause harm to them? There're countless ways to cause psychological harm through language, and most don't have anything to do with "hate speech." For example, you said any reasonable person would see how "stupid" it is to believe free speech absolutism outweighs harm given through speaking. I'm taking that position. Should you be arrested for making that remark if it results in my feeling hurt?
What standard would you impose on hate speech. By what rubric do we ascertain what speech should be tolerated. If that rubric is flawed as everything can be flawed how do you challenge it.
Stop. Why people are so afraid of debating this? The position is past the retarded point, but actively censoring it only gives it more credence. Would it not be better to have retarded positions challenged openly?
His argument was that you cannot have an arbiter of truth determine the truthiness of certain things. I brought up an example which was used in the article itself which is that the platform houses people who deny the holocaust happens.
Do you agree that we cannot determine that the holocaust happened then? That it is impossible to determine that it actually occurred?
I believe that arbiter of truth, including and not limited to Holocaust, should not exist. I think that even thinking of considering suggesting one and only true way is dangerous. Would you feel so strongly about moon if I told you it was made out of cheese?
It occurred there is ample evidence it occurred. The fear I have is that once a government has a power it never goes away. No matter how well meaning the original intent is people you disagree with will eventually come to power and use that power against you.
The statement
> The platform is a popular home to neo-Nazis, fascists, holocaust deniers, and racists.
can be applied to any platform with any reach on the internet. Also, the sources mentioned in the github issue are all biased towards the left. Nothing wrong with that, but there's no neutrality at play here.
Honestly, this sounds very arrogant. privacytoolsio won't recommend Minds, because they think you'll turn into a racist just by using the site.
What is hate speech? It’s actually very difficult to define. One culture and ideology might come up with a very clear distinction of what hate speech is, but a different culture and ideology might disagree entirely.
I read this hoping for a good discourse on the topic... instead the author barely dove into the topic. There is nothing novel or of value here.
Free speech is good, hate speech is bad. Great. But what is hate speech? What is the line that you draw? The author vaguely alludes lack of evidence, but 99% of discussions are opinion based. Are all lies hate speech?
Honestly I wish I hadn't wasted 5 minutes of my life on this.
Even worse is that the author doesn't even get the definition of "freedom of speech" right; at best he can be said to have defined the US First Amendment. A few moments with Wikipedia provides a variety of historical definitions of what freedom of speech was intended to be.
This article is simply devoid of any understanding of the topic or even the most basic attempt to do so.
I'm sorry that you disliked the article so much and thought that reading it was a waste of your life. In regards to the points you've made:
> But what is hate speech?
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hated towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification.
> What is the line that you draw?
I dislike many things in this world. I dislike Nazis. I dislike people who discriminate against others for no reason. I dislike big companies like Google who sell users data and have unethical practices. I don't hate them though.
I think the line should be drawn when it goes beyond disliking someone/thing. When you actively seek arm against whatever it may be.
> The author vaguely alludes lack of evidence
The Holocaust happened. There have been countless history books that have been both written and fact checked. Saying that it didn't happen because you sympathise with Nazis isn't ok. If there is evidence and proof that something happened an ideology shouldn't get in the way of it. An ideology also shouldn't allow you to slander a group of people because of it.
> Are all lies hate speech?
Absolutely not, however, if there is historical evidence (in this case wether or not the holocaust happened) it seems so wrong to just deny it. Such atrocities should not be ignored for the sake of free speech. If we say that certain events never happened we might as well say that Americans never fought for free speech.
'The problem is that while the actual product is great, the people behind it aren't.'
I have a genuine problem with this approach to anything. I have zero need to vet whether someone likes midget porn, believes a radical political theory or even espouses unpopular opinions. If their product is great, do I really want to support crappy product with 'right opinion' people?
Considering the alternatives, such as mastodon, I don't see any need to support them. If I can use products that don't condone this sort of action then I probably will.
And saying 'I hate group X and we should go and harm them' is yet another.
But this is all academic because few people support any of that kind of stuff really.
The concerns around hate speech are on the margins:
Making jokes about sensitive things (i.e. comedian in Quebec fined $30 000 for making joke about a man in a wheelchair)
Policies which have possibly a racial angle, and yet which may or may not be racist (i.e. banning travel from China, complaints that top Canadian Health bureaucrat who is Chinese native and deep ties to the WHO is 'compromised' being perceived as specifically racist)
Policies which affect some groups more than others like those intended to ostensibly help groups (i.e. UCal system banning teachers from language that could be perceived as 'microaggression' like telling someone of African American descent who is being too aggressive/lound in class ... that they are being too loud/aggressive in class, or things like affirmative action, Quebec banning certain religious garb which affects specific groups)
Requiring 'affirmative' language for controversial things (i.e Jordan Peterson complaint that he must legally refer to someone given whatever of any number of genders they someone chooses to describe themselves as).
Racially oriented identity politics policies such as 'Black Lives Matter' trying to address real problems of racism, while requiring white people to 'march at the back of the line' given that they are ostensibly secondary to the nature of their status concerning the issue and their presence could overwhelm the authenticity of the message ... could be perceived as a form of hate speech.
Casual aggressive language which is really tantamount to 'very crude speech' but sometimes 'actual hate speech' sometimes not really hatefully oriented, but which could be categorized as hate speech. (You hear this in online game rooms a lot, occasionally some very crass language that I don't think is meant to be hateful so much as crass, but maybe it is by some definition)
These are where the streams cross and things get harder.
> Making jokes about sensitive things (i.e. comedian in Quebec fined $30 000 for making joke about a man in a wheelchair)
I feel like many people do not know about some more of the context. Essentially the fine was in terms of damages, as in those jokes fueled bullying from many of his classmates.
Personally I feel that this is more properly part of a conversation about the boundaries of defamation rather than the boundaries of free speech.
I would say that defamation is different as it is about damages between individuals. There the concept is directly related to proving that damages have occurred, and a fine is in part meant to "correct the records." It is less about an abstract of what is the limit of free speech.
It's fascinating to me how this battle against "hate speech" became global so quickly.
I disagree entirely with this article.
He doesn't define hate speech. "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence", what does it have to do with hate speech?
Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.
It's funny how people don't see the danger of supporting these soft-censorship feel-good policy while more and more authoritarian politicians get elected, surely these laws won't backfired?
And that quote of Voltaire is apocryphal (but he said something close).
> "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence", what does it have to do with hate speech?
Loads of hate speech would fall into this category. Almost all antisemitic conspiracies, for starters. Probably plenty of neoconfederate nonsense minimizing slavery, too.
> "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence"
... I mean, historical evidence changes routinely with the discovery and release of new evidence. And "blatantly false allegations" sometimes turn out to be not so false.
I believe that platform owners have the right to kick assholes off of thier platform (for their version of asshole), but it is tricky business letting third parties be the arbiters of what is true and what is hate.
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hated towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification.
> Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.
Oddly enough, I'm a European, and I think this point is valid in any country. If you lived in China, you wouldn't speak out against the Government if they did something wrong like censor the doctors who discovered the virus. In other countries were there is free speech you can do this. Thats why there are organisations like Extinction Rebellion that speak out against Governments about climate change. In China, that couldn't happen. Extinction Rebellion doesn't shout hate towards people for not caring, rather they try to get action from politicians who can do something. This is the sort of thing that free speech should be used for.
> soft-censorship feel-good policy
I am firmly against this sort of policy. Mass surveillance is the backdoor into freedom of speech. Censorship is bad, but, if you implement it correctly, then free speech will allow people to speak out against these "more authoritarian politicians".
> denying historical evidence ... what does it have to do with hate speech?
He's talking about holocaust denial, the [broadly] antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish peoples seized on WW2 as an opportunity to advance themselves, exaggerating the facts and inventing others.
You haven't defined hate speech either, but this meets my criteria.
"theory that Jewish peoples seized on WW2 as an opportunity to advance themselves"
How would you definitely prove or refute that?
I prefer a society where anyone can ask "did the gas chambers exist?". In a healthy one you should have all the information and replies to make you conclude yes.
In my opinion making it illegal just fuel conspiracies.
Also this thread is a glorious reminder of Godwin's law.
I wouldn't dare do either. I don't need to. There are simply enough people who were there still alive [on all sides] to testify what happened. If first-hand reports from every angle aren't enough, nothing will be.
Asking questions is okay. But we're talking about people with their own answers, not questions. Not just questions, they're sharing pointedly racist motives.
And leave Godwin alone. We're literally talking about Nazis.
> However, hate speech doesn't have reliable sources.
It is my opinion that all your sources are unreliable, therefore you should not be allowed to speak.
> Hate speech isn't freedom of speech. Hate speech is hate.
Hate speech is hate. Hate speech is also part of freedom of speech. It's very easy for me otherwise to label your opinions as hate.
And as it always bears repeating: Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequence, and platforms where freedom of speech is respected we can respond to hate and if the platform is any good, we can also simply block it and promote block lists aimed at specific speech criteria.
You can label anything as hate. It doesn't take much for me to say your comment is full of hate (which it clearly isn't). If you understand what hate is then you can distinguish the two.
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hatred towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification.
If you are willingly being spiteful or intending harm with no reasoning then this is hate.
There is a fine line that I should have talked about more, so I'm sorry.
This is the sort of article which would usually garner a few hundred comments on HN in which the same arguments are exchanged back and forth, usually around a very small number of central themes (stated as follows in the most neutral way I can think):
- Who decides what's true and what isn't?
- Who decides what's hate speech and what isn't?
- Freedom of speech isn't only a legal principle, you're thinking of the first amendment.
- Should YouTube or other platforms be forced to carry certain content? There's simply no other way to get your message heard. Why does YouTube/Facebook/Google get to decide what's the truth?
- Hacker News has a pretty strict moderation policy. Is that censorship too?!
- Ah yes, but Hacker News is niche. Nowhere near the scale of YouTube or Twitter.
- So you're saying scale matters? Who decides what the scale is?
In the end, a lot of these questions seem to focus around a common denominator: "who decides?". In my judgement, we already have a pretty good idea of "who decides" in most matters that affect the whole of society, but not in some others. It's the government, which is supposed to be accountable and elected by the populace, or at least take into account their wishes. This kind of democracy largely does not extend to the economic sphere, which several economists through history have described as the "anarchy of the market".
If the answer to the central "who decides" question is a country's government, whether or not the government is competent enough to make those decisions. This is at least in part a subjective question, as people evaluate all policies depending on their ideological views. But bear in mind that saying "the government decides" is not necessarily an argument for regulation.
There is usually a lack of sources being cited, perhaps because they're philosophical or legal arguments and this is a very tech-oriented forum. I'll provide a few I know of, ones likely to be the most surprising, and if anyone has better pointers I'd be happy to find out about them.
- Susan Brison (2018), "Free speech skepticism" in which the author discusses and attempts to rebut several arguments in favor of a special constitutional amendment to free speech[0]
- Susan Brison (1998), "Speech, Harm and the Mind-Body Problem in 1A Jurisprudence" in which the author provides several compelling arguments that the harms that can be caused by speech can be no less involuntary and in fact can be more severe than physical hurts in a variety of situations. To that end, it's worth asking why "harm" in the interpretation of laws on speech is defined in such a way that it only includes physical assaults. The author argues that to separate "mental" harms from "physical" harms rests on a theory of mind-body dualism, which is generally rejected by philosophers of mind today.[5]
- Brian Leiter (2016), "The Case Against Free Speech" in which the author argues that certain places speech is restricted in the search for truth (such as in the courtroom) offer insights into how speech can be regulated in society as a whole[1]
- Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts" in which the author argues that the free speech of pornographers interferes with the free speech of women (if speech is to be interpreted more than 'scrawls and sounds', which all protections of the right to freedom of speech are based on) in a way that classical liberals should care about[2]
- The Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy article for Freedom of Speech, including a discussion on Mill's popular "harm principle" and the lesser known offense principle[3]
- Steven D. Smith (2004), "The Hollowness of the Harm Principle" in which the author argues that the harm principle as it is frequently invoked on the principle that governments should only regulate acts which ca...
74 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadA complete definition of hate speech is not necessary to have this conversation, only examples that are definitely hate speech. Arguing that the holocaust did not happen is an example of hate speech for any possible reasonable definition of hate speech.
Hate does not exist in words. It exists in the mind of the person using the words. And we can never know what is in that mind without knowing the person on an intimate level. Until we all understand this, all this noisy anger and offense will never end.
The author makes other mistakes too such as thinking history that was already written is an absolute truth when it's actually something subjective written by the "winners." I lived through that once, the history that I was taught as truth in my school many years ago was proven to be false a few years ago and the lies were based on what today you'd consider hate speech.
I think the moment we can solve detecting hate speech using a machine will be the same a machine can pass the Turing test because it's impossible to define hate speech in objective terms. Meanwhile we have two equally incomplete solutions: allow all speech or let some people subjectively censor things. Neither of those things will satisfy the author of this post (well maybe the latter will).
History is written by the winners, however, even if the Nazis had won the war, I think people would still understand that discrimination against any particular group is wrong. Who knows?
Censorship isn't something I stand for. However, in the UK I can be vocal about my opinions as long as I'm not harassing certain groups for no reason. Sure, thats censorship, but I can speak out against my government without showing hatred if they were to take the policy too far. Its a fine line.
I think that had that been the case the people who remained alive would be people with ideologies aligned with Nazism and would consider discrimination against a particular group the right thing to do. Of course there will always be people who stand against the winners, real life proves this: Nazis still exist.
Sadly, they always will. There will always be people with ill intent in this world, because the world isn't perfect. However these neo-Nazis use free-speech to get a voice that they otherwise wouldn't have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Note: "a society" is not necessarily the public at large, it can also be a subculture, a set of subscribers, and so on.
It's amazing that people still quote that XKCD despite the glaring logical fallacy.
I'm not sure you and Mr. Throwaway & Hide are talking about the same thing, but what I'm talking about is not to grant powers, to leave the game.
I'm not sure how freezing someone out is supposed to give them more power, or increase their audience, or make their ideas any more viable, but using your enemies actions to determine your own is a form of ressentiment, what has been called a ruling principle of the lowest sort. It's related to reactionary behavior, tit-for-tat debate. There's nothing that says you have to participate in any of that.
The issue is you can't pick the arbitrator of what is true. Once you do you create the tyrant. For once you have someone who will determine that which is true they can determine criticism of their decisions are also hate speech.
Likewise it is an abdication of responsibility to just pretend like speech can't be destructive. It's your responsibility and the responsibility of your community to deliberate on what sort of speech is destructive to the purposes of that community. And you have to admit that you can make a mistake and deal with it. That's part of the responsibility.
Free speech absolutism is obviously on its face a dogshit principle because it is unlimited and thought-ending. Yes, the suppression of speech can cause harm, but this harm is not infinite and permanent. Any principle that does not allow thought, deliberation, and thus necessarily the ability to make a mistake and the ability to make up for mistakes is a stupid principle.
The harm of suppressing speech without good justification must be measured and balanced against the harm of allowing harmful speech. The existence of harmful speech is hardly debatable: If speech wasn't powerful then we wouldn't consider free speech important. If speech is powerful, then its power can cause damage and harm. Deal with it.
Most people recognize that the reason we protect free despite the damage it may cause is because of the risk of deciding what harmful speech is, can have on society.
If I say I'm against torture in all circumstances then is that an absolutist position? Do things need to be "carefully balanced" because "everything is fluid" with regards to torture?
The reason freedom of speech appears absolutist to those who wish to impinge on others' speech is that it denies them that power, either by dint of reason or (hopefully) by dint of law.
It is up to the individual what and when and to whom they speak or listen. The power rests with the individual. To impinge on that is to take away that power and give more to someone else - but on what basis?
That someone else doesn't like the content of their speech, or even worse doesn't like that person. Deep. Maybe we should try that for torture?
How is speech destructive to anything other than ideas? Just one, very precise example would do.
More recently, Sandy Hook denial is what lead to parents of Sandy Hook victims being harassed by people calling them actors, frauds, charlatans etc. Would you not agree that having people tell you that your child never existed or never died to be harmful?
Since we're moving from destructive to harmful then I'll move it on to hurtful. Of course words can be hurtful and they can even be harmful - can they be destructive?
Still, I wouldn't relieve anyone of the right to deny Sandy Hook or The Holocaust because I can either:
a) choose to ignore them b) argue
If I use (b) then I have nothing to fear because if I'm right and they are wrong then I have a better argument.
What's to fear? Is Holocaust denial more widespread than than disdain for it even in societies that have no injuction against it?
No, is the answer, most people think the Holocaust happened, and Sandy Hook for that matter.
The argument on the side of free speech is that the negative sides of such restriction outweigh the potential safety they grant; not that they do not exist.
We're discussing speech, precision is a precursor for that, no?
Maybe that's why I wouldn't have your speech denied, I'm quite sure I'm able to defend my position. Maybe that's also why you wish for others to have their speech denied, because you aren't able to defend yours.
For example I can fake evidences for a crime to frame and innocent someone and send that person to prison for many years. I guess we agree this is a crime. (and also a strawman against free speech absolutist)
As another example you can start a revolution by planting seed of discontent in a previously serene society.
If this does not answer your question then I am not sure what your question is.
> I can fake evidences for a crime to frame and innocent someone and send that person to prison for many years. I guess we agree this is a crime.
Yes, we agree, because faking evidence is not about speech. Giving false testimony, in court, that is more to the point, although I struggle to think of anyone who is advocating for the right to lie in court, especially when they're not the accused.
> you can start a revolution by planting seed of discontent in a previously serene society
Such power! How do I attain this God-like level of manipulatory power over men? ;-)
More seriously: people are responsible for their own actions. If I tell you to jump off a bridge and you do it, that's on you.
> More seriously: people are responsible for their own actions. If I tell you to jump off a bridge and you do it, that's on you.
The same can be said of drug dealers.
We agree that speaking words never kills anyone, but the same is true for selling drugs, still we can agree that drugs contain incredible destructive potential.
I feel like this is not an argument about the limits of free speech, it is about the validity of a specific argument.
Going more in a personal sense the existence of psychiatric theory and the significant help that people can obtain by "just talking" suggest that the opposite is also possible.
I do not think that the argument for free speech should be "all speech is always safe" rather it should be "this restriction will be misused in the future". Otherwise you are arguing for an anarchist position, which is fine, but it is not the status quo (or the status quo before hate speech laws)
> Such power! How do I attain this God-like level of manipulatory power over men? ;-)
Slightly facetiously, it is said that Germany sent Lenin to Russia in WW1 as weapon to start a revolution (not sure how true that is).
Name something that isn't dangerous. There isn't one because anything can lead to danger so that is a moot argument.
I do not see how speech can be destructive because you're begging the question - it is yet to be shown that speech is destructive, my question still has not been answered.
> We agree that speaking words never kills anyone, but the same is true for selling drugs, still we can agree that drugs contain incredible destructive potential.
Which is why I would not prohibit the selling of drugs.
> the significant help that people can obtain by "just talking" suggest that the opposite is also possible.
Where did I claim that speech cannot be helpful or unhelpful? Obviously it can be. That doesn't mean that unhelpful or dangerous speech should be a crime.
No harm, no foul. Show me where on the doll the speech touched you ;-)
> it is yet to be shown that speech is destructive, my question still has not been answered.
I truly do no understand your question at a logical level then. Is your point that speech is not a physical object and cannot be smashed against things, in an opera singer breaking a crystal glass the counterexample you are looking for? Do dolls have eardrums?
This looks like a facetious interpretation of the question. We could apply similar level of deconstructionism to many other laws and regulations. The only way I can see this as relevant is to transform this into a conversation of whether governments have the right to pass laws at all?
The question I would like you to answer then is: Should all speech always be lawful? Are there any kind circumstances where speaking certain things should be a crime?
I guess we are trying to find a common ground, but I have no idea where you stand.
The Socratic method[1] is well known as an effective means of uncovering the problems in a line of reasoning. As I'm the one using it you can safely assume I have found a problem in the line of reasoning and am attempting to uncover it. To point out to me that there are problems with the line of reasoning and then attribute them somehow to me is, frankly, a bit dense.
The "facetious[ness]" of my question, as you put it, is simply part of the method, which is not facetious at all. If the challenge of a simple question cannot be met then it exposes the problem.
Please do not bother me again with this, ask the person that made the claim to justify it. Thanks.
Finally:
> Should all speech always be lawful?
No. As we've already pointed out, lying in court would be an exemption from protected speech. I can think of several others that are contentious (is following an order as a soldier a war crime?) and far more interesting than something as self-refuting as being pro- (or should that be anti?) "hate"speech.
I will now exercise my freedom not to say any more, and not to listen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
If I understand you correctly you are saying that it is more about understanding, deciding, and taking responsibility for where the line is drawn.
But this does not help us a lot in the current issue, even if I like the framing.
Not as thought-ending as silencing a voice with the threat of legal action.
> Yes, the suppression of speech can cause harm, but this harm is not infinite and permanent.
What's an example of hate speech that's infinite and permanent?
> If speech is powerful, then its power can cause damage and harm. Deal with it.
Who said otherwise?
I obviously was talking about "thought-ending" in context of the conversation on what boundaries should be set on speech in which situation. What point are you trying to make? That telling people to shut up means that you want them to shut up? Yes, I think people who want to argue that the holocaust didn't happen or that white people should establish an ethnostate should shut the fuck up. But I wouldn't threaten legal action, no need to bring in a middleman.
> What's an example of hate speech that's infinite and permanent?
Inciting a pogrom.
> Who said otherwise?
If speech can cause harm then it is justifiable to redress that harm. If someone wants to argue for free speech absolutism while acknowledging that they are justifying without limit harm and damage to others, by all means they can do so. I think most reasonable people would see how stupid that position is.
You were saying how free speech absolutism is a "dogshit principle" because it is thought-ending. My point is that we could use the same argument against speech suppression, which is even more thought-ending. It's almost literally thought-ending, since people also think with their speech.
>> What's an example of hate speech that's infinite and permanent?
>Inciting a pogrom.
Talking about a murder can result in a murder. They're two different things. Both ought to be taken seriously, but one results in the permanent end of life. The other in and of itself does not.
> If speech can cause harm then it is justifiable to redress that harm. If someone wants to argue for free speech absolutism while acknowledging that they are justifying without limit harm and damage to others, by all means they can do so. I think most reasonable people would see how stupid that position is.
Doesn't insulting someone who is sensitive cause harm to them? There're countless ways to cause psychological harm through language, and most don't have anything to do with "hate speech." For example, you said any reasonable person would see how "stupid" it is to believe free speech absolutism outweighs harm given through speaking. I'm taking that position. Should you be arrested for making that remark if it results in my feeling hurt?
Because that's what the author was arguing about.
His argument was that you cannot have an arbiter of truth determine the truthiness of certain things. I brought up an example which was used in the article itself which is that the platform houses people who deny the holocaust happens.
Do you agree that we cannot determine that the holocaust happened then? That it is impossible to determine that it actually occurred?
can be applied to any platform with any reach on the internet. Also, the sources mentioned in the github issue are all biased towards the left. Nothing wrong with that, but there's no neutrality at play here.
Honestly, this sounds very arrogant. privacytoolsio won't recommend Minds, because they think you'll turn into a racist just by using the site.
Free speech is good, hate speech is bad. Great. But what is hate speech? What is the line that you draw? The author vaguely alludes lack of evidence, but 99% of discussions are opinion based. Are all lies hate speech?
Honestly I wish I hadn't wasted 5 minutes of my life on this.
This article is simply devoid of any understanding of the topic or even the most basic attempt to do so.
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hated towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification. > What is the line that you draw?
I dislike many things in this world. I dislike Nazis. I dislike people who discriminate against others for no reason. I dislike big companies like Google who sell users data and have unethical practices. I don't hate them though.
I think the line should be drawn when it goes beyond disliking someone/thing. When you actively seek arm against whatever it may be. > The author vaguely alludes lack of evidence
The Holocaust happened. There have been countless history books that have been both written and fact checked. Saying that it didn't happen because you sympathise with Nazis isn't ok. If there is evidence and proof that something happened an ideology shouldn't get in the way of it. An ideology also shouldn't allow you to slander a group of people because of it. > Are all lies hate speech?
Absolutely not, however, if there is historical evidence (in this case wether or not the holocaust happened) it seems so wrong to just deny it. Such atrocities should not be ignored for the sake of free speech. If we say that certain events never happened we might as well say that Americans never fought for free speech.
I have a genuine problem with this approach to anything. I have zero need to vet whether someone likes midget porn, believes a radical political theory or even espouses unpopular opinions. If their product is great, do I really want to support crappy product with 'right opinion' people?
Denying the holocaust is one thing.
Saying 'I hate group X' is altogether another.
And saying 'I hate group X and we should go and harm them' is yet another.
But this is all academic because few people support any of that kind of stuff really.
The concerns around hate speech are on the margins:
Making jokes about sensitive things (i.e. comedian in Quebec fined $30 000 for making joke about a man in a wheelchair)
Policies which have possibly a racial angle, and yet which may or may not be racist (i.e. banning travel from China, complaints that top Canadian Health bureaucrat who is Chinese native and deep ties to the WHO is 'compromised' being perceived as specifically racist)
Policies which affect some groups more than others like those intended to ostensibly help groups (i.e. UCal system banning teachers from language that could be perceived as 'microaggression' like telling someone of African American descent who is being too aggressive/lound in class ... that they are being too loud/aggressive in class, or things like affirmative action, Quebec banning certain religious garb which affects specific groups)
Requiring 'affirmative' language for controversial things (i.e Jordan Peterson complaint that he must legally refer to someone given whatever of any number of genders they someone chooses to describe themselves as).
Racially oriented identity politics policies such as 'Black Lives Matter' trying to address real problems of racism, while requiring white people to 'march at the back of the line' given that they are ostensibly secondary to the nature of their status concerning the issue and their presence could overwhelm the authenticity of the message ... could be perceived as a form of hate speech.
Casual aggressive language which is really tantamount to 'very crude speech' but sometimes 'actual hate speech' sometimes not really hatefully oriented, but which could be categorized as hate speech. (You hear this in online game rooms a lot, occasionally some very crass language that I don't think is meant to be hateful so much as crass, but maybe it is by some definition)
These are where the streams cross and things get harder.
I feel like many people do not know about some more of the context. Essentially the fine was in terms of damages, as in those jokes fueled bullying from many of his classmates.
Personally I feel that this is more properly part of a conversation about the boundaries of defamation rather than the boundaries of free speech.
It's a good example you bring up because it's as old as time and there doesn't seem to be a universal way to think about it just yet.
I disagree entirely with this article.
He doesn't define hate speech. "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence", what does it have to do with hate speech?
Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.
It's funny how people don't see the danger of supporting these soft-censorship feel-good policy while more and more authoritarian politicians get elected, surely these laws won't backfired?
And that quote of Voltaire is apocryphal (but he said something close).
Loads of hate speech would fall into this category. Almost all antisemitic conspiracies, for starters. Probably plenty of neoconfederate nonsense minimizing slavery, too.
... I mean, historical evidence changes routinely with the discovery and release of new evidence. And "blatantly false allegations" sometimes turn out to be not so false.
I believe that platform owners have the right to kick assholes off of thier platform (for their version of asshole), but it is tricky business letting third parties be the arbiters of what is true and what is hate.
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hated towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification. > Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.
Oddly enough, I'm a European, and I think this point is valid in any country. If you lived in China, you wouldn't speak out against the Government if they did something wrong like censor the doctors who discovered the virus. In other countries were there is free speech you can do this. Thats why there are organisations like Extinction Rebellion that speak out against Governments about climate change. In China, that couldn't happen. Extinction Rebellion doesn't shout hate towards people for not caring, rather they try to get action from politicians who can do something. This is the sort of thing that free speech should be used for. > soft-censorship feel-good policy
I am firmly against this sort of policy. Mass surveillance is the backdoor into freedom of speech. Censorship is bad, but, if you implement it correctly, then free speech will allow people to speak out against these "more authoritarian politicians".
He's talking about holocaust denial, the [broadly] antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish peoples seized on WW2 as an opportunity to advance themselves, exaggerating the facts and inventing others.
You haven't defined hate speech either, but this meets my criteria.
How would you definitely prove or refute that?
I prefer a society where anyone can ask "did the gas chambers exist?". In a healthy one you should have all the information and replies to make you conclude yes.
In my opinion making it illegal just fuel conspiracies.
Also this thread is a glorious reminder of Godwin's law.
I wouldn't dare do either. I don't need to. There are simply enough people who were there still alive [on all sides] to testify what happened. If first-hand reports from every angle aren't enough, nothing will be.
Asking questions is okay. But we're talking about people with their own answers, not questions. Not just questions, they're sharing pointedly racist motives.
And leave Godwin alone. We're literally talking about Nazis.
It is my opinion that all your sources are unreliable, therefore you should not be allowed to speak.
> Hate speech isn't freedom of speech. Hate speech is hate.
Hate speech is hate. Hate speech is also part of freedom of speech. It's very easy for me otherwise to label your opinions as hate.
And as it always bears repeating: Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequence, and platforms where freedom of speech is respected we can respond to hate and if the platform is any good, we can also simply block it and promote block lists aimed at specific speech criteria.
Hate speech, to me, is expressing hatred towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification.
If you are willingly being spiteful or intending harm with no reasoning then this is hate.
There is a fine line that I should have talked about more, so I'm sorry.
- Who decides what's true and what isn't?
- Who decides what's hate speech and what isn't?
- Freedom of speech isn't only a legal principle, you're thinking of the first amendment.
- Should YouTube or other platforms be forced to carry certain content? There's simply no other way to get your message heard. Why does YouTube/Facebook/Google get to decide what's the truth?
- Hacker News has a pretty strict moderation policy. Is that censorship too?!
- Ah yes, but Hacker News is niche. Nowhere near the scale of YouTube or Twitter.
- So you're saying scale matters? Who decides what the scale is?
In the end, a lot of these questions seem to focus around a common denominator: "who decides?". In my judgement, we already have a pretty good idea of "who decides" in most matters that affect the whole of society, but not in some others. It's the government, which is supposed to be accountable and elected by the populace, or at least take into account their wishes. This kind of democracy largely does not extend to the economic sphere, which several economists through history have described as the "anarchy of the market".
If the answer to the central "who decides" question is a country's government, whether or not the government is competent enough to make those decisions. This is at least in part a subjective question, as people evaluate all policies depending on their ideological views. But bear in mind that saying "the government decides" is not necessarily an argument for regulation.
There is usually a lack of sources being cited, perhaps because they're philosophical or legal arguments and this is a very tech-oriented forum. I'll provide a few I know of, ones likely to be the most surprising, and if anyone has better pointers I'd be happy to find out about them.
- Susan Brison (2018), "Free speech skepticism" in which the author discusses and attempts to rebut several arguments in favor of a special constitutional amendment to free speech[0]
- Susan Brison (1998), "Speech, Harm and the Mind-Body Problem in 1A Jurisprudence" in which the author provides several compelling arguments that the harms that can be caused by speech can be no less involuntary and in fact can be more severe than physical hurts in a variety of situations. To that end, it's worth asking why "harm" in the interpretation of laws on speech is defined in such a way that it only includes physical assaults. The author argues that to separate "mental" harms from "physical" harms rests on a theory of mind-body dualism, which is generally rejected by philosophers of mind today.[5]
- Brian Leiter (2016), "The Case Against Free Speech" in which the author argues that certain places speech is restricted in the search for truth (such as in the courtroom) offer insights into how speech can be regulated in society as a whole[1]
- Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts" in which the author argues that the free speech of pornographers interferes with the free speech of women (if speech is to be interpreted more than 'scrawls and sounds', which all protections of the right to freedom of speech are based on) in a way that classical liberals should care about[2]
- The Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy article for Freedom of Speech, including a discussion on Mill's popular "harm principle" and the lesser known offense principle[3]
- Steven D. Smith (2004), "The Hollowness of the Harm Principle" in which the author argues that the harm principle as it is frequently invoked on the principle that governments should only regulate acts which ca...