Honestly expected to get banned for my view. People are being banned off social media for far far less.
>What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?
Some think the fix is straight forward, stop ostracizing people. This isn't just trans, it's all the usual 'cant discriminate against' and if we simply stop saying bad words that it'll be all better.
That seems on the face like it would fix the problem; but clearly hasn't over how many decades now? The problem is that this approach is literally causing the problem.
How about the baddest word of them all, the N-word. You dont dare say it. Has this done anything at all to stop this racism? Clearly not.
Imagine we start saying it'll ILLEGAL to say some pejorative for white people. You know what happens? You will get a ton of people now saying it. It's edgy, it's maybe hurtful? They'll say it. If my political opponent says I cant say something. I am going to say it. I probably never said it before but because you say I can't say it. I'm going to start saying it. Bring me to the hate crime tribunal, send me to prison.
So what? Government can't do anything? Precisely. The government is literally harming everything here.
How does society fix prejudice? Not by force.
For the general population, how did homosexuals start getting a good rap? People like Neil Patrick Harris being open about it, BUT not throwing it in anyones face. While also being an awesome person. Elton John? Queen? So many great examples.
How about black people? Will Smith, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, SO MANY awesome black people who don't really get in your face about it. In fact, just stop talking about race and be awesome is exactly what they say to do.
How about atheists? Penn Jillette talks exactly on the subject. You need to not throw it in people's face. You be a good person and nice person. You win people over.
Dealing with extremists is not that different. Daryl Davis is beyond brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw Joe Rogan has also interviewed Daryl a bunch of times.
Here's the complication. The current approach of banning people because they wont say their Ze/Zir pronouns does what exactly?
It disenfranchises people. Is this not exactly what we are trying to fix? What happens when you now disenfranchise these *phobes. They will come to hate society in exactly the same way. If you are a daryl davis, these bans are hurting your cause.
There will be people who see Destiny banned and will become transphobes. There's tons of people who see Babylon Bee ban and become even more entrenched against trans people. Rachel Levine being labelled women of the year because of being appointed to a job is beyond absurd. How about Kamala Harris as woman of the year? Clearly far more worthy. First female(and black?) vice president? What a huge success. I could name how many other far more worthy women.
Tons of people say 'twitter isnt free speech. free speech is the government' On the contrary. Section 230 is how Twitter exists and clearly establishes free speech on twitter. You absolutely should have free speech on twitter and other social media. It's a political move by the government to not enforce Section 230 and therefore is the government removing free speech rights.
Want to ultimately and quickly fix this problem. Enforce Section 230's free speech. Mandate free speech with the very few exceptions therein for social media. Disallow these entities to censor speech. You will quickly find this problem goes away.
> I'm not the one making the argument. Other people are. And you are missing the point.
No, you're here, right now, making the argument.
> If you don't think you've made three hateful statements in one comment then you haven't been paying attention.
You're going to have to do more than type the word "racist" or "transphobic" to explain why the things I've said are transphobic or racist. I'm quite aware of the words I chose and the groups I chose. If you have a legitimate grievance as to why my statements were transphobic or homophobic, please explain. But short of that I have to believe you aren't commenting in good faith.
> Opinion and group identity are mutable
Sure. But the characteristics that people can pick to identify people as an out-group aren't. Once society has picked a definition of white, I can't stop myself from being under that definition. And while you're correct that it may, with time, be possible to change society's opinion on what is good or bad, in the meantime it harms a bunch of people discriminated against for things they have no control over. To those people, the characteristics society cares about are immutable.
So until society has progressed to the point that we don't give a shit what someone's race is (and don't tie it to a skin color or whatnot), and don't want to discriminate against people who are attracted to people of the same sex, we should prevent hate speech based on the immutable characteristics of race and sexual orientation.
> They are exposed to counterpoints constantly, and it is not changing them.
This is not correct. This very post's topic implies they aren't exposed to counterpoints. Banning them from every platform possible doesn't allow them to be exposed to counterpoints.
Allowing hateful people doesn't mean we are normalizing it.
Also the definition of "hate speech" is extremely vague now a days.
> You say they learn if from the environment around them. This is exactly right, and this is exactly why you ban racists from your open platforms.
So you are saying that not allowing these people on open platforms where they are exposed to counterpoints (let's say 5% bad + 95% good) so that they all jump to another platform (8chan for example) where they are exposed to an even higher saturation of bad (100% bad) is good? That's basically exposing them to an even worse environment now. That's exactly what's making this situation even worse. Every mass shooting etc was planned on those worse platforms (4chan, 8chan) etc.
- It is universally derided by many different groups.
- It is considered a plague on society.
- Being "cancelled" is a badge of honor to some.
I used to see my society as a place where hate speech was generally taboo. People would only espouse such attitudes in private or, if they did so in public, they'd at least use dog whistles or euphemisms for plausible deniability.
Today, Facebook is full of people shouting pretty fucked up shit for everyone to hear. The attitude seems to be that you can't cancel everyone, so everyone should do it as much as possible. I know a lot of people who can't speak to their parents or other close family anymore because the hateful shit they shout on facebook all day.
Granted, this is just my person experience. Others might live in a place where people are nicer to each other than they used to be.
>Though, the only time when I did see that happen, was when someone was transphobic, homophobic, racist and such
“I mean, when all the wrong and bad people are kicked out everything is great!”
No one is complaining about people with Ford vs Chevy comments being banned. It’s the controversial things that need to be refuted, not hidden.
What makes you so absolutely certain you are on the “right side” of any opinion? Because the people in charge of these services are censoring the other side?
How long before you find yourself with “the wrong thoughts”?
> the problem is not about having stated in public what you are but with societies which discriminate.
Doesn't history teach us over and over that societies DO discriminate? I don't believe that basic human trait will ever change. If that could change, maybe someday we could do away with 'evil' altogether, but I don't see that happening either.
Just look at Internet justice vigilanties. If you're on the wrong side of a social issue, you could very well be targeted. I have a few unpopular opinions, and I keep them to myself for that very reason. You don't have to look too far to see what happens if you don't.
> Also, I hate to use my skin color and "immigrant" status to make this crucial point which a lot of my other immigrant friends agree on - some government run by a bunch of elite politicians who are immune to everything trying to save me against any criticism/jokes/offense from someone else makes it very patronizing and condescending. This is what we call "soft bigotry of low expectations" which the ones pushing for this lack self awareness to realize.
First of all, please don't paint everyone who supports a certain policy with a broad brush. I apparently have a relevant skin color and immigrant status (probably to a different country) in common with you, and yet I seem to disagree with you on the general approach. Obviously, I don't support politicians being immune to their own misdeeds, but that shouldn't have a bearing on this legislation.
> You don't think both of these will also fall under this and get censored?
Sure, I understand that this danger exists, but the social ostracizing in the second case seems out of the context of this law, as I understand it, and also (more importantly) out of the context of what I would consider hate speech. I think this can be handled on a case-by-case basis, especially as I see clear potential benefits of this policy. It's straightforward to find hypothetical issues with every policy including ones we support, but that doesn't in and of itself make a strong case against them.
> Everybody who was okay with AJ's censored 5 years ago is responsible for what happened to Tulsi Gabbard.
Are you referring to the Google/Tulsi Gabbard censorship incident? What does this have to do with a hate speech law?
> How do you stop both hate speech and censorship?
You don't. You instead crank up the censorship and -- more importantly -- the social stigma against bigotry. Change does not happen naturally and people don't get better, but if they get enough backlash from family and friends, people will eventually pretend to accept whatever it is you're trying to promote by censorship. This pretense will turn into genuine acceptance in future generations because they will grow up with not being able to be bigoted without clear and univocal backlash.
> Plenty of people are being harassed in public for their sexuality, race, etc.
Harassment, regardless of motive, is illegal. Is there a need to make it more illegal?
> you don't need a 20 years long control study to prove that outlawing hate speech will improve their rights.
Restricting a collective right does in no way grant more rights to a minority. It may (superficially and short term) improve their lives but do you really thing people will be less hateful from being told they are hateful? I always found that conclusion odd
"Hate" is fuzzy. Some Jews believe hate is any kind of critique of Israel. "Racism" is fuzzy. Some black people believe it is racist to dance a certain way if you're not black. "Sexism" is fuzzy. Some women believe they have been violated by a compliment.
Definitions change. Most of the time irrationally. What was well-intentioned yesterday becomes hateful tomorrow.
This is a slippery slope my friend. Not many things in life are absolute but freedom to speak your mind must be one of them.
> I firmly believe that if all the energy being poured into protecting hate were instead put into eradicating it, the world could only become a better place
HOW? How do you eradicate hate speech? What is hate speech? Anything that makes you feel bad? So do you single-handedly decide what speech is ok or not?
You're lambasting people's protection for free speech as "protecting hate speech" (which is a false dichotomy) and not offering any alternatives. I don't really get what the point of what you're saying is other than "This upsets me." And that's fine if hate speech upsets you, but understand that it upsets other people too, even if those people support free speech as defined by the US bill of rights and legal framework.
I guess what I'm saying is...stop complaining unless you start examining the problem critically (ok, you don't like hate speech... who enforces what hate speech is? how is it enforced? etc. right now you're attacking free speech but not offering ANY compelling or thought-out alternatives) and for the love of everything stop thinking in absolutes. You seem to have forced yourself into black and white thinking. That's not only counterproductive, it's dangerous. People who think in absolutes are targets to become tools of hate. If you don't start seeing nuance in things, you will be easily swayed and manipulated by anyone who has a Nice Shiny Solution to "end hate speech."
> And well, I agree it is certainly problematic, but the problem lies in the fact that half of your country defends hate speech
What definition of hate speech are you using and what event does it apply to?
On a related note, here's some statements that may or may not be hate speech:
1. Africans are stupid and criminal, we shouldn't let them into the country.
2. Transsexuals are crazy people. They need medicine, not coddling.
3. Muslims have evil beliefs and blow people up and I don't want them in my country.
4. Homos are unnatural, spreading disease and sickness. We need to keep our children away from them so they don't catch the gay.
I've written all four to imply a large amount of ignorance and strong emotional motivations, but they are nonetheless a crude attempt to express a public policy and a reason for it. Should they be banned?
Should they also be banned if written in the form of an eloquent 80 page paper with precise terminology, strong citations from numerous studies and polls and a grounding in commonly accepted principles in political science and ethics (assume such a thing were possible)?
> "I'm very, very... I won't say dreading, but I'm, hmm, somewhat tentative about this whole thing
That's the problem. Shaming and shunning is an ancient technique for punishing transgressors, but social media enables it to be applied too broadly. All transgressions are put on full blast. If I were a full on Nazi I would get the same treatment as I would if expressed that I'm glad my son doesn't want to be a girl. It gets tiresome, shuts down free speech and punishes people who don't deserve it. It allows otherwise powerless people to become powerful in their faux outrage and hurt others that don't deserve it in the process.
> I harbored racist beliefs, and told plenty of racist jokes as a boy. My "opinions", I posted on twitter, as a teenager, would be more than enough to get me expelled from society today. Be it culturally cancelled in the US, or imprisoned in the UK
that's not a problem with you, but with cancel culture in general.
> completely generic phrases are being eliminated from the allowed speech
But that's not happening. Anyone can say "it's ok to be white" wherever and whenever they want - as evidenced by the fact that PEOPLE DO.
What's happening is that other people are going "Hmm, well, if he's happy to use a known white supremacist phrase, we're happy to lump him in with the white supremacists."
But now the first bunch of people and their defenders are complaining about the second bunch judging them on their actions. Which is HILARIOUS.
(Generally because the first bunch don't agree with freedom of speech unless it solely benefits them.)
> On the other hand, what happens when everyone in an area decides that LGBT, or black people, or Muslims, or anyone else universally aren't welcome.
It doesn't need to be everyone to have a chilling effect on the quality of life for people in the targeted group. I'm all for freedom of expression in general but treating someone badly because of how they were born is just mean.
Intolerance, you draw the line at Intolerance. If BLM, PETA, Antifa want people of other race/class/sexual orientation harmed in any kind of way, sure go ahead and ban them.
If on the other hand they want fair treatment, equality or reprieve from targeted brutality, listen to them and see how we as a society can address their concern. If they resort to violence, arrest them and treat them like you would treat a criminal.
It is not really that hard. Right to free speech does not really mean right to say anything anywhere without any consequence.
The irony in this whole thing is, the more tolerant you are to an inherently intolerant ideology like white-spremacy, the less tolerant we become as a society.
> you think that people being banned on social media is a greater threat to a fall to authoritarianism.
That's a strange reading that seems to assume that free speech goes hand in hand with authoritarianism, a laughable notion. Free speech is the antithesis of authoritarianism. No authoritarian has ever allowed anything approaching freedom of speech within their jurisdiction and sometimes even enforce it far beyond. As such, what you think is wrong.
> > To label ideological opponents with the label of a mental illness simply for disagreement is a poor show.
> I did not do this.
A phobia is a mental illness, you call your ideological opponents transphobes, so you did do this. It's pathetic name calling.
> I hope that you also donate your time and money to those who suffer at the hands of people spreading hate.
I'm here right now spending my time doing just that because you quite clearly do hate your opponents.
> Nazis are shit. You are treating me like a child.
No one here has claimed that Nazis aren't shit but you're acting like a teenager high on self righteousness that thinks proclaiming that is some kind of insight for the rest of us. It is childish.
As I wrote, HN isn't the place, and one reason I bring it up far too often is because far too often of late I see people, like yourself, treating it as such. I make no apologies for wanting the standards to remain high.
>And yet, it seems insanely obvious to me that allowing race or sex based insults against one particular group will obviously have a negative effect.
I'm a white American male and, well, I just don't see it. People go on and on about "men are trash" and "kill all Americans" and "White people suck" etc and then when I walk out my door -- in a city with about 1m people -- I see... white people all around me, who treat me fine or ignore me. I can walk into any establishment and be treated with respect. I can talk to anyone on the street and not be thought to be trying to rob them. I can (and have!) travel to small towns where they talk different and nobody has ever treated me poorly.
I've traveled to countries in Asia and Europe, even gone off the beaten path and into places where tourists don't normally go, and never had any problem for being a White, American man. In fact, I've been treated quite well.
So if all this "hate speech against White, American males" on Facebook will "obviously" have a negative effect, why have I not experienced it? Or read about it? Or seen it on the news?
Is it because the FBI -- which tracks Anti-White hate crimes -- reported that the rate was around 15%[0] when the white population is 76%?[1].
Honestly expected to get banned for my view. People are being banned off social media for far far less.
>What do you think might be some better possibilities than the current mess?
Some think the fix is straight forward, stop ostracizing people. This isn't just trans, it's all the usual 'cant discriminate against' and if we simply stop saying bad words that it'll be all better.
That seems on the face like it would fix the problem; but clearly hasn't over how many decades now? The problem is that this approach is literally causing the problem.
How about the baddest word of them all, the N-word. You dont dare say it. Has this done anything at all to stop this racism? Clearly not.
Imagine we start saying it'll ILLEGAL to say some pejorative for white people. You know what happens? You will get a ton of people now saying it. It's edgy, it's maybe hurtful? They'll say it. If my political opponent says I cant say something. I am going to say it. I probably never said it before but because you say I can't say it. I'm going to start saying it. Bring me to the hate crime tribunal, send me to prison.
So what? Government can't do anything? Precisely. The government is literally harming everything here.
How does society fix prejudice? Not by force.
For the general population, how did homosexuals start getting a good rap? People like Neil Patrick Harris being open about it, BUT not throwing it in anyones face. While also being an awesome person. Elton John? Queen? So many great examples.
How about black people? Will Smith, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, SO MANY awesome black people who don't really get in your face about it. In fact, just stop talking about race and be awesome is exactly what they say to do.
How about atheists? Penn Jillette talks exactly on the subject. You need to not throw it in people's face. You be a good person and nice person. You win people over.
Dealing with extremists is not that different. Daryl Davis is beyond brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw Joe Rogan has also interviewed Daryl a bunch of times.
Here's the complication. The current approach of banning people because they wont say their Ze/Zir pronouns does what exactly?
It disenfranchises people. Is this not exactly what we are trying to fix? What happens when you now disenfranchise these *phobes. They will come to hate society in exactly the same way. If you are a daryl davis, these bans are hurting your cause.
There will be people who see Destiny banned and will become transphobes. There's tons of people who see Babylon Bee ban and become even more entrenched against trans people. Rachel Levine being labelled women of the year because of being appointed to a job is beyond absurd. How about Kamala Harris as woman of the year? Clearly far more worthy. First female(and black?) vice president? What a huge success. I could name how many other far more worthy women.
Tons of people say 'twitter isnt free speech. free speech is the government' On the contrary. Section 230 is how Twitter exists and clearly establishes free speech on twitter. You absolutely should have free speech on twitter and other social media. It's a political move by the government to not enforce Section 230 and therefore is the government removing free speech rights.
Want to ultimately and quickly fix this problem. Enforce Section 230's free speech. Mandate free speech with the very few exceptions therein for social media. Disallow these entities to censor speech. You will quickly find this problem goes away.
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