this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Fuck Spez
Absolutely fuck spez.
But he's right here. Just because he's a fuckstick doesn't mean he's always wrong on every issue 100% of the time.
Various forms of censorship under the flag of 'online safety' have been pushed by governments since the internet began to exist. And before that with print media and television. Censorship is not the answer. Never was. First it was for porn, then it was for video games, then it was for hate speech, it's always something.
But in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard,
Censorship must be opposed.
Yeh, fuck censorship. Let's all be shitbags and do that stuff instead!
To be fair, censorship on Reddit is already very very aggressive. I was banned for saying “yay” on a news thread about the death of the queen.
You don't have to be a porn star or even a porn consumer to oppose laws banning porn.
And you don't have to be a shitbag to recognize that, while well-intentioned, censorship is still censorship.
I have absolutely no love whatsoever for the people who would spread such crap. I would love to get rid of it. But banning the speech doesn't do that. It's like smashing the altimeter in the airplane and then declaring that you're not crashing anymore. But the reality is, smashing instruments in the airplane is never a great idea whether you are crashing or not. It just prevents you from seeing things you don't want to. And you get hurt in the process.
Censorship, historically, has never ended up anywhere good.
Porn is performed by consenting adults and consumed by consenting adults.
That's why porn made from human trafficking, revenge porn (ie leaking nudes of an ex) etc are illegal in most sane countries.
The idea being that porn doesn't hurt anyone.
Hate speech is harmful. It's purpose is to hurt people.
So yeh, it should be illegal.
I have no issues discussing hate speech. I do have issues with hate speech being used.
There's a big difference between hate speech and revenge porn.
A person has rights to their likeness and image. That's why anybody who goes in front of a camera, be it a porn star or a model or an actor, signs a 'model release' giving the photographer authorization to publicize and sell their images. Without that simple one page contract, nothing in the photo shoot can be published. Porn actors do that. And in fact, they usually do it on video, where the actor holds up their driver's license and says 'my name is blah blah I am a pornographic actor and I am consenting to have sex on camera today and authorize this production company to publicize and sell the resulting video' or something like that. Revenge porn victims have made no such agreement, and while the penalties are stronger because of the harm it causes them, the legal basis for having any penalty at all is simply that they did not consent to having their likeness and image publicized.
Hate speech has no such issue. It may be harmful to a person or group, but if you remove the very broad 'hatred' label, it becomes just an opinion that would otherwise be protected speech.
The other problem is that what considers hatred is very much subjective. For example, if I say wanting to own a gun is evidence of mental illness, a lot of people on Lemmy will agree with that and I will probably get upvotes. If I say wanting to use the bathroom of other than your biological genetic sex is evidence of mental illness, I will probably get banned. What is the difference between the two? Supporting LGBT rights is popular, supporting the second amendment is not. So you create the situation where the only difference between a valid opinion and an invalid one is whether or not it's accepted mainstream, and that's a bad way to go.
Also, in a free country, it is generally considered that expressing an opinion which may be detrimental to others is not in itself considered bad. If I say that people over 80 years old should require a yearly driving test, that's a valid position for me to have and nobody will call me ageist for saying it. If I say that Donald Trump should be arrested rather than elected, that is directly detrimental to a person but it would get me upvotes here. If I said that being Republican is evidence of mental illness, that is directly prejudicial against an entire group which has many different reasons for believing as they do, and it would probably get me upvotes also.
My point is, hate speech as a concept is difficult to define and when you try to ban it with censorship you are just starting down a slippery slope that will have the opposite of the desired effect. You legitimize the counterculture and do nothing to stop the real problem, the actual hatred.
It's not difficult to define.
It's about people's choices.
People can choose to own a gun, choose to want to own a gun, choose to own a whole armoury.
I think owning a gun is stupid. I live in a country that successfully regulates guns.
Saying "I think gun owners are stupid" isn't hate speech because they have chosen to own a gun.
If I said "gun owners should use their guns in themselves" that becomes hate speech because it's wishing harm on them.
People choose to be Republicans, trumps choices in life are why he is where he is.
Hate trump because of what he does, not because he has blonde hair.
People don't choose to be gay, or be trans, or be Jewish, or be black, or be short or whatever.
Which is another way opinions can become hate speech.
If I said "I think gun owners are stupid" that isn't hate speech.
If I said "I think black people are stupid" that becomes hate speech because it is grouping people by something they have no control over.
How about incitements to violence and outright explicit disinformation/misinformation, like:
For the record, I personally think everything you said is truly repugnant. Although I'd point out the first one I've seen applied to Trump voters, frequently, in mainstream discussions on 'civilized' platforms, with little or no moderator response. So apparently it's okay to be prejudiced and discriminatory as long as it's against someone others don't like.
That said, my problem is not the banning of these statements. Most platforms quite reasonably would ban such things, and I have no problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the government REQUIRING a platform ban certain speech. I don't care if it's the most vile horrible hate filled shit. It should be up to the platform, not the government, to decide what speech is acceptable or not.
Because if government gets to decide what private citizens are allowed to discuss on privately-owned forums, that's a very slippery slope.
And I still say it's counterproductive.
In that case, what is the line between "simply" hate speech and actual radicalization to terroristic acts and/or conspiracy to terroristic acts and/or incitement to terroristic acts? At what point does it stop being "someone should [violent act] the [slur]s" and become "I bought a gun and several mags and have been practicing for the [dogwhistle mass violence event], let's [violent act] the [slur]s"? At what point does it stop being 4chan trolling and become all but admitting intention to commit the Christchurch shooting? A Stormfront discussion forum becoming outright planning for and incitement to a Jan 6th riot?
A better question is where is the line between 'simply' a controversial opinion and actual hate speech?
Because if a platform is required by law to ban hate speech, that's going to sweep up a lot of controversial opinions along with it.
Is it 'hate speech' to express any negative opinion about an oppressed group? And if not, where do you draw THAT line?
(if you want an answer to your original question I wrote one out but it's somewhat long....)
(Sure, I don't mind long replies.)
Disclaimer- in this reply I may use some offensive statements as examples, none of which I agree with. To summarize my actual views- I consider myself liberal-libertarian-- I believe the married gay couple should have guns to protect their pot farm and legally adopted children from harm, knowing that single payer healthcare will prevent them from going bankrupt if one gets hurt. I don't care which bathroom you use as long as you wash your hands. And I think government should be out of the marriage game, there should be a one size fits all civil union for any couple/throuple/quadruple who want to legally entangle themselves (and it should not say 'marriage' anywhere on it). If you want to get married go to a church, if you want to be legally entangled with your partner go to the government.
There's two lines. The line I'm more concerned with (and you should be too), is where's the line between 'simply' a controversial opinion, and 'actual' hate speech. If platforms are required by law to ban 'hate speech' then where does that line get drawn and by whom? And how do you differentiate between a controversial but honest opinion, and a prejudiced and hateful statement, when the two share the same position?
For example, is 'gay people freak me out' an opinion or hate speech? What about 'I don't think gay people should be allowed to adopt children because it could harm the children'? What about 'I don't think gay people should be allowed to marry because marriage is supposed to be a man and a woman'? Are those opinions or hate speech? Is there a difference between 'I don't think gay people should be allowed to adopt children because it might harm the children' and 'I don't think gay people should be allowed to adopt children because fuck the gays'?
Depending on how you define 'hate speech', it might require platforms to themselves remove anything even vaguely anti-gay.
I have no problem with any private platform choosing to adopt whatever rules they want. I have a BIG problem with government-mandated censorship of controversial opinions (and I think you should also).
As for the two lines, let's do a spectrum--- again, this is presented as an example, I do not agree with any of the following statements.
Where do YOU draw the line in there?
For me I'd say the line between opinion and hatred is between 3 and 4, and the line between hate speech and criminal incitement is between 12 and 13.
The problem though is if 'ban hate speech' is codified into law, if platforms are REQUIRED to police it, then ALL of this becomes essentially illegal to say, essentially starting with #1. And while it's sad that anyone would say any of this, that basically makes it illegal to express ANY dislike of gay people because of the murkiness of the line between unfortunate opinion and hate speech.