Comment on Should hate speech be protected under freedom of speech laws?
Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 week agoWhen someone would scream into your face “Animals like you should be shot!”, wouldn’t it hurt you?
If someone spread lies about you or your family or your business if you had one, wouldn’t it do damage?
If someone spread the word that people of color or other minorities would do this or that (wasn’t it “Haitians eating dogs” or something recently?) and it led to people attacking this minority, wouldn’t it be dangerous?
Remember January 6th, where Trump whipped up the stupid to storm the Capitol? He did not use a cattle prod or stick, he only used words, and see what has happened.
And look closely at what the GOP is doing. They are spreading lies, and repeat them, until they fester and replace the truth in the hearts of the listeners.
And now tell me again that words can do no harm.
beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I mean I kind of see what you’re saying but it doesn’t really pass the smell test.
Yelling in someone’s face is assault. Spreading harmful lies about specific individuals or businesses is lible. Speech that incites violence is not protected by the first amendment. And the rest: January 6th and the misinformation machine aren’t something that can really be legislated. Lies unfortunately are protected speech unless they incite imminent violence. As much as I would like to hang the raid on the capital on Trump I watched his speech (and Bannon’s) and he only ever implies violence. The crowd whipped themselves up into the violence frenzy we saw that day.
Words absolutely can cause harm in the right conditions, but the ones that do the most damage would definitely not be hate speech. Fox News ran a segment last year where one of the hosts said homeless people should be killed and within a few days there were three separate incidents where armed men walked into homeless encampments and opened fire. I think the death toll was 9 people across the three events. But fox news spreading lies about ivermectin and masking during covid killed potentially tens of thousands. In the case of the homeless what the host did was already illegal, but the lies can’t be legislated.
The more I think about it the less I’m concerned about hate speech. The things that need to be illegal, inciting violence, already are, and the things that aren’t are murky at best and a slippery slope at worst. Especially when you consider who would be determining what is or isn’t hate speech. Right now the powers that be would label your comment as hate speech because it’s critical of the gop.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If you think it is ok to spread hate, you’ll have to live with the consequences. I don’t think the world needs more hate.
And, btw, hate is what brought the GOP to power. Think about it.