I know it already is but should it be?
Yes
/full stop
Should hate speech be protected under freedom of speech laws?
Submitted 1 week ago by Vader@sopuli.xyz to [deleted]
Comments
IWW4@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
I think it should. People should me able to say what they want. Even the most stupid or hateful things. They are thinking them anyway, it’s not like hat it’s going to disappear with a ban on hat speech. Hate speech is the expression of the hateful thinking but not the root.
otp@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Ban on hate speech would be like puting on a blind and thinking that you made the sun dissapear.
This isn’t true.
Think about how much more common certain kinds of rhetoric have become since Trump became president.
People (especially those with power or influence) saying things not only increases the likelihood that others will believe it, but makes it easier that these people will find validation and reinforce their beliefs.
You can be okay with that, but it’s wrong to deny that it happens.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
I think it is mostly because people feel more free to express those thoughts because the president of the US share those thoughts.
But they thought like that to begin with, that’s why they voted for him.
I think it’s an uncomfortable truth, but people genuinely think like that not because they have been brainwashed or because propaganda. The same our political thoughts are based their political thoughts are based too.
I think it’s important not underestimate the opponent, because then we won’t really understand why it rose to power. I think it’s a mistake thinking that baning hate speech will prevent something like Trump getting elected. I live in Europe where hate speech is mostly banned. Still the turn to the far right is growing even faster and more right than the US. People don’t say nasty things in public, political representatives don’t say those things in public. Because there’s laws against that. But people think nasty things and say them in private all the time. Because they have developed a political thinking around that. And it’s not that simple as “they became radical because a political representative said a bad thing on twitter” they developed those political thoughts the same we all developed our political thoughts.
freely1333@reddthat.com 1 week ago
But Trump became president partially because of the backlash to the Obama era language and tone policing.
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 1 week ago
“hate speech” gets classified depending on how abstract it is. if you make a fair point to complain about something/somebody else, that’s one thing. when you directly attack someone else and call for physical violence against them, that’s not free speech, that’s a crime and should be forbidden.
Black@lemmy.today 1 week ago
YES. Someone or something will manipulate criteria for what is hate speech OR ANTISEMITISM, all for its convenience to support genocide or BILLIONAIRE to oppress common people. Imagine if it’s not protected by laws. Fuck censorship, BURN ISRAEL AND KILL BILLIONAIRE!
Ariselas@piefed.ca 1 week ago
No, but it’s better to have it protected by free speech than it would be to have governments decide what constitutes hate speech.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
If for no other reason than to make bigots go full mask off so we know who they are, yes.
WongKaKui@piefed.ca 1 week ago
I think hate speech should be censored online and from the press, but allowed irl
Wanna say controvertial shit, own up to it in person lol.
Dont just hide behind a keyboard
(Should require a court to approve of such censorship
Something like a Grand Jury thats sitting for a long term, but require a 3/4 supermajority to censor it)
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 week ago
No, hate speech should not be protected, and there’s an obvious reason for that. We already recognize that speech that purposely harms people is not protected, for example going into a theater room and screaming FIRE causing people to panic and stampede and killing someone the person will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. That is not so different from someone going online and saying “gay people should be killed” and causing people to go out and do that, in fact I would even drop the involuntary from the charges against that person, because his intention was clearly to incite someone to do it. I’m not taking away the responsibility from the person who committed the act, but this situation is similar to a how in a group planning a crime even the boss who was in every meeting telling people to commit the crime but did not actually participate in gets charged with. And the same excuses apply “No, I didn’t think that because I told them to go and kill someone they would do it” is not a valid defense for a mafia boss, and it shouldn’t be for any person with public influence.
otp@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Nah. It’s better when it’s not.
I think speech that a reasonable person would know to cause danger to others should be illegal.
Like trying to start a human stampede by yelling “fire” in a crowded stadium should be illegal. Having a club where you talk about how great it’d be if a certain group of people would be murdered, and here are some ways to get away with murder? Should be illegal.
And even if you do think that freedom of speech should include objectively harmful and dangerous speech, Americans need to understand that limits on speech can be placed in more places than not. Private places and businesses can exclude people for things people say. This is much more true on the internet, which is a global space.
Vandalismo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
No, and it’s not as bad as americans think, it isn’t like something experimental, it’s a reality.
Lasherz12@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I know it already is but should it be?
BDS would seem to suggest otherwise. We care less about actual hatred than criticisms of our ethnostate agendas, but it’s through the perceived hatred that cry-bullies thrive. Hate speech laws only make their bullying more effective. Look at Palestinian action in the UK. These laws protect us more than they hurt our political rivals. Billionaires can give a Nazi salute at CPAC with virtually no consequences and no laws were unanimously passed to provide those consequences, whereas BDS was widely adopted. TLDR, you can’t trust politicians to tell us what hatred is.
mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
No. They should get fined for every statement
nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
abolish all laws, and let oppressed people deal with hate speech the way they want
flandish@lemmy.world 1 week ago
just a reminder- the 1st amendment is an amendment. When the people running things on behalf of their monied backers want to change things, they can change them and will.
your right to speech is not something an amendment can create or remove.
we already have laws against inciting violence, so there’s that.
but when uncle sam says you are no longer allowed to say “fuck israel and zionism” - remember, you are in the right to to say it.
happydoors@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Despite interesting debates. I think they all ignore the big issue: the internet.
Alsjemenou@lemy.nl 1 week ago
The internet was set up by people who all deeply, deeply, deeply believed in the idea that in a pool of ideas the best will rise to the top. That pure freedom leads to the best humanity has to offer. It was the time of Richard Dawkins memes and evolutionary thinking. Dawkins, and all the new atheïsts, presented it like this was the way nature actually worked and that we should set up the internet accordingly.
All websites from twitter to reddit to even Lemmy has been set up in this manner… And whenever Lemmy when it gets popular, will suffer the same fate as all other publicly upvoted popularity aggregators. It’s all based on the same principles.
We’ve figured out that freedom of expression can only exist when there are strict rules around it and the enforcement that comes with that.
happydoors@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Works inside a closed system! Too many bad actors/sites across borderlines all directions in the real world.
cyberfae@piefed.social 1 week ago
I think the government should only regulate credible threats made with the intent to terrify, with the onus on the prosecutor to prove that the threat meets both criteria. This is how the first amendment is already applied, you can say anything short of yelling bomb in an airport or saying you will kill someone while showing them a picture of their house.
That being said, the government should allow private citizens to sue when speech still harms, but does not meet the criteria for a credible threat, such as; libel, slander, hate speech, or particularly dangerous misinformation. However the government should not be allowed to pursue these cases on their own, only act as mediator alongside a jury. The burden must also be on the accuser to demonstrate such harm.
This way there is still a legal path to restricting hate speech, but with a bar so high it’s only worth going after the most egregious offenders. If you allow the government to define hate speech, then you open a path to censorship of political opinions. On the other hand, if you regulate nothing, you get people screaming bomb in at airports or trying to convince you that drinking industrial bleach can cure almost everything.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 week ago
Define “hate speech”
disregardable@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I think we basically accomplish the same thing with libel and criminal statutes. There’s a pretty clear line. It’s kept limited to a strict victim-perpetrator dynamic, where you’re not going to get arbitrary speech suppression where no one was harmed.