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Comment by intortus | Hacker News Reader

Hate speech, bullying, none of that shit needs to be protected speech. It's not as delicate or complicated as people who generally aren't on the receiving end of it try to make it out to be.

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You're right, in many cases, hate speech and bullying are obvious and can be easily spotted. But there are always grey areas and disagreements where eradicating hate speech and bullying can also end up getting rid of speech with valid political dimensions.

One sort of obvious case where important speech was classified as harmful is facebook's recent spat with the prime minister of Norwary over them censoring the famous photo of "Napalm girl," a young, naked Vietnamese girl running naked in the streets from a Napalm attack.

The presence of grey areas does not invalidate the entire concept of "fuck off, nazis."

That was a historical photograph, not "hate speech or bullying". Also, how can you say "eradicating hate speech and bullying can also end up getting rid of speech with valid political dimensions" with a straight face?

I knew I recognized that username from somewhere. It is indeed neither delicate nor complicated so long as you define hate speech and bullying by whether one particular clique supports it or is against it, since by definition they're always going to have a firm indisputable conclusion on it and anyone who disagrees is the enemy. You don't even have to worry about that clique doxing, harassing or lying about others since they're obviously in the right by doing so. The hard part - and the part you failed at on Reddit - is actually stopping bullying, rather than crowning a gang of official bullies that you like and calling it a day.

White hood wearing motherfuckers chomping at the bit to call black people "chimps" is not merely some alternative "clique", as you disingenuously suggest. The problem with tolerance of the intolerant is that you end up with an authoritarian monoculture where speech is much less free than it could have been.

You think that the only reason someone would disagree with you is because they're a literal KKK supporter, but this is somehow fighting against an authoritarian monoculture? Right. Had nothing to do with said clique's awful treatment of LGBT people, dubiously moral tactics, tendency to see anyone who disagrees as literal neo-Nazis, and utter refusal to brook any kind of internal dissent over anything at all, of course. All those times they went after gay and trans men for daring to claim to be oppressed were sure a-OK with me. The fact they could only claim to meet their own basic moral standards by banning anyone who held them to the same standard as the rest of Reddit over anything, as a matter of policy, has zero to do with my assertion that it's not that simple or easy.

(Hell, the ex-Reddit CEO's since confirmed they had a history of IRL harassment campaigns against the families of Reddit admins who didn't go along with them.)

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