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Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

Where they draw the line on some of these things seems... odd. A degrading generalization about a nationality like one of their examples

> the Irish suck

seems relatively harmless, while the permissible

> Keep the horny migrant teenagers away from our daughters

seems much more dangerous. The latter is much more likely to spur some sort of antisocial behavior from a reader.

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"The Birth of a Nation" (Ku Klux Klan propaganda film) for instance, uses that tactic to dehumanize black men... that film is to blame for a temporary expansion of the KKK.

So I think accusing a demographic of being perverted should be considered hate speech in my opinion.

Is the latter dangerous because it is dissent? It sounds like we are now defining a framework for what dissent is acceptable and it seems to align to a dominant political ideology. Sort of defeats the point of dissent.

Censorship is always a framework for defining acceptable dissent (or deviance, if you prefer).

It's dangerous because it evokes a specific fear that's likely to inspire action. You could swap migrants and Irish in an area with a sufficient Irish population and it would still be true.

> the migrants suck

Is pretty harmless, while

> Keep the horny Irish teenagers away from our daughters

might well lead to someone assaulting people they perceived to be Irish teenagers who were getting too friendly with their daughters.

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