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Comment by pandasun | Hacker News Reader

Not an Infowars fan, but I see "hate speech" being used as a reason to ban alternative views a lot lately. Let's say he was indeed engaging in hate speech (I haven't verified this): hate speech is still speech, no?

Edit: thanks for the downvotes, can we not have a discussion about this? Should we ban hateful books too? I happen to have learned a lot from historically hateful books.

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Hate speech doesn't have a legal definition in the USA (that I know of). It's defined in each service's ToS if they choose to restrict it. Facebook is pretty clear about what qualifies. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/hard-questions-hate-spe...

The best analogy I've seen is this: You have the right to say what you want, but I don't have to invite you into my living room to say it.

These aren't public spaces -- they are private spaces that are available to the public.

I think the ban is legal, yes, and in this case I also think it's correct. But correct on what terms? I'm not really sure where I draw the line between "hate speech" and not.

The good news then is that you don't have to, each service has done so for you in the TOS that users sign.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of speech anywhere you'd like, nor is it freedom from consequences of speech.

The notion that a private company has some obligation to uphold First Amendment rights at its own expense is ridiculous.

So you're against net neutrality?

No, we don't need any further discussion about hate speech, any more than we need further discussion on whether murder is bad, or torture is acceptable.

We need swift and clear action to remove it from the commons.

There's no reason to pander to anti-semites like Jones and his ilk.

He's only ever married Jews... all of his children are Jews.

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