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Comment by conradfr | Hacker News Reader

It's fascinating to me how this battle against "hate speech" became global so quickly.

I disagree entirely with this article.

He doesn't define hate speech. "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence", what does it have to do with hate speech?

Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.

It's funny how people don't see the danger of supporting these soft-censorship feel-good policy while more and more authoritarian politicians get elected, surely these laws won't backfired?

And that quote of Voltaire is apocryphal (but he said something close).

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> "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence"

... I mean, historical evidence changes routinely with the discovery and release of new evidence. And "blatantly false allegations" sometimes turn out to be not so false.

I believe that platform owners have the right to kick assholes off of thier platform (for their version of asshole), but it is tricky business letting third parties be the arbiters of what is true and what is hate.

> He doesn't define hate speech.

Hate speech, to me, is expressing hated towards others, be it online or in person, with no reason or justification. > Also saying that freedom of speech "is about being able to speak out against your governments without fear of oppression." is a very limited and US centric viewpoint.

Oddly enough, I'm a European, and I think this point is valid in any country. If you lived in China, you wouldn't speak out against the Government if they did something wrong like censor the doctors who discovered the virus. In other countries were there is free speech you can do this. Thats why there are organisations like Extinction Rebellion that speak out against Governments about climate change. In China, that couldn't happen. Extinction Rebellion doesn't shout hate towards people for not caring, rather they try to get action from politicians who can do something. This is the sort of thing that free speech should be used for. > soft-censorship feel-good policy

I am firmly against this sort of policy. Mass surveillance is the backdoor into freedom of speech. Censorship is bad, but, if you implement it correctly, then free speech will allow people to speak out against these "more authoritarian politicians".

> "There is no place in this world for blatantly false allegations or denying historical evidence", what does it have to do with hate speech?

Loads of hate speech would fall into this category. Almost all antisemitic conspiracies, for starters. Probably plenty of neoconfederate nonsense minimizing slavery, too.

> denying historical evidence ... what does it have to do with hate speech?

He's talking about holocaust denial, the [broadly] antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish peoples seized on WW2 as an opportunity to advance themselves, exaggerating the facts and inventing others.

You haven't defined hate speech either, but this meets my criteria.

"theory that Jewish peoples seized on WW2 as an opportunity to advance themselves"

How would you definitely prove or refute that?

I prefer a society where anyone can ask "did the gas chambers exist?". In a healthy one you should have all the information and replies to make you conclude yes.

In my opinion making it illegal just fuel conspiracies.

Also this thread is a glorious reminder of Godwin's law.

> How would you definitely prove or refute that?

I wouldn't dare do either. I don't need to. There are simply enough people who were there still alive [on all sides] to testify what happened. If first-hand reports from every angle aren't enough, nothing will be.

Asking questions is okay. But we're talking about people with their own answers, not questions. Not just questions, they're sharing pointedly racist motives.

And leave Godwin alone. We're literally talking about Nazis.

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