Hacker News Reader

Comment by sweetheart | Hacker News Reader

Uh, it’s alarming to see someone refer to hate speech as a made up term. Do you think hate speech doesn’t exist?

Hate speech exists as a concept, but it's entirely subjective.

Hate speech can be defined as anything that those in power choose they want to suppress, which means in practice its really just censorship.

Besides which, it's counter productive.

Correct. Hate speech means speech you do not like because it disagrees with your biases and viewpoints. For some the use of speech to coordinate a summer of violent riots is hate speech, for others it is a rally cry of the oppressed.

Using the violence of the state to restrict freedom of speech and thought is never done by people on the right side of history.

It's (almost) always done by people on the wrong side of history. There's an important distinction, there. Should people be free from consequences for these?

• Yelling fire in a crowded theatre

• Posting

  nohup sudo -knu cat /dev/zero > /dev/sd*

(but, you know, a working version) as an answer to “how do I recover my backups URGENT!!1” on a Q&A site / IRC.

• Asking a very drunk person to hand their wallet over to the “wallet inspectors” for “indefinite inspection and spending”.

• Asking a bank employee to wire you money from someone else's account.

• Asking a bank computer to wire you money from someone else's account.

• Giving somebody else the DeCSS decryption keys.

• Publishing a detailed procedure for how to build a dirty bomb using common household items.

• Verbally punching down in a way that causes significant psychological distress.

I know what I'd answer to these.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com