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Comment by zajd | Hacker News Reader

Good. It's getting tiring seeing bigots, racists and assholes hide behind the veil of "free speech"

That's an awfully deprecating comment about a basic and fundamental human right. How can you have freedom without it also empowering people you'd rather weren't empowered? Have we all lost the ability to be discerning? So now we need outside entities to curate what we see, to protect our delicate sensibilities? Sorry, not me. I vastly prefer the risk of running into distasteful crap.

Freedom and laws are not mutually exclusive. Some forms of speech should not be allowed, specifically hatespeech.

The only people who don't understand this are those who spout these things themselves. They also don't understand private vs public or freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences

I'm the first to say that private organizations are not required to host or entertain someone else's hate speech, but that doesn't mean that government organizations should be censoring it.

That's the key difference here. And the fact that the host didn't give them a heads up about the service cancellation.

Agreed, and I should make it clear that I don't believe a private hosting company should have to serve any client they would rather not serve. Personally, if I were going into the hosting business I would set a policy up front that we're not in the business of moderating content, just because I think taking responsibility for it would be a nightmare. But I'm not in the hosting business and they should be able to do as they wish. Having done this, though, they will be obligated to continue policing the content on their system, or run the risk of being accused of bias.

I'm not saying they should censor it, they should make it illegal to begin with.

Personally, I'd rather live in a society where driving down the road screaming "die you fucking niggers" at black people is illegal, not just frowned upon.

Threats of violence against individuals are considered outside the scope of the first amendment by the supreme court.

What about "Die, you people with red hair!" Can I drive down the road shouting that? Or will we need a government commission to study from time to time which groups it should be illegal to threaten? Maybe all threats should be illegal? Of course, it's often difficult to discern intent from speech, and some things that sound threatening might not actually be threats. Could get tricky.

"Free speech except for things I find distasteful" isn't free speech at all.

I think hate speech should be made illegal in America like it is in the rest of the civilized world.

So, then posts like yours should be made illegal? Seems you are hating on America pretty hard. We can't have that now, can we?

America isn't a protected class :)

Oh, you just have to wait a little...

I'm sure that law wouldn't be abused to silence dissenters ever

"Who watches the watchers" is a problem we have to deal with in EVERY aspect of law. There is a reason we have a judicial system and due process. There's no reason to think hate speech legislation wouldn't be treated the same way.

In Canada, "human rights tribunals" have been weaponized to attack journalists and writers.

See, for example, the case of Mark Steyn, who has been harassed by Islamic extremists deploying "lawfare" techniques to silence his freedom of speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_agains...

Except that they haven't, it's actually a really good case where the law is able to discern whether or not something is hate speech.

You should be made illegal.

I think hate speech should be made illegal in America like it is in the rest of the civilized world.

Define "hate speech".

Thought experiment: you're running the government, your definition applies. Oops, your opponents just got elected. Now "hate speech" is expanded to include "criticism of the new government".

The term "hate speech" is just a blunt instrument used by people and organizations to attack "speech I/we find distasteful".

Really? Would you rally behind an Ice Cube CD being banned over racist lyrical content?

If I thought Ice Cube was a racist asshole hiding behind "free speech" I would. Kind of like RaHoWa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahowa_(band)

Ice cube lyrics from song "Black Korea". Arent you going to rally against this too?

  Every time I want to go get a fucking brew 
  I gotta go down to the store with the two 
  Oriental one-penny-counting motherfuckers; 
  They make a nigger mad enough to cause a little ruckus. 
  Thinking every brother in the world’s out to take, 
  So they watch every damn move that I make. 
  They hope I don’t pull out a Gat, try to rob 
  Their funky little store but, bitch, I got a job.

  So don’t follow me up and down your market 
  Or your little chop suey ass will be a target 
  Of a nationwide boycott. 
  Juice with the people, that’s what the boy got. 
  So pay respect to the black fist 
  Or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp. 
  And then we’ll see ya… 
  ‘Cause you can’t turn the ghetto into black Korea.

No because I understand the difference between art and conversation.

And RaHoWa isn't?

Yet, apparently fail to understand what constitutes speech.

If Ice Cube was trying to find people's Facebook accounts, addresses or other information and then actively harass them, then yes, I would.

Then the issue isn't free speech, the issue is brigading.

if you feel that way, then reddit is by far the larger community when it comes to bigots, racists and assholes than voat.co because they are the home to /r/GasTheKikes and /r/coontown and many many other reprehensible subreddits

even so, you are still wrong because free speech means exactly that, speech that you or I may not agree with.

if it were limited to speech that only some or the majority aligned with then it wouldn't be called 'free speech' would it?

For the record, I would cheer those subreddits getting banned as well. Don't mistake my comments for a defense of reddit.

Free speech is freedom from government censorship. A private company is not obligated to host your filth.

And yet they do, check out /r/GasTheKikes or /r/coontown or many other examples

Free speech also refers to a closely-held cultural value in the US, that is to say the respect for private citizens to hold and espouse beliefs which others find distasteful or offensive.

Saying "free speech only refers to the government censoring you" (at least in the context of America) is like saying that American society and culture consist _solely_ of the official bureaucratic proceedings of its constituent governmental bodies. In other words, its intellectually dishonest.

No, it isn't. Further, why is the company obligated to associate themselves with your filth? Do they not have the right to not be associated with it?

There is no such thing as "free speech". There is only free speech or censorship and there is no such thing as hiding behind free speech.

The company behind is not obligated to host it, but that is not relevant for your comment.

False dichotomy. Try again.

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