Free speech versus hate speech

The thing is though that hate speech laws already exist in some countries and seem to work just fine, so I wouldn't despair.

What's bugging me is how many posts keep sidetracking into the tautological "If bad actors write the laws then the laws will be bad" and then just giving the entire topic a shrug. As if: A) the entire world is in that state (and that hate speech laws don't exist already in places) and B) like every single conversation on topic must be diverted to 'can this be practically implemented in the USA specifically'.

Edited by RainehDaze on Jan 1st 2024 at 11:31:55 AM

Those countries have cultures that are adapted to that mindset, that is why they work.

Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Jan 1st 2024 at 3:32:20 AM

Are they that different though? I wouldn't say so.

Cosmos And Chaos: You say it's pretty successful in Brazil, which is reassuring, so what are the factors causing that? The UK has a problem with selective enforcement, but I'm wondering what the situation's like in other countries with hate speech laws, like Canada, Belgium, South Africa etc.

Laws in Canada restricting speech and protest have also been used to suppress support for Palestine. Also in Germany and other European countries. It’s not a US problem, it’s a general problem. If you start from the position of “basic rights don’t apply to some people,” then laws enforcing that are always going to have a high risk of targeting the weak, not the strong.

Hate speech and intolerance is not always easily or straightforwardly defined. Some universities in Canada have banned any student clubs that are pro-life based on claiming that it is inherently misogynistic to be pro-life. Claims that advocacy of a one-state solution in Palestine is intrinsically antisemitic are widespread.

Where exactly do we draw the line on what consitutes a difference of political opinion and what constitutes hate speech or intolerance? I think that “X group should all be killed” is speech that can be restricted within the public square. There’s a lot more grey areas beyond that.

“Is this speech promoting violence against a specific group (sex, gender, race, religion, LGBTQ+)” vs “is this speech unpleasant and offensive” is, I think, a good dividing line for government regulation. Speech that promotes violence can harm its targets even if they never see it. Speech that is unpleasant and offensive but does not promote violence - that’s why we have block buttons on social media, and the ability to change the TV channel or radio station.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 1st 2024 at 6:15:13 AM

Yeah there are risks, while I don’t think it’s happened yet I expect hate speech laws in the U.K. to soon be used to crack down on people calling out transphobia, as the courts have recently recognised being “Gender critical” as equivalent to a religious belief and provide the same legal protections.

Yeah, sometimes it's clear cut - someone shouting that gay people all deserve to die is commiting an unambiguous act of hate. Other times, not so much. Again, that's why laws need clear definitions, so that act least the worst of it can be restricted even if not all can. The UK defines it as speech that's threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress.

If there's no way it can be done safely, though, and counterarguing against bigots doesn't work, what can be done about hate?

Absolutely nothing can be done about hate if you're going to frame it as, more or less, 'what can we do about bad things if we have to rule out every creating something bad actors can take advantage of'.

I don’t agree that counterarguing against bigots doesn’t work. Arguing directly with someone who’s operating in bad faith may be a waste of time, but that doesn’t mean that it ‘s impossible to convince people that racists, sexists, etc are wrong.

We need to be able to address both the false statements that are made (will that convince people who are already on the far right? in most cases no, but it’s more likely to convince people who are on the fence than banning the speech is), and the underlying emotions that are making the arguments of bigots appealing to people.

The positive change in attitudes towards gay, lesbian and bi people since the 1990s has been massive. Lawrence v. Texas, in the US, which decriminalized gay sex, was in 2003. Obama, in his 2008 campaign, did not advocate gay marriage - his platform still focused on civil unions, the less controversial (though not non-controversial) position. Now it’s supported and taken for granted by the majority of the population, and thinking homosexuality is wrong is very much a minority view.

Canada brought in gay marriage in, I think, 2002, but it was still sharply debated at the time. By 2008 it had become solid enough that a Conservative majority government made no attempt to overturn it. Now, the political arguments are over government actions in support of gay and lesbain pride - rainbow sidewalks, Pride activities in schools. Gay marriage is no longer remotely controversial.

That success wasn’t won by supressing speech. It was won because early legalizations if gay marriage in a few countries led to more and more discussion and debate, which led to more and more people coming out, and straight people realizing that people they cared about were gay, and it stopped being “politics” and became “I want the best for this family member or friend, who I care about”.

Political battles are fought on both the intellectual level and the emotional level, and if we fight on both, and persist, we can win. And we can win more durably, and more confidently, than by just trying to make the other side shut up.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 1st 2024 at 7:03:35 AM

The goal of hate speech laws isn't (or at least shouldn't be) to change people's views, though. It's to prevent harm. I see it as no different than laws banning assault.

That works so long as you keep to a very tight definition of hate speech (calls for violence against a specific racial/religious/sex/gender/sexual orientation group).

To be blunt, gay rights weren't won because a lack of hate speech laws led to more debates between "what if we killed all the faggots" and "what if we didn't." Oppressed queers had been fighting to be recognized as human and worthy of existence for decades before the 90s, even before Stonewall. Hate speech and bigotry is oppression by itself, not just calls to physical violence. Someone using slurs in public isn't a call for violence. "Whites only" wasn't a call for violence. "Go back to your own country" isn't a call for violence. But it's all stuff that people need to stop saying.

I understand that this comes from a desire to prevent giving tools to a theoretical oppressive followup government, but if a government wants to oppress minorities, they will either make their own laws to do so, or just oppress people anyway. Look at what's happening in Florida, or take the example of Nixon's domestic policy adviser John Erlichman: "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."

Governments that want to hurt vulnerable people will always have ways to do so. Stronger hate speech laws surely won't catch everything - that's part of what dogwhistles are for - but currently we have one of the richest men in the world openly tweeting about the "Great Replacement" conspiracy race war theory with US politicians in office, so I feel like we could probably stand to try making stronger laws before we give up and say they don't work.

Edited by RedSavant on Jan 2nd 2024 at 8:17:23 PM

Like, even if you want to draw the line just at banning speech that incites hate crimes, you’d not accomplish much just by banning direct calls. You’d at minimum have to cover stochastic terrorism.

Yeah. Banning direct calls for violence doesn't even cover the very real problem that we're having in the US right now of people like Trump winking broadly at the news cameras and saying "I'm not saying I want you to go beat up the first Mexican you see, but I'm not not saying that" and every cable news channel treating that like it's just a thing that politicians are allowed to say on the campaign trail now.

If the spaces are publicly accessible and viewable, they should be covered under hate speech laws. Anti-harassement laws don't stop on private property. If they are not viewable or accessible, it's difficult to enforce.

Here's something I thought was interesting: Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard University president:

Calls to kill an ethnic group should be covered by hate speech, in my view. Of course, people may argue about whether certain political statements are 'the same', like supporting a state in a particular war, but the advantage of clear legislation is that it will help to prevent such confusion.

Yes, but I think that is too broad for a law against it to be effectively enforced.

True, but my point is that there are many shades of hate speech beyond explicit calls for violence against a specifically delineated group, that's all.