"Beyond hate speech" lol. That's kinda the problem, isn't it? Who gets to define "hate"? And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway? And if it's worthy of banning on a major platform, why not just make it explicitly illegal? These are serious and important questions (among others) that seem to get conveniently glossed over.
Pick a point and draw a line in the sand. Then enforce it.
So many HN replies amount to "we all agree this is a problem, but we can't fix the entire problem perfectly, and it has some hypothetical drawbacks, so we shouldn't even try."
(Never mind that as a result of inaction in the face of disinformation and hate speech our societies are rotting from the inside, and many, many real-world atrocities are being carried out as a direct result.)
This is, by the way, a fundamentally conservative viewpoint. Cf. gun violence, homelessness, living wage, etc. Just because something is a complex issue with imperfect solutions doesn't mean we have permission to do nothing.
I tend to agree with this, but given we're discussing Myanmar here I think it's worth adding that knowing where to draw the line can get a lot more complex than deciding 'Hang Mike Pence' crosses it.
Myanmar's language and culture are completely alien to people drafting Facebook policies, driving forces behind intercommunity violence include things like [likely at least partially true] news reports of other intercommunity violence and official government statements, and then there's nuances like Burmese people seemingly accepting the false claim the ethnically-cleansed Rohingya actually were Bangladeshi regardless of where they stand on other things, and the outpouring of support for Aung Sung Suu Kyi after Western criticism that might have been signals that they believed the conflict was the generals' doing rather than hers or might have been mass endorsement of the government's violence. I suspect my Myanmar-based Facebook friends' one or two allusions to burning villages and politicians are probably calls for peace and meditation, but honestly, I don't know.
> Burmese people seemingly accepting the false claim the ethnically-cleansed Rohingya actually were Bangladeshi regardless of where they stand on other things
That was largely a result of campaigning against giving rights to the Rohingya.
> the outpouring of support for Aung Sung Suu Kyi after Western criticism that might have been signals that they believed the conflict was the generals' doing rather than hers or might have been mass endorsement of the government's violence
Yeah, because Aung Sung Suu Kyi keeps denying, on live TV, that any problem exist other than the insurrectionists are responsible for everything thats happened thus far. The insurrectionists/terrorist according to her are composed of muslim Rohingya that are financed by foreign "Muslim" powers.
The matter of the fact is that most power is held by the military, NOT Aung Sung Suu Kyi. Thus, Aung Sung Suu Kyi stance on this issue is probably a result of the military's position. At any moment, the army can choose to remove her from power. Her position is that fragile.
But now you're back to square one - who defines "hate"? That's the line you're talking about. Keep in mind mind that in many cases, some speech you consider "hate" is totally vague, and opinions will inevitably just fall along convenient ideological lines. SO, outside of some really explicit cases, it's really not definable at all.
Ideally, the definition of hate will result from a complex negotiation between stakeholders in society, just as we draw a line on who counts as an "adult", what counts as "self defense", and what counts as "libel".
The definition will be less than ideal, open to abuse, and problematic, but having it is better than not, just as having a definition of "adult", "self defense", and "libel" are better than not having them.
Why do we even need to define this at all???? We're never going to. Again, the US functioned just fine allowing "hate speech" to be legal. Would there be consequences to such speech? Sure, and deservedly. But the government couldn't do anything to you, that's the point. And I would strongly argue that Facebook, Twitter, et al have de facto replaced the government - they are a new governance for society whether we like it or not.
And why would we engage in a "complex negotiation" (that sounds to me like a euphemism for right/left extremists and massive unprecedented violence) to reach a "less than ideal" outcome over an issue that 250 years of history prove is not only unnecessary but in all likelihood extraordinarily dangerous??? Again, why was free speech the first one???? It f-ing works, that's why. It's the foundation for the best governance human beings have ever achieved. To have people now in 2021 just kinda shrug about its importance is mind-blowing to me.
Unnecessary? I think non-whites would take issue with that. Race hatred and violence certainly resulted in "extraordinarily dangerous" outcomes for them over the last 250 years.
In any event, the Internet changed things. Before, it was very difficult to light the entire country on fire.
With the Internet, and social networks in particular, that has changed. The reach is unprecedented; it is a difference of kind, not just magnitude. Anyone can reach very specific groups of people and incite hatred and violence through targeted propaganda campaigns. There's more than one reason rhetoric and mass violence has increased since the late '90s (on a national scale), but I believe this is one of the biggest contributors.
Why does there need to be a single definition? You can have a different definition of what hate is compared to me. For example, you can choose not to associate with someone because you think they're hateful, where as I find them just find and we're buddies.
Facebook is influential yes, but they are still one private organization of many. Why do we need a consistent definition of hate speech between facebook, twitter, reddit etc?
The big problem is that if you draw a line, everyone is going to toe it and try to push past it. Trump has shown that he is willing to push the boundaries of what is acceptable his entire presidency.
That’s the “slippery slope” argument. If you define what’s allowed, people will ask for more, and others will push past it saying it’s not much different than previous.
And besides that, the line has been drawn many times by the Supreme Court. Hate speech is allowed by the First Amendment, but inciting violence may not be. There’s “tests” for these sorts of issues that lower courts are supposed to apply.
"In mind" - what does this mean? Who exactly gets to define "in mind"? Like, you're now literally reading people's minds about their intentions? So I don't need to explicitly tell people to go do bad things, I can just say I'm upset about something and that's enough? I can make some bogus claim and that's enough? Because there aren't that many people spewing bullshit all day long on twitter? And let me take a wild guess on what your conclusion will be for people who say vague things on "your" side vs the "other" side...
That’s the difficulty, isn’t it? If I say, let’s go and burn that police station down now! Let’s be there at 9:15. It’s pretty clear. If you say, I wish that police station would get burned down. I don’t know. It’s not a nice thought, but you’re not actively working to have it burned down. On the other hand the wish does not have pure intentions.
This is why I think it’s impossible to “monitor” and purge or ban violent tweets or what have you.
One, what is the intention of the speaker, two who is responsible for the audiences reaction? Do you take the most extremely negative interpretation? It cannot work.
And that’s not even taking slang into account where violent words don’t mean violence and normal words can take on other meanings.
I guess this is the problem in identifying “shooters”.
Lots of people kid around about horrible things but don’t mean it. One day you find out that one of the kids was not joking and actually meant it. Even people who are friends of the perp have problems sussing this out and can only do it in retrospect.
What about songs like kill the police by ice tea. A direct call to action exists / police have been killed but he still is free to act in police dramas?
If we took “progressive” politics out of it but retained that we need to remove “violence” from discourse, yes they would have to be banned from Twitter.
Progressive politics will say we have to consider the background of the singer and the audience as mitigating circumstance so they might let it slide.
Objectively it would have to be banned if we use Twitter’s new rubric.
Endlessly peppering people with questions is sometimes called Sealioning. How about engaging with the point(s) made by the person you're replying to, and offering your own suggestions for how you'd go about things. Also, the HN guidelines (link at the bottom of the page) encourage you to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what was said, rather than the worst.
But that's the ENTIRE point here! This supposed itty-bitty exception - "Hey, just no bad stuff, okay?" - is actually EVERYTHING. You say something like "Just no hate speech" or "Only if they have violence in mind" and those statements inherently violate the very notion of free speech the people are erroneously saying they're in favor of, and those innocent-sounding qualifiers are why things are devolving so rapidly. We've taken a simple concept that worked brilliantly for 250 years (free speech) and in the blink of an eye, now that online life has (for better or worse) usurped the government's role in setting rules for society, we're just rearranging how the game is played. This is the broader issue, online life (for lack of a better phrase, but I hope you get my point) has become so ubiquitous that it's like some sort of alternate society with a new governance. We wouldn't/couldn't insert these qualifiers into the constitution, but here we are giddily doing it for our new alternate world.
> Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate".
It's not just one post. The same person posed something like 15 different questions in the thread. Soliciting clarity on another's views via questioning is a valid kind of discourse, but Socrates also took time to listen to answers and offer his own views rather than throwing out 5 questions in a row.
Also, if you read that Wikipedia article to the end you'll realize that I pointed you to the original use of the term.
No he didn’t. He just made that one post with the questions and you randomly accused him of sealioning. Just asking questions is not sealioning. I know where the term originated.
That's simply false. Anyone who looks back up the subthread can see for themselves that there are 9 posts from the same person and most of them are rhetorical questions. I don't know who you think you're going to convince by making such counterfactual statements, but I see no point in further discussion. Bye.
Ha! I like Japanese curry too. But I meant Indian curry prepared in Japan. I did not mean Japanese curry.
My point was that people can have discussions about who or what is better and it can diverge into other areas that could be considered hate by very sensitive people. Japan notoriously claimed for example that their snow is unique[1] and thus made it difficult to import European skis some time ago. Today this would be viewed and xenophobic or something when all it was was protectionism.
[1] kinda true. It’s ‘wetter’ than snow in some other places, but doesn’t mean Rosignol should not be sold in Japan.
What's your point? I think the line is drawn when people are put at risk of life or liberty or have died/suffered. At that point, warning then excising those users and groups, reporting them to authorities (if crimes have been committed) is what's needed. And it needs to be timely.
As I understand it Facebook, if it did anything at all, did id months/years after the fact, essentially doing CYA not anything meaningful.
I really dislike this argument. A lot of democratic countries have defined hate speech. In the US, individual companies define it and moderate it as they see fit. In other countries, their legislators and courts define it. The US has defined lots of difficult terms to define already.
>And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway?
I mean if we're talking about why companies should ban it, I'm sure they have a variety of reasons that range from bad PR and loss of revenue, to the founders/owners/employees don't want to build a product that's used for violence.
If we're talking about at the society level, because it threatens democracy, peace, individuals safety
>And if it's worthy of banning on a major platform, why not just make it explicitly illegal?
>A lot of democratic countries have defined hate speech.
They have very poor subjective definitions that boil down to anything any group considers offensive which is a moving needle, and that make make things like satire and certain forms of comedy illegal and have a chilling effect on valid criticism. It's also compelled speech, and in some cases leaves violence as the only resort, as opposed to a conversation and de-conversion from extremist beliefs. We've seen abuse of it in several cases, if no one is offended, they'll create a group or pay someone to be offended. There's no burden of proof beyond someone's emotional state upon hearing the words. You can say something to two people of a group, one might think its funny and laugh, another might report you and call the cops.
Also, turns out you can yell fire in a theater, especially if you at least believe it to be true, and that's something courts can't determine, lots of people say things that they believe to be true, that turn out to be false. Likewise, if speech is dangerous but true, its still should be protected.
In either case, best this be settled in courts and legislation, not corporate meeting rooms that are echo chambers of opinion.
>If we're talking about at the society level, because it threatens democracy, peace, individuals safety
We already have laws against that, its why hate speech laws are usually redundant and likely to be abused and scope creep into silencing valid criticism of an individual or group of individuals who can then be offended and have you arrested, at the very least putting you through months and years of legal trouble before you're acquitted, and that's only if you can afford proper defense.
You people need to look at history. It boggles me how uneducated people are today on the context of this issue.
Even the person that did the Parlor leak is a Meiklejohnian absolutist.
>In either case, best this be settled in courts and legislation, not corporate meeting rooms that are echo chambers of opinion.
I'm really confused by what your points is. You spend most of your post talking about how laws against hate speech are ineffectual because courts can't determine a persons emotions and beliefs, and then say it's best handled by laws and courts.
You talk a lot about theoretical outcomes, but isn’t it reasonable to look at what different systems result in empirically? Which of the aforementioned countries had a violent assault on their seat of government in recent times? Does that support your argument, or maybe there are virtues to those alternative legal frameworks?
If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Odd, the speech you're talking about being legal hasn't seemed to affect things much at all. Actually, we've done nothing but thrive despite hate speech being legal. Why haven't people been clamoring for decades to change the constitution because of all the mayhem caused by hate speech?
>If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government
Because of the first amendment, and how the courts have very consistently interpreted to allow hate speech.
>and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal?
If by "do so well for centuries" you mean the US's economic output and world status over the centuries, I would argue that profiting off of Europe rebuilding itself after two world wars probably outweighed the detrimental effects of hate speech (among probably several dozen other reasons).
If you mean "how has the US done so well handling the negative effects of hate speech for centuries without making it illegal", I would argue that hate speech has contributed to some of the most shameful and barbaric social dynamics over the centuries, and the US is historically well behind other modern countries on this front.
I've noticed a high correlation between people who callously want to ban all sorts of speech and people who just seem completely miserable and think the US is the most awful place on earth.
I would assume this is because you are a WASP with both high income and privilege levels and have never really experienced the fallout of hate speech directed towards you.
You couldn't help illustrate my point any better, thanks. My opinion is invalidated by my racial/economic identity. Actually, it's worse: the opposite of what I say must be true. Brave new world.
>If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal?
Because we've generally dealt with that by deplatforming that sort of speech socially and/or in the private sector.
The history of the civil rights movement is filled with boycotts and other sorts of social pressure campaigns.
How would you define calling for the genocide of the Rohingya people? Would you define that as hate speech? This is an important question for right wingers to answer. Should we be tolerant of your intolerance?
lots of democratic countries have come up with workable definitions. I propose to make hate speech illegal, so banning it won't be in any way contradictory. I am not glossing over anything.
Wow it's almost like the the founding fathers had a good idea when they drafted the bill of rights and the literal first thing that came to mind was freedom of speech.
I'm sure this experiment of ripping up the constitution in our de facto new online lives that usurp what the government is capable of doing will go just fine...
