# Evading the hate speech prohibition **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 4, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evading-the-hate-speech-prohibition/1006775 "2024-09-04T19:02:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 105
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2024, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evading-the-hate-speech-prohibition/1006775/105 "2024-09-10T12:02:22Z")
A few weeks ago, I made this post in the “share a random fact you stumbled across” thread. I was shocked and appalled to learn that the U.S. government, early in the second half of the 20th century, had carried out a project bluntly called “Operation (racial slur).” And yet, despite this being objectively horrifying, it’s also _extremely_ interesting and thought-provoking, for multiple reasons, so I knew it would be worth sharing. > [@Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/235): > > While reading about historical antecedents to certain current events which will remain undiscussed out of respect for the forum, I learned yesterday that the American government ran a massive project to deport Mexicans back in the 1950s which had a truly unfortunate official name. Here is a relevant article, where that name appears neither in the headline nor the preview paragraph. Click through for more information. Warning for offensive language. Troubling and disturbing … and nevertheless… Nevertheless, I did not want to share a page link that displayed the slur, even though the name of the operation is simple historical fact, because I knew it would surprise readers not expecting to see it baldly written, and had the potential to create discomfort in some. I searched around for a bit, and I found a page whose title and preview didn’t include the slur, making it safe, in my view, for sharing. I included a caution about the content, giving a general warning about what you’d see if you visited the link, and I made my post. The slur is, unquestionably, a form of hate speech when wielded hurtfully. I would argue that it is _not_ hate speech in the context of the neutral informational page I shared; it’s a historical attribution, a report about actual events that doesn’t water down the (awful) reality. And, to the point of the current discussion, I’m struck by a certain semantic equivalence between someone writing (for attributive purposes) an obfuscated slur like “n-word” or “n——” or similar, and my sharing of the link. In the former case, the slur is not explicitly represented; it’s hidden behind a euphemism, and an implicit further step is required (specifically, the interpretation of the reader) to “reveal” the offensive word. Similarly, I did not present the slur; it’s “hidden” behind a link, and a further step, a click, is required to reveal it. But I certainly made it possible for that slur to appear in the reader’s mind, in a somewhat analogous fashion to the obfuscated euphemism. In an environment with an apparent bright-line rule, would my sharing of the link qualify as a violation? I brought a racial slur to the discussion. I did not, myself, make any kind of expression in support of racist hate, and the slur was veiled, presented indirectly; but it was absolutely there. So, if the proposed rule were in place, should I have been modded? Now, to be clear, I don’t expect an answer here. I’m not asking this out of any serious concern about whether or not this breaks an actual or hypothetical rule. Instead, I’m using this to illustrate two points: First, there are _absolutely_ cases where attributive usage like mine wouldn’t trip any flags. Nobody pitted me, nobody replied to my post. I obviously don’t know if anyone added a flag, but if they did, no action resulted that was visible to me. (Lots of clicks, though. Got a badge and everything.) And second, and more importantly — even a supposedly bright-line rule will have fuzzy edges in specific circumstances, and it’ll be up to the interpretive discretion of the authorities to determine whether a given case falls on one side of the line or the other. Which means, in the end, that I am in the camp that thinks the status quo is fine. It’s the intention of the usage, as perceived by the moderators, that matters, and there’s no reason to change this. We already expect the moderators to make judgment calls, and the introduction of a so-called bright line, however intentioned, won’t change that. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evading-the-hate-speech-prohibition/1006775)._