# Hate speech and censorship **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 1, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-speech-and-censorship/842871 "2019-11-01T20:36:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 61
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2019, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-speech-and-censorship/842871/61 "2019-11-02T11:03:50Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > To state my bias up-front: I think the OP’s points in her post were strongly felt but terribly argued. It was full of logical errors and utterly unconvincing to me. Censorship of an event (Tiananmen for example) is not comparable to punishment for hate speech - it’s patently ridiculous. I could go on, but I think everyone understand how much I disagree with the post in question, and this thread isn’t to rehash the debate. > > Now that I’ve set the context, I very, very strongly disagree with the warning. > > Hate speech shouldn’t be about making a word taboo. Hate speech should be regarded as spreading intolerant ideas in order to cudgel vulnerable parts of our society into being further marginalized, even to the point of violence and extermination. > > There wasn’t a single whiff of actual hatred in what the OP wrote. > > The context of her remarks I see as totally consistent with my point here. If we just regard a handful of dictionary entries as completely taboo, I don’t see how that serves anyone when the real problem is that some people seek to use ideas as a weapon against groups, just as defamatory speech is a weapon against an individual. > > The OP was most certainly not attacking anyone, so by definition it can’t be hate speech. I agree with this strongly. I heartily disagree with clairobscur’s point, but don’t think this remotely qualifies as hate speech. The usage of “faggot” in this context is a dismissal of the people who make the sort of argument they were citing, not calling people faggots. I.E. the people it’s meant to belittle are the bigoted, not the targets of the slur. While I believe clairobscur isn’t gay, I’ll say it’s not at all uncommon for marginalized people to use slurs for themselves not even in a reclaimed sense, but to flippantly summarize something bigoted someone is saying in plain language. IIRC we had a similar topic with Ronald Raygun and the word “tranny” a few months back (though in this case the actual warning was due someone had seen RR using it and followed up in the same thread using it themselves not realizing it was a slur due to not being a native speaker, not RR’s use herself). In essence, it’s denying bigots the benefits of playing on their own turf of dogwhistles and plausible deniability by calling out in no uncertain terms that what they’re advocating is “the trannies should have to wear pink triangles to identify themselves so as not to trick ‘normal people’” (or whatever, that’s just an example I made up). This isn’t the same situation but it’s very similar – it’s summarizing something bigoted people say to make clear they’re being bigoted. It’s pointing out that stifling speech is a tactic bigots can use to stamp down on the marginalized by pointing out language they might use. I.E. “the faggots might be turning your son gay!!!” I’m not sure clairobscur really **should** have used the word in the context considering they don’t (afaik) really have the in-group clout to use the word, and these things are very in-group out-group in our culture. However, it’s at best a polite mod note and moderating it as hate speech is absurd. This board has an extremely peculiar view of hate speech when “using a slur to illustrate bigoted rhetoric” is hate speech but somehow > [@My friend has gone over the edge into Trumpdom](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-gone-over-the-edge-into-trumpdom/842123/165): > > Coming from the same party whose people cut off their own private parts and take hormones to grow tits, and openly want to be able to do the same to children. > > Spare me, bud. goes without so much as a mod note even after being actively discussed in an ATMB thread, or all the myriad threads just oh so politely wanting to talk about why those black people just aren’t as smart as us white people??? isn’t. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-speech-and-censorship/842871)._