Hate speech and censorship

Perhaps rule #8?

This is the attitude I was referring to in my first response. It’s fine to disagree with the rules here against hate speech. But you lose my support when you violate those rules, then argue you shouldn’t be warned because it doesn’t match your definition. You weren’t discussing the word “faggot”, you were using it.

It is better to ask permission than to seek forgiveness.

You realize that the mere usage of a word is not so-called ‘hate speech’? But that’s the thing with context, it can be ignored or contrived when convenient.

First of all; when I agree with you or when I don’t, you are one Hell of a good writer and I admire your talent. You are one of the few “long posters” where I almost always read the entire thing rather than the opening and then skim the rest.

Reading the thread from the beginning and seeing several different Mod actions thrown into the mix, I decided to keep any opinions I had to myself. No matter how valid the argument or how honestly it is said there are some things that really just cannot be said in a system/forum like this. Among friends, or even not with friends but in person – maybe. Is that a loss of freedom; free speech and an exchange of ideas? Maybe; but unfortunately I think its been a fact of life all during my lifetime. What confuses the issue is what is hate speech today differs from say the 60s and will change a lot again by 2060. For GD I think often your post would have passed muster 9 times out of 10 but -------- did I mention the other various times a Mod or another popped in?

As the word wasn’t directed at a particular person, nor threatening violence, it was not hate speech, and shouldn’t have been used like that. However, it’s not a appropriate use of the word, and probably should have been mod noted rather than warned as being unnecesarily offensive. Had it been in quotes, it would probably have been fine, as the word would be mentioned rather than used.

Speaking as a queer, I’d rather see “faggot” unmoderated than warned for. Asking people not to use it is fine, forcing people not to unless as a direct insult or threat to an individual is not, in my opinion.

That’s at best a technical interpretation, if not a bad faith one. What I wrote was essentially a quote, albeit of an imaginary speaker.

It might be construed as technically breaking the letter of the rule (I would have to read the exact wording of the rules to be sure of it) but I don’t see how it would break their spirit unless the spirit isn’t “don’t express hate speech” but “don’t write bad words”. And if it’s the case, I will probably have a problem with the rules, indeed, and will consider leaving a board that seems to have become less and less accepting of ideas that don’t fit closely the views of the majority.

It’s not about USA vs France. It’s about an anomalous perception in the USA. An insult is normally addressed to someone. Deciding that simply reading or hearing a word not addressed to you (nor in fact to anybody else) counts as being insulted is an aberration. And the problem isn’t simply that the USA have this peculiarity, it’s that as a result, they see it not as a local specificity originating in peculiar mores or a peculiar racial history or whatever, but as an objective and universal truth. And unless you want to ban non-anglo posters (since most anglo countries tends to eventually follow the american lead and adopt american prejudices), you can’t expect them to follow at all time all your “special rules”.

Besides, I’m familiar enough with American habits to know that the idea that simply pronouncing or writing a slur is in itself homophobic/racist/whatever isn’t generally accepted. That’s a view promoted by part of the political spectrum (of which you are part) and that is gaining ground, but it’s not universally accepted (as opposed to, say, wearing a black face), and not by a long shot. And that isn’t rejected solely by the ALT right or whatever. So, I think that you’re trying here to subject me not only to some peculiar american rule of conduct, but in fact to a rule of conduct peculiar to your American sub-group that you’d like to enforce on everybody.

And where in this rule it is mentioned that using “faggot” in a sentence counts as “hate speech”?
(I assume now that this word is the cause of the warning, not the rest of the statement, although the mod didn’t explain exactly what the problem was)

  1. They are under no obligation to list every single word that counts as hate speech. In fact, to make such a list would only invite others to search for hate speech that isn’t on the list.
  2. If you are of a mind that there is no such thing as “hate speech” that needs to be moderated, then of what use to you would a cite about that particular word be? Frankly, if one has agreed to the rules to be allowed to post, to claim that any particular rule means nothing defies logic.

Quoting what an imaginary person of the 50s would say isn’t “using it”. It might be your definition, but I don’t see how it’s any better than mine, and why I would expect your particular interpretation to be the correct one. Obviously, when reading a rule I’m going to assume that my interpretation is correct, otherwise I wouldn’t interpret it this way.

There’s absolutely nothing in the rules specifically about the usage of slurs. There’s exactly no reason to assume that, lacking any intent to insult, merely writing a slur goes against the general “no hate speech” rule.

And once again, how extensively you and others view “hate speech”, more than prove my point about how extensive hate speech laws are going to be and disprove the arguments of people who stated or believed that of course only deliberate, repeated, non-sarcastic, etc… speech would be targeted.

I’m of the opinion that what I wrote is in no way hate speech. Which isn’t at all the same thing.

Hate speech would be actually arguing that faggots threaten your children, for instance. Illustrating my point about people wanting to ban all sort of speech that would now be deemed perfectly acceptable by quoting what those people would say is in no way hate speech. It’s if anything the contrary of it since giving such statements as counter-examples of why restricting speech is wrong implies that I disapprove of such opinions.

Can you give me your exact definition of what constitutes “hate speech” so that I can see how you include my statements in this category?

It is not my definition(nor is it yours) that matters-it is the definition of those who enforce the rules here, which is what we agreed to when we signed up.

They don’t need to list each word. But if they intend to mean that writing slurs, even not intended as an insult, might be considered as hate speech, they definitely need to clarify how slurs in general can or cannot be used.

It’s quite clear so far that even on this specific board, not everybody agrees with you about whether using “faggot” the way I did constitutes hate speech, so it’s not like I’m arguing against the obvious.

It was using the word “faggot” that resulted in the warning.

Couching something as if an imaginary person may be saying it doesn’t transform use of hate speech into acceptable actions. If this were the case, it would be trivially easy to sidestep rules against hate speech by couching them as if coming from an imaginary person.

Person A: [statement]
Person B: an imaginary racist person would call you a [racial slur]
Person C: an imaginary racist person calls people [slurs] all the time. I don’t like it, but they do it so are they really [slurs]?

That’s all bad.

Being directed at a person or threatening violence are not required elements for something to be considered hate speech. We allow insults of off board people. We would not allow slurs to be used against off board people.

Mentioning the word “faggot” is not prohibited. Doing so is necessary to discuss the word, it’s implications, etc. No word is categorically banned on the boards from discussion, but in the context of slurs that would be in the context of discussing the words themself, not using them. Basically if you are using slurs you should be incredibly careful to fall on the “mention” side of the use/mention distinction. In my view, you weren’t talking about the word “faggot”, you were using it. If you want to assert that you were mentioning the word rather than using it, then feel free to make your case.

Sure. That’s why I’m asking you repeatedly where exactly in those rules it is made clear that my use of the word faggot fall within the definition of hate speech.

And I’m asking your definition, since you seem pretty convinced that it was obviously covered by a rule that says “no hate speech” and nothing else, basically. So, you must have an idea of how “no hate speech” includes my statements.

Basically, you used the word to spice up your argument. That isn’t considered a good enough reason to use those words on this board. I’ve seen almost the exact same warning issued by Bone before.

The word is a slur directed against one of the entities mentioned in the rule. I’ve seen warnings given for the usage of such slurs, even in the Pit, so the moderation here seems to be consistent.

The other point I would make is that the way the board chooses to define and enforce rules against hate speech has absolutely nothing to do with the legal definition of hate speech in countries that have such laws. The definition of hate speech in criminal law generally requires that there be a credible threat of violence against a particular class of individual, or the advocacy of genocide. As I implied in my comments back in the original thread, a lot of folks arguing against hate speech laws seem to be under the impression that they’re laws against saying nasty things about certain groups of people. They’re typically a lot more than that, so your whole line of argument with those examples, or snarky references to how the SDMB prohibits hate speech, is rather pointless to the substance of the discussion about law.

Then you’ll need to also ban reporting on someone else statements because what you said can be done with the statement of a real person. Not need for him to be imaginary.

I’d have expected the SDMD to rule on the basis of what one was actually saying and his intent. Not on the basis of what another person could theoretically do with an intent that could theoretically be bad.

Then you should probably specify what is the SDMB definition of hate speech. It certainly doesn’t fit mine, and I don’t see how I could be expected to guess what yours is.

I already made my point, at length. If you aren’t convinced, you won’t ever be. I of course totally disagree with the extension of the concept of “hate speech” to what I wrote. And once again think that it is an excellent example of how restriction of speech will inevitably devolve in more and more extensive bans of everything that someone can construe as being offensive. You said it yourself, intent doesn’t matter, and context, obviously, doesn’t either. It is in particular obvious that any unclear instance will be put on the “condamnable hate speech” side by default. Hence that forbidden speech will become the default and allowed speech the exception.

So, in your view, you actually thought that clairobscur was stating his own opinion when he said “Faggot speech is what threatens your children”?

You really thought that?

As another example, here is Daniel Tosh in a comedy special he had:

"And this is what I say to the most conservative person that’s so terrified of gay marriage becoming legal. Just because the state says it’s legal, it’s not like god’s gonna let ’em into heaven. Okay? So you can still sleep sound every night knowing that goal line defense is up at the pearly gates just going, “yeah. you’re not getting in here, faggots!”

Would you honestly believe that that was Tosh’s opinion?

Sometimes people use inflammatory language to make a point. Mostly, to ridicule or to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the opposing sides argument.

Clearly, the post that was warned was showing how, if hate speech became enshrined in law, those with horrid viewpoints might be able to shut down speech that they don’t agree with, such as speech coming from gay people.

Seemed clear to me.

also, I don’t know which pronoun to use, so I just went with “he” because typing “their” each time seemed weird.

Well, I would guess that “spicing up my argument” would be a proper assessment of why I used it.

I didn’t need indeed to use it. Or could have taken oratory precaution, even though Bone’s post shows that even in this case it would have been considered misuse and “hate speech” anyway. For instance, if I write a story including an homophobic character, it would be considered hate speech according to the rules of this board. That it could be a problem generally speaking seems to elude people who hold that the SDMB definition of “hate speech” is the proper and logical one. But I see “faggot” as a word as any other that obviously can’t be offensive unless it’s directed at someone to disparage him.

I’m not going at my age to begin to sanitize my language because some small group has decided that some words are so taboo that simply reading them is horribly offensive and that they can only ever be written or pronounced in some sort of clinical setting. It didn’t even cross my mind that someone would consider what I wrote as “hate speech”, but even if I had, I would have written it anyway because this participates of the growing PC correctness sanitation trying to eliminate from allowed expression anything that might possibly offend someone, regardless of how minor the alleged slight might be (see “micro-agression”).

I also resent the fact that not only what I wrote is technically defined as hate speech, but people judge that writing it is a hateful conduct, hence in this case homophobic, especially since I’ve been involved in gay rights before some of these people were probably even born. Of course, that doesn’t mean that my ancient definition of homophobia still applies. Or rather that it won’t eventually becomes outdated (because at this point these people only attempt to impose their view and don’t have yet succeeded).But I’m not going to accept a view where the members of a group deemed to be particularly oppressed (and I don’t think that those groups are the actual oppressed. Oppressed people are, as they have always been, the underclass, defined by socio-economic status, not by skin color or sexual preferences. But that’s another matter) must be protected from even the slightest feeling of annoyance in a way that would be consider laughable if anybody else required it. Of course I don’t exclude that everybody won’t eventually require the same level of pampering for himself, transforming communication into a minefield. In any case the definition of hateful conduct seems now to be “doing anything that could miff in some way a member of the oppressed classes” (I can, fortunately, still insult and mock the unemployed, the poor, the less intelligent and less educated, etc…all those people who not only aren’t oppressed but might very well be privileged oppressors depending of whom they fuck with).

So, yes, I’m hateful by those definitions. Of course, I reject entirely their validity, and consider them socially dangerous in particular, but not solely, because they lead to social division and disintegration. Did I already allude to the fact that they also distract from recognizing and addressing the issues of those who are actually oppressed instead of being a tenured university professor who prefers to think that she succeeded despite the prejudice against black lesbians rather than thanks to her parents upper middle class social background and wonders how hateful an unemployed miner must be to vote for a candidate who promises him a job?
So, in conclusion, I’ll keep writing “faggot” and be hateful. If it eventually earns me an exclusion from the SDMB, then so be it. At this point anyway, it has become less and less accepting of any opinion that doesn’t closely toe the line of a certain American left (that of the tenured professors, not that of the miners). It used to be a hotbed of discussion, left leaning but open to debate about (almost) any concept that was relatively well articulated, and in an open-minded way that you couldn’t find on any other forum. It has devolved into a sleepy exclusive club of supposedly progressive people intolerant of any view that contradicts their narrow perception of society and any person who doesn’t genuflects appropriately to whoever is defined as oppressed while acknowledging their guilt for events that happened one century before their birth on another continent and empathizing with the horrors of having to read an inappropriate word or to endure a a lusty glance.
Yesterday, I randomly read a poll thread here, where people were asked whether they had been victims of sexual assault. Besides some comments about men daring to mention having been victim of such things, I noted mostly that the responses ranged from people who had been raped repeatedly since early childhood to people who had once their back touched by someone hitting on them. I’ll leave the astute reader determine what it might have to do with my hateful use of “faggot”.