Which one? Race? Religion?
Back in July, I earned a hate speech warning for - let’s just say I used exactly the word I wanted to use in exactly the context I wanted it to be in, because I wanted to use the bluntest tool I had to make my point. It took a mere 33 minutes be officially warned.
However, I should point out that was my first and only warning in the 20 years I’ve posted here, because it was the first and only time I felt it necessary to use the bluntest tool I had to make my point.
If you want to stand on principle, well, I’d be a hypocrite not to be on your side. But I would suggest choosing your battles carefully. One warning in 20 years sounds about right to me.
Obviously, “gender”, which I take to mean primarily a prohibition of slurs against any member of the LGBT community, but it could also be used to sanction hateful misogyny and misandry. I seem to recall homophobic slurs getting warnings.
But as I said, support for censorship is growing in general, and the pressure to have internet sites ban speech deemed offensive is pretty worrying as well. Plus it can be mixed. As I mentioned in one of these threads, France recently passed a law mandating websites to delete any hateful post within 24 hours or face hefty fines. Given how trigger happy social media already are when it comes to controversial content, what do you think they’re going to do when a post is reported as hate speech? Pay a lawyer to think long and hard about whether it’s actually hate speech or not according to legal definitions and determine how much of a fine they’ll have to pay if they let it and are mistaken? Or pay a minimum wage employee in some cheap labor country to hit the “delete” button?
Might be correct in your country, but not in France (aren’t you British?). “Incitement to racial hatred” in France only requires that your speech will likely cause other people to hate those groups, not call to violence required. An example would be “Jews are hateful and domineering” (by an extreme-right columnist). An example of mere “homophobic insults” would be a soccer player who said about some game or another “Paris, you are fags. Here, it’s the men who do the talking” (Paris, vous êtes des pédés, ici, c’est les hommes qui parlent!".
The first can get you a jail sentence (he got one year, and he was a recidivist). The second only a fine (I think).
How does that follow? It seems like one could easily manage a slur against this or that “member of the LGBT community” which doesn’t hinge on that person’s gender, since the entire point would be excluding most of the members of that gender (since the intent would, after all, be to include members of another gender).
That will be my second warning in 18 years. The first was very deserved : I kept stating my point while daring moderators to suspend me (in a Game of throne thread. The moderator had stated that my comment was book related and shouldn’t be in the thread and I kept arguing that it was show-related and should stay in the thread. Or something like that. I was extremely pissed about a number of things unrelated to the SDMB on that day).
I find this one ludicrous.
Thank you for this comment. I had no clue anybody was thinking that I was a good writer. In fact, I’m unable to judge the quality or even the correctness of what I write in English.
I had no clue that anybody was reading my long posts with attention, either. As you said, I’m a “long writer” and get carried on.
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.
This is not the right forum for an extended discussion of the original issue, but since you brought it up, this sort of challenge is exactly the same as considerations of potential libel, for which social media can already face takedown orders and potential liabilities. It’s not a justification for an unfettered free speech free-for-all.
Not British, Canadian. Again, this is not the place for an extended discussion of hate speech laws, but you can read about Canadian hate speech laws and how they have been interpreted and applied here. Most of the provisions deal with genocide or speech that might imminently “lead to a breach of the peace”. The provision that comes closest to being somewhat open-ended like the one you describe for France is 319(2) which “makes it an offence to communicate, except in private conversation, statements that wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group”. However, “identifiable group” is well defined in another section, and a Supreme Court ruling has defined “hatred” in this context as an extreme and irrational emotion that by its nature seeks “… destruction of both the target group and of the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is a most extreme emotion that belies reason; an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill‑treatment on the basis of group affiliation.” This is clearly a far higher bar than just saying mean and nasty things about a particular group, which is why there have been very few prosecutions under these laws.
You’re greatly over-lawyering your interpretation of a simple word. Clearly the informal reference to “gender” is meant to include sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. Fortunately board rules will not have to go to the Supreme Court for interpretation. 
I invited you to make your case, but I think you’re not relying on the use/mention distinction. And this is why you received a warning. Spicing up an argument, or for added emphasis, is no cover for use of slurs.
As a threshold question, do you think the board should prohibit any slurs when they are not directed at another poster, or for emphasis as you did? Like, if you were to say ‘[n-word] speech is what threatens your children’, should the board take any action at all?
First, I recommend that you don’t continue the same behavior that you were warned for.
Second, I’m conservative. Well, libertarian really. This idea that showing decency and civility is a left wing character trait is fucking bullshit. It’s not about avoiding the horror of reading an inappropriate word. It’s about creating an environment where discussion can be had that doesn’t devolve around what is labeled as “faggy” a hundred times or some other bullshit. As I said, discussion of the word in the ‘mention’ category is fine. Using the word, along with several others like racial slurs is not fine.
As it stands, I’m strongly opposed to hate speech laws. But for the purposes of this board, there are rules against hate speech and it is my role to enforce them.
ISTM that this is sort of an extension of the “don’t be a jerk” rule. Using “faggot” as it was in the applicable post has been deemed jerkish enough to be warnable. This isn’t about rights or free speech. I think this is just TPTB asking you to try not to be a jerk in this manner… and it’s really not that hard.
Speaking a little more generally…
It’s interesting to me, that the people most apt to bristle at restrictions for hate speech, whether in private settings, or in legislation, are those who are least likely to have it directed at them personally. Funny thing, that.
I think it’s clear that the OP was making those statements ironically (or sarcastically, if you prefer) and was not actually expressing hatred. The difficulty is that the sarcasm was rather clumsily structured such that someone reading just those lines in isolation would have been subjected to precisely the kind of offensive speech that the board wants to avoid. Furthermore, it opens the door to someone saying “not that I necessarily believe this myself, but there are people who say …” and then unleashing a torrent of bigoted hate speech from which he presumes to distance himself.
I think it’s clear enough that the OP wasn’t doing this, so I probably wouldn’t have issued the warning, but it’s a judgment call. As a strong advocate of unfettered free speech, the OP feels free to use offensive language as a form of creative irony. Some may not feel that this is OK based on the reason that the offensive language was prohibited in the first place.
I think this goes to what is considered hate speech for the purpose of the board. Do the required elements include attacking anyone [on board or off board]? Must there be intent to further marginalize groups of folks up to and including violence?
I take it that you’re open to the use in irony, or for emphasis. I’m not necessarily comfortable with all the ways that can be abused. I think a more distinct and wider demarcation allows for more clarity, which is a good thing in the context of the board.
I’m not even sure if I agree that the terms were used ironically. I suppose I should re-read the post for like the twentieth time, but seems to me that they were being used as part of a slippery slope argument which, while unsound, was illustrating her perceived dangers of where lines get drawn on offensive behavior.
So while used in a fallacious sense, I think the terms came up in a manner wholly consistent with the substance of the debate.
In fact, the real irony is that in a rather decent debate about hate speech (excepting that Brett Stephens debacle in which I can’t recall a poster ever so obviously hoisted on his own petard) in which the anti-hate speech side was generally prevailing, mentioning specifically the substance of the debate in a manner that I did not see as callous or gratuitous, is forbidden.
Anyway, I’m under no illusion that my views on this matter will change anything. But if this was a legal issue and I was on the jury, I would confidently vote “not guilty.” And not in a bullshit jury nullification way, in a substantive “that is not the behavior that is prohibited” way.
Let me think on it and pose it to the mod loop.
And how would it be surprising? Of course people will have a tendency to favor laws that benefit them. So if hate speech is directed at you, you’re obviously more likely to clamor for laws banning hate speech. Doesn’t mean that you should be the one deciding what laws should be implemented. Rather the contrary actually. Being victimized makes you partial and biased, and handing the decision over what the punishment should be for reckless driving to the parents of a child who was killed by a reckless driver, for instance, doesn’t strike me as a great idea.
Certainly, the peculiarity of hate speech (or discrimination and such) is that a large part of the population is guaranteed (or almost guaranteed) to not be victim of it (while anybody can have a child killed by a reckless driver, so the potential risk exist, even if people will probably ignore it until it happens). At least for some values of “hate speech”, since I fundamentally disagree with the concept that the “majority” (quote marks because in the case of women they’re in fact the majority) can’t be victimized (no reverse sexism, no reverse racism, etc…) and even more so with the idea that laws should be different for different categories of citizens (assuming even that you could objectively define your categories, which you often can’t). So the archetypal white straight person has little personal incentive to restrict hate speech. I would however note that people don’t exist in a vacuum. They have a black girlfriend, a gay nephew, a Muslim sister-in-law, a Jewish friend and of course a mother. It’s not like they’re all going to be utterly unconcerned by and totally unaware of the issues those people face.
However, while it’s possible to address some discrimination issues by constraining measures that have little effects on society at large (for instance forcing a landowner to rent his apartment to a black tenant), free speech is a cornerstone of democracy. There’s no democracy, and little possible freedom without free speech. I would say that freedom of speech is significantly more important than the right to vote, for instance. Anything that erodes it is highly dangerous. And has unintended (or sometimes intended but not advertised ) consequences. And freedom of speech is highly fragile, and not a simple, obvious yes/no question like the right to vote. The overwhelming majority of people don’t support free speech and wonder all the time why this or that speech is tolerated when it’s so offensive, so ridiculous, help the terrorists or whatever. But then, every single idea we hold dear came to fruition because of free speech. Because there had been people who kept advocating against fierce opposition and demonization for the liberty to express ideas that pretty much everybody else and pretty often also themselves were finding repugnant or stupid. People who also fully realized that if you banned their terribly offensive and totally misguided speech today, your absolutely correct and sensible speech will be banned tomorrow.
Think of an organization like the ACLU and how much it has done to preserve and advance liberties. You might think OK, but if the ACLU had only supported the good causes and refused to support the bad ones, the result would have been the same. Except that if the ACLU had operated under such premises, it might not have defended the Klu Klux Klan views, but it might not have defended the homosexuals views, or the communist views, either. Because its members would have found all these causes equally worthless and morally indefensible. These progresses happened only because supporters of free speech agreed to defend all form of speech, whether or not they thought they had any redeeming values.
Believing that you can determine what is worth protecting and what isn’t means that you assume you own the truth. That your values and views are the ultimate, definitive ones, indisputable and eternal. Which is what generation after generation, all your predecessors have thought while implementing slavery or hunting the reds. Which is what would make your great grandchildren laugh if they weren’t so infuriated that you could utter such horrible and obviously wrong and immoral statements.
So, what I said is that yes, obviously, some groups will be victimized by hate speech and other groups mostly not. But also that freedom of speech has been and still is fundamental and indispensable. And that it cannot be “partially” protected. That no individual or group, regardless how totally convinced they are to be right has any legitimate claim to determine what speech is worth keeping and what speech isn’t. And finally that even if they were able to, any assault again free speech by banning “unworthy” speech will favorise the subsequent ban of supposedly “worthy” speech.
What does it mean? It means that yes, I’m willing to sacrifice the interests of some people (and I very likely won’t be one of them) to protect an institution that I find absolutely fundamental and irreplaceable. Call them “acceptable casualties”, if you wish. But this isn’t exactly an unique example. I’m also willing to sacrifice the interest of other victims (and this time, I could be one of them) to maintain a due process of law and protect the rights of the accused, for instance. Which is also something that regularly comes under attack.
The offensive language wasn’t prohibited in the first place. Hate speech was.
Which assumes that it was jerkish. An opinion that, of course, I disagree with. I might have underestimated to which extent the perception of offensive speech has switched from taking offense at the use of specific words to demean someone to taking offense at the mere appearance of the word (as exemplified again by “the N word”); At least in the USA, or at least on this board. It never occurred to me that anybody could take offense at what I wrote (unless it was cut from context and as a result read as an actual statement of my opinions) or perceive it as hate speech.
Don’t take that as a regret, though. I would have used it even if I had realized it. A word is just a word. An homosexual isn’t sullied by reading “faggot”. Upholding or supporting this kind of cultural switch towards a culture where the word itself, not its use, can be legitimately perceived as offensive, where the word itself is inherently seen as hateful isn’t something I’m interested in.
…One hour or so later…
After thinking long about it, writing paragraphs, deleting them, writing another, deleting it, and so on, and also after rewriting my sentence in French, I finally came to the conclusion that it wasn’t so weird after all, nor so uniquely American, that people could take offense at my use of the word faggot in this context. I still see judging it offensive as far-fetched, and still have an issue with the idea that anybody could legitimately claim that annoyance at the mere use of a word in a non demeaning way can justify demanding the discontinuation (or nearly discontinuation) of its use. This is a novel norm, something very different from, say, a word previously non offensive becoming offensive.
Basically I see it once again as yet another instance of lowering the bar at which offense can legitimately be taken or multiplying the cases where offense can legitimately be taken, as you wish. In other words, artificially creating outrage. I don’t see it as a progress as in “this was hurtful, but ignored, but thanks to our efforts, now we admit it is hurtful” but rather “this wasn’t hurtful, and nobody cared about it, but thanks to our efforts now people find it hurtful and care about it”. And it’s not like this doesn’t happen. People who had no issue with something, once told by a dozen others that they should have an issue with it eventually begin to actually have an issue with it. Keep the process going and eventually you have a new cultural norm resulting in everybody having an issue with something nobody cared about previously.
This is why I was careful in that thread to say ‘…the word “nigger”…’ or ‘…words like “faggot” or “kike”…’. Just to make the use/mention distinction perfectly clear. No confusion, no surprise.
And “I don’t see how this is offensive” is never a good defense. Especially when that “I” is not a member of the group that perceives something as a slur.