Perhaps it’s a misperception on my part, but it does seem like there has been an increase in posters posting generalized racist comments in threads and forwarding “scientific” racist ideas and concepts. I have not kept a catalogue or anything of this kind of stuff, but it has seemed to me that these comments are coming very close to or crossing the line of hate speech.
So far as I know, the official rules ban hate speech on these forums:
I think there is a definite line between using free speech to combat ignorance and giving hate and racism a place to plant its seed and grow. The internet has coincided with a rise in open racism and hatred in this country, because racists have ap lace where they can speak and spread their hate and society cannot effectively shun them.
Some prominent online forums have become a fertile ground for racists, who have effectively taken over and shut out anti-racism in some prominent subject areas.
And if the spreading of racist ideas without official board censure starts to become more and more common here, I would rather start avoiding the boards than to continually see people beating their heads against a wall of hate speech.
So I would like some clarification of what the line is here, and what Ed Zotti and other administrators’ intentions are with regard to official action against hate speech and genuine promotion of racist ideas.
In general, we have not considered the mere advocacy of ideas that might be considered racist as falling under the “hate speech” rule. “Hate speech” as defined here is more specific, and usually involves the use of offensive ethnic slurs and/or the indication that a particular group is deserving of harm.
It’s the line between hate speech against one minority (Jews) and against others (Blacks & Muslims), they’ve made that quite clear. Or, at least, tomndebb did.
Well, reading through this, and checking his posts, I have to wonder exactly why Construct is still allowed to post here. He seems pretty far across the line.
Well, speaking only for myself and Great Debates and Elections, I’d say that it’s not so much that hate speech is not banned as it is that what is not permitted is uncivil speech. Almost anything can be up for discussion provided participants can be civil about it.
Yes, this can occasionally lead us to having posters who hold beliefs that are offensive to a great many others posting. But would it be better to give the moderators power to summarily declare certain topics off limits? I disagree. That’s a precedent that I think would eventually lead to a great many topic bans depending on the whims of board culture.
I’d prefer to have offensive topics be posted and argued against - as opposed to shouted down - than to not have some sort of SDMB orthodoxy that can’t be violated.
If I civilly started a thread on “Eurasians - just genetically bloodthirsty”, or “Jews - just genetically greedy” you think that’s going to fly the way “Africans - just genetically retarded” currently does?
The whole fucking premise of the race realist threads is uncivil. But it’s cool, at least they’re “polite”.
If someone provided evidence to support their claims regarding Eurasians or Jews, in your scenario, it would be permitted on the board for the purpose of allowing other posters with better evidence and logic to refute it.
It has always seemed to me that the most effective way to combat racist statements on the board is for intelligent, rational dopers to come pile on the idiot and point out the error of his/her ways. Much better than relying on mods to come in. If the mods do it, the idiot can just say “jack-booted thugs” and go on about spreading hate. If a pile-on happens, most idiots tend to shrink away, or else continue making stupid remarks which grow more and more shrill until they self-destruct. Or at least it works that way in my dreams.
Of course we would. Are you seriously suggesting that once a premise has been refuted it can never be brought up again? We’d get 3 threads per month across all forums!
Each thread is a unique event - largely, there are times that posters start multiple threads on a topic in a very short time span and they cross-pollinate - and brings different posters and background.
Really? You wouldn’t view someone who kept posting “Whites - genetic offspring of Yakub” threads, that were constantly being shot down and the evidence pointed out as fraudulent or made up, as a troll?
Because that’s the exact same as the race realist threads.
It’s probably been proposed before, but I think all such threads (any assertions or discussions about the relative inferiority, whether explicitly framed that way or not, of different races/ethnicities/etc.) should be moved to the Pit.
