Cancel Culture and the Harper's Letter

Are you sure? That’s a risk, bit it is not inevitable. Canada has had anti-hate speech laws on the books since 1970 and its working fine.

Yeah, but you guys don’t have full-on fascists running your governments. Republicans are calling BLM a hate group, they would 1,000% try to use Euro-style hate speech laws against leftist groups if they had the chance.

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Right but the way out of that situation is not to religiously defend free speech absolutism, its to drive the fascists back under their rock where they belong.

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They will come back and the tools you give the next Obama will be there for the next Trump.

Anti-hate speech laws in the US would be used to protect corporations. Hate Amazon? Go to jail.

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I understand your argument I just find it totally unconvincing. When people say stuff like “Sure, hate speech laws have worked great for decades in other countries with none of the bogeyman outcomes I claim are natural consequences, but if we enact hate speech laws in the US it will be a disaster!” all I hear is “Sure, universal health care has worked great for decades in other countries with none of the bogeyman outcomes I claim are natural consequences, but if we enact universal health care in the US it will be a disaster!”

The question has been asked and answered over and over again outside the US.

This is a standard US “freedom” fallacy where your alleged freedom of speech has saturated your public discourse with open fascism. Great job guys!

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In my opinion you shouldn’t be able to post this at all. The problem with having to use your real name for these posts is that you have to use it for every other type of post as well and for some you have a legitimate interest to stay anonymous.

See, Facebook did this with the real name culture stuff and imo it backfired horribly. People didn’t stop acting the way they did anonymously, they just got used to acting that way with their identity attached. I don’t see that as an improvement.

I only really care about privacy and public speech. I don’t think people should be able to read your private messages or anything.

Except these boogeymen really do exist. Let’s check that wikipeida article…

Actions aimed at the incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as the humiliation of a person or group of persons on grounds of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, attitude to religion, as well as affiliation to any social group, committed publicly or with the use of media or information and telecommunication networks, including the network “Internet” shall be punished by a fine of 300,000 to 500,000 rubles or the salary or other income for a period of 2 to 3 years, or community service for a period of 1 year to four years, with disqualification to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities up to 3 years, or imprisonment for a term of 2 to 5 years.

Seems like Russia has robust hate crimes laws. So does Hungary.

There are many examples where people might want to post in a public forum anonymously:

  • losing a loved one causing debilitating grief
  • having been sexually assaulted
  • someone is diagnosed with a severe illness
  • a spouse who has been cheated on
  • suffering from erectile dysfunction
  • a married father discovers he is attracted to men
  • struggling with addiction
  • etc.

People might want to share their experiences and/or seek help or advice but only if they do not have to reveal it to their family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and total strangers.

There are obvious workarounds here. Again I’m really talking about a very specific type of public speech. The kind we’re all engaged in here actually.

You can add that to my list.

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Conceded. But what about the other dozens of countries listed there?

I’m not convinced that hate speech laws are the reason they’re handling racism better than USA#1 (are they?). Seems like the Euros still have people like Kate Hopkins making a living out of saying racist shit about Pakistanis and they still have far-right Nazi parties all over.

If you set up Euro-style hate speech laws in the US, would guys like Tucker Carlson have to change what they do? Just seems like you’d only stop the really openly Nazi guys who have already lounging in obscure websites like Gab.Meanwhile Republicans would file endless bad-faith lawsuits with Ilhan Oman.

On a bunch of these issues, building up good institutions in 2020 might be too late to be a full solution. But, these other countries having better institutions has helped.

I’m not saying they should be judged the same, but the arguments here are very close to what social media sites use to avoid culpability.

Hate speech laws in the US will work the same way WN’s moderation at 22 worked. Maybe countries with functional adults running things can benefit from hate speech laws, but the US is way too similar to Russia right now for that to be a good idea.

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Well since the regulations aren’t written in the US there is an opportunity to make them as strong or as constrained as desired.

Where I think the US is making a mistake is placing too much emphasis and implied value in absolutism. I’m not saying free speech is bad, I’m saying its suboptimal to allow people to use it as a shield for shitty behavior that hurts others. Whats the difference between people saying “it’s my right to use Facebook to brainwash people with fascist propaganda or fantasies about Bill Gates and vaccines” and people bleating about murights to wander around in a pandemic coughing on people? Generally the government shouldn’t have the power to lockdown people or mandate masks or whatever, but the law permits them that power in a public health crisis. Well guess what, your democracy is in a crisis situation because you’re desperately clinging to free speech murights nonsense instead of throwing a regulatory book at people intentionally misleading others. It’s insane forest for the trees stuff. “We cant implement laws to stop fascists from taking over the government because future fascists might abuse that power”. HELLO BILL FUCKING BARR IS THE ATTORNEY GENERAL RIGHT NOW! THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS ROUNDING UP PROTESTERS WITH EXTRAJUDICIAL AGENTS IN AMERICAN CITIES RIGHT NOW!

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https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1299373865060249609
https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1299374396864368641

Behold your ally, JK :eyes:

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