[jakelazaroff]

I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but it bears repeating here: there is plenty of speech (such as advocacy of violence) that, if we tolerate it, has a net negative impact on speech.

Put another way: why would I paint a target on my back by trying to debate people who actively advocate for my murder? I'm much more likely to shut up and stay safe.

[manfredo]

Making credible and specific calls for violece (e.g. "actively advocating for your murder" as you put it) is punisheable by law. There does exist a mechanism to punish people actively working towards causing harm, rather than spreading ideas. Of course, many would try to claim that whole ideas should be off limits - but that's essentially a concession that they're advocating using censorship (whether through government or corporate action) to manipulate which ideas can be disseminated through societies.

[jakelazaroff]

The problem is that, although plenty of speech that is not a call for violence still causes harm, many free speech zealots (and hateful people, in bad faith) refuse to recognize it as such and consider it "spreading ideas".

Consider: "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us" aren't credible and specific calls for violence, but if I encounter an angry group of people chanting them I'm going to feel unsafe, and I'm certainly not going to do or say anything that makes me read as Jewish. This is literally the conduct on Gab that people are defending!

Unfortunately, hate speech creates a zero-sum situation: you have to choose whether to suppress the hate speech, or the people it targets. There's no way to choose both, and supporting Gab here just tells me that my speech doesn't matter. The law defines this narrowly because law must be black and white, but there's no reason we as a society can't see the (really, really, really dark) shades of gray here.

[dragonwriter]

> Unfortunately, hate speech creates a zero-sum situation: you have to choose whether to suppress the hate speech, or the people it targets. There's no way to choose both

No, you can choose both (suppress both Nazis and Jews), just not neither.

[jakelazaroff]

Yes, you're right; I phrased that incorrectly.