[huntertwo]

That's quite the claim and I don't really think it's defensible. Hate speech definitely exists. Your claim is equivalent to saying there exists no speech meant to demean or harm others based on race, gender, religion, etc. Why does this kind of speech need to be protected from removal? Surely we wouldn't tolerate it in this forum, why should it be tolerated in others?

[core-questions]

> Hate speech definitely exists.

In the USA, it does not exist, in the sense that freedom of speech is absolute, even when you're demeaning or "harming" others with your words. The only way in which it is limited is when it is directly inciting action as a call to violence.

In Canada, hate speech laws exist, but again are designed around the case where a reasonable person would view the speaker as making credible threats and inciting violence.

Neither country prohibits you from saying mean things about groups you don't like. Certainly neither country prohibits you from saying true-but-uncomfortable, even scientifically backed things that are banned outright on most platforms for being hateful.

[commandlinefan]

> Hate speech definitely exists.

There’s plenty of stuff that you and I would both look at and say, “yep, that’s definitely hate speech”. There’s lots of stuff that I might call hate speech under any definition of it but you might think is perfectly reasonable. Since you’re defending censoring hate speech, I suspect there’s even more stuff that you would call hate speech but I would think is perfectly reasonable. And as we’ve seen over and over again, once you allow for censorship/cancellation based on “hate”, the definition of “hate” grows without bound.

[0x445442]

Speech that's meant to demean or harm others? Who judges the intentions and what criteria is used to make that determination?

I find the claim that there are not clear double standards within this context to be indefensible.

Is wearing a MAGA hat in public hate speech?

Is telling someone their opinion doesn't count because of "white privileged" or "the patriarchy" hate speech?

What about calling evangelical's red neck climate change deniers?

You see, I've never encountered anyone that's vocal in this realm to apply their own standards logically and objectively.

[9HZZRfNlpR]

Do you think Cohen and his movies are hate speech? They are full of attacks, demonization, and mocking people based on their ethnicity, religion etc.

[domnomnom]

I think your claim that hate speech is indefensible. Because in order to show it exists you would have to define what it is and what it isn’t entirely, and not allow that definition to expand. But that’s not really possible, so really what does exist is people who try to call things hate speech things and then make others conform to that.. but what do you do when they start defining legitimate criticism as hate speech? You can’t do anything if they’re enforcing things by law (ie guns).

[oska]

> Surely we wouldn't tolerate it in this forum, why should it be tolerated in others?

Because this is the difference between moderation and freedom of speech. It is fine to say that some things are not acceptable to say within a particular forum; it is not fine to stop people saying those things everywhere.