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@rebeccaskinner
Last active January 29, 2018 03:45
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This is a common approach by groups who perpetuate hate speech- to exclaim with faux outrage that any limits on hate speech are tantamount to the dissolution of free speech at the behest of ostensibly powerful minority groups. I won't go so far as to accuse you of being a member of hate groups, but your response certainly echoes the propaganda that they spread, especially in forums like HN.

The fact is that society has always drawn lines about what speech and behavior is and isn't acceptable in different venues and circumstances. Facebook's choice to censor hate speech is no different from a bar, restaurant, or department store asking someone to leave for shouting the N-word at fellow shoppers. It's a private non-governmental entity making a choice about how they want their users to act on their platform.

Furthermore, free speech claims in favor of hate speech ignore the real material costs in human lives that facilitating hate speech incurs. While I greatly value free speech personally, I also greatly value human lives and the ability of all people to meaningfully participate in society without facing systemic oppression, violence, and hatred.

Tolerance must inevitably come face-to-face with intolerance, and if we don't act to stop the worst kinds of hatred and intolerance they fester and decay the ideals that allow tolerance to flourish at all.

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