Hacker News Reader

There need to be (and are) reasonable exemptions to free speech, such as hate speech. If someone was targeted in an advertising campaign, and the advertisement threatened to murder them, then it would be certainly illegal. Except there's no way for anyone to police Facebook, and therefore these advertisements could thrive. Facebook's standards for advertisements may not meet the law's standards.

We want free speech, not a lawless society. I hope.

View on HN

Hate speech doesn't exist in the US, and I hope it never does. We don't need more laws deciding what an individual is allowed to say.

To your point, how is there no way to police threatening messages advertised on facebook? It seems quite easy to figure out who paid for the ad if they are indeed breaking the law with threats.

That's just a technicality, a semantic discussion of what hate really is. By the colloquial definition the laws do exist. You can look up the fighting words doctrine. Threats of violence do not fall under hate speech, but are definitely illegal, look up the definition of assault in the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com