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Comment by koheripbal | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the dangers of using "hate speech" as an nebulous term. You can then turn it around and use it as an excuse to ban whatever you want.

I could easily read through any of the front page posts on Reddit, and find what I consider to be hate speech, and if I were in a position of power, I could just use that as a justification to ban the entire domain.

Moreover, it easily allows adversaries the ability to plant hate speech in forums they dislike, and then pressure the authorities to ban it.

At the end of the day, I am an adult, and I reject the notion that sites need to protect me from speech.

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"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

Cardinal Richelieu (Alledgelly)

A lesson this generation will have to learn again.

Its terribly sad, and equally confusing has to how we got here.

At least they'll have a firm understanding of just how sexist light speed is.

I'm confused, what is the lesson here? That quote seems to get thrown around so often that it can be applied to anytime that anyone gets criticized for anything. The moderator's statement appears to be asking for more help with moderation, not advocating for less moderation or advocating for more hateful behavior to be allowed.

> That quote seems to get thrown around so often that it can be applied to anytime that anyone gets criticized for anything.

That's the point. It serves to show the perils of judging people by what they say, particularly if single offence against some perceived norms becomes a standard for punishment.

And there's another quote from that same period: "like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children" (Jacques Mallet du Pan).

The point should be deeper than that, the character, methods and legacy of the Cardinal Richelieu are the important aspects.

The man cement centralised power within France by through a multitude of authoritarian methods.

And so in my opinion it's the motives behind such a statement that are important.

I have to say, that still doesn't mean much to me here. In a real court system, we judge people by their actions and behaviors, sometimes their speech can play into that. I assume that's what the author was referring to. (Apparently the origin of this quote is not clear, but it does seem to come from that same time period) This can't be compared to social media, the only way to judge anyone in the context of a social media platform is by what they say. That's all there is on these platforms, if you take that away, there's nothing left. You are judging someone every time you make a decision whether to like/follow/reply/retweet or not. If your view is that all that doesn't matter and the speech is meaningless, then it follows that any perceived punishments are also meaningless.

There are two lessons:

1) Language is imprecise. We do not communicate with the idea that our words have a unique, specific meaning. This means that you can do things like quote my statements out of context in order to change their intent.

2) People are not perfect. You can almost always find some "fault" in even the best people. People should not be punished for a "fault" unless it does measurable harm to someone else.

Also that meaning is created by the listener, not defined by the speaker. Anything you say can be misinterpreted, either genuinely or maliciously. The message communicated is whatever the listener hears, with all their history, biases and intentions.

Those don't seem to matter here, the business apparently is saying that the language was precise and they were experiencing measurable harm from it.

Ah yes we should learn to self-censor to save the powers that be the trouble!

"Give me 280 characters typed by the hand of an honest man, I will find something in them to cancel him."

Anon paraphrasing Cardinal Richelieu (Alledgelly)

The lesson in that quote is that it doesn't matter what you write, if someone with the right authority wants you hanged, or wants to shut down your discord, it'll happen regardless of due process.

This is different from what the parent poster is implying. It's about the dangers of authoritarianism. No plants or justification are necessary.

I don't think they're protecting you from speech, but protecting themselves from it. A murky reputation harms their ad revenue or corporate opportunities, I imagine.

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