Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

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As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed.

Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance becomes a luxury only those not directly involved can afford.

Let us substitute something else for right wing/fascist extremism for a moment: Dschihadism. When do we stop tolerating Dschihadists? And when do we start treating every Dschihadist as a potential terrorist, which should be surveilled, silenced, imprisoned and ultimately even killed? The answer is very clear: when the frequency with which people violate other peoples fundamental rights in the Name of Dschihadism starts to rise too much. Be it their children or women who are at times forbidden basic human rights, be it the victims of their violent attacks. This is way beyond being just speech, this is anti-humanistic ideology and it should be stopped just at the point where words become actions.

Now if you ask how things changed so quickly: A significant part of the US public came closer to these actions (with a strongly visible part trying to stop the counting of a democratic election with violence). During the Trump years it wasn't just speech that was problematic. People got killed, people got attacked, people got their rights violated in many ways based on that speech. And there is a threshold beyond which tolerance makes you complicit.

Don't become the kind of person that tolerates the NSDAP party rise while closing your eyes to all the clearly visible actions that follow their Brandreden (=German for "inflamatory speech").

You can totally say something I don't agree with and I will fight for your right to do it, but as soon as you step over the line and violate other peoples rights, you waived your right to be tolerated by me.

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats. There is no need for hate speech regulations.

Jihadism is not covered by free speech, nazism is not covered by free speech but racism is covered by free speech.

You also seem to conflate jihadists with muslims - that's not the case.

Jihadists are terrorists and they want war, other muslims integrate with other societies.

There is definitely a point to be made that Islam may employ a long term strategy of integration followed by politically controlling an entire country once they reach a majority (which could start happening in Europe in 50 years or so). That could be seen as a non-violent jihad (pardon the oxymoron), but that's a scenario that would be perfectly legal and not violent. Written or unwritten constitutions in western countries should be able to protect religious freedom even in such an event - or maybe countries will decide to change and become stricter in the religions they allow (whether by becoming islamic or anti-islamic).

What is a violent threat? Why is it taken as an axiom that this is where the line is drawn for free speech? I am personally less concerned with individual violence than with political violence enacted by hate groups who gain legislative power.

For a long time, gay people could be thrown in prison for having gay sex. This was mass violence against gay people. It was absolutely within free speech rights to advocate for these laws and to vote for legislators who supported these laws. This, IMO, was far more violent to the gay community than an individual saying "let's go kill that f*g". So I question whether "violent threats unacceptable, hate speech acceptable" is the right boundary.

> naziism is not covered by free speech

Are you not familiar with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

Nazism was specifically defended by the ACLU and won. Speech is speech. And it was a Jewish lawyer who fought the case.

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats.

This is a very childish way to look at the world. Unfortunately there's more "violence" than physically bonking people over the head. State oppression is violence, societal oppression is violence, widespread racism is violence; Hitler didn't have to openly call for violence against the Jews for quite some time. All he had to do was say that they're rats, traitors, subhuman, they're why Germany lost the war, etc. Every day the state and capitalism wield their violence on the people: if you don't comply they will kick you off your home. Point being there is more violence than simply saying "I will now proceed to punch this person".

I can agree with your examples of truly extreme and hostile behaviour (even though the level of which hasn't changed much in the last 15 years where I noticed the change? In fact, the post-9/11 dschihadism scare was, in retrospect, overblown and of course exploited politically)

OP however just seem to hint vaguely to unwanted opinions that should lead to loss of work, implicitly handing the power to a social media mob (or possibly organized groups posing as such) that enforces unwritten rules and targets people with precarious employment or small influencers who depend on their sponsors.

I'd prefer if we'd spell it out in a law and keep the enforcement to the courts, thanks!

Agreed. The problem with this stance though is verification.

How do you verify that someone is stepping over the line and violating the rights of others.

We rely on various NGOs and media reporting for the raw data and the law courts for independent verification.

So it’s no surprise of course that these are early targets for people with malign interests.

It’s a simple litmus test. Both of those functions should be made far more independent of political control.

Easier said than done.

(grammar edit)

>as soon as you step over the line and violate other peoples rights

What specific right is it that could be impinged by someone else's speech act?

>Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions.

>People got killed, people got attacked, people got their rights violated in many ways based on that speech.

Do you apply this logic to also justify being intolerant to anti-liberal, hate-filled, and potentially violence-provoking speech that comes from the left?

Also: how do you feel about possible harm that comes to people as a result of speech not being tolerated? For example, if openly saying that some demographics are on average more violent than others makes the people who say it unemployable, then some people probably will get injured or killed because out of ignorance, they fail to take precautions that they would have taken had speech been more tolerated.

> Do you apply this logic to also justify being intolerant to anti-liberal, hate-filled, and potentially violence-provoking speech that comes from the left?

Uhm, yes?

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