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Comment by hofrogs | Hacker News Reader

That's why I said "at least in spirit". Sadly it's true that these laws can, and are misused. But if the spirit of the laws was followed in full - an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society, while an anti-gay law would never be beneficial, that's the difference.

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> But if the spirit of the laws was followed in full - an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society

This is magical thinking. Giving the state power over speech is a bad idea in reality. Put functional hate speech laws into that same category as Star Trek post-scarcity and transporters: things that might sound neat, but are currently impossible and have no path towards becoming possible.

The issue lies with the fact the word "hate" is too vague. If a minority calls someone from the majority "a dirty white pig" it is not considered hate in France, if someone from the majority calls "a dirty brown pig" there is more grounds. This creates an assymetry where depending on your position in society the same action can be considered hate or not. A trans person can be hateful towards hetero-normative people and get away with it, not the other way around according to the law. Both are the same action, same spirit, same "hate" only 1 is truly protected. In this case victims are not being protected by the law and the same hate-speech laws creates an inverted hierarchy dynamic. Another funny fact is due to the anti-hate speech spirit of people like you they keep increasing in scope and purpose, and that feature (not a bug) makes it so eventually ideas you agree with will become forbidden under the banner of 'protection' and only countries who have extreme protections like the US can keep true freedom of speech.

>an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society

Reading this on Hacker News of all places makes me sick. "Hate" is not illegal and who even defines what is "hate"? Do you also support Chat Control because "it's a good law in spirit"? That's the definition of a "useful idiot".

>"Hate" is not illegal

It is under anti-hate laws. That's the point of the laws.

>Do you also support Chat Control because "it's a good law in spirit"?

I don't support chat control because I don't think the ability of the state to monitor private conversations is good in spirit. However, prosecuting people who spread hatred in public spaces and media is beneficial - this has nothing to do with chat control.

Anti-hate laws are a veiled attack on free speech. If you accept the premise of hate being quantifiable to raid people's homes for sharing their opinion online you're arguing in favor of oligarch-led public partnerships between surveillance capitalism and an authoritarian state.

Anti hate laws are a curb on the genocidal origins of our species. It is atrocious and causes a lot of suffering.

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