You suggest that people subject to social stigma and censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position?
If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my behalf I would certainly do.
Would you?
Now, if I'm wrong about some point of fact, I am more than willing to be corrected. And that's all it should take.
If someone feels the need to go beyond merely arguing my claim is false and use the accusation of hate speech, I'm going to seriously doubt that person is intellectually serious or acting in good faith.
Questioning our own positions is the opposite of bigotry, after all.
Now here you are asking for reasons before you reevaluate your own position when we claim you are in error. Do you not see the hypocrisy?
You are welcome to expect arguments before you change your mind. You can be "innocent until proven guilty". That's all the rest of us ask. Telling others to assume fault when you yourself do not is a rather poor way to argue.
The opinion of an independent adjudicator like the platform you're on with hopefully unbiased hate speech rules should be considered evidence in a way that the bad faith arguments of the person you're arguing with is not.
That is, I should not necessarily take your accusation of hate speech at face value, because you've proven to be willing to try and use it to win an argument. But if dang said that I was doing something that broke the rules, I would be more introspective. This is, yes, technically an argument from authority, but so is basically everything in the world of social dynamics.
So the burden of proof for you and the burden of proof for hacker news as a platform may be different, but that has nothing to do with me vs. you.
So I'll repeat what the other user said: if dang@ came along and asked you to stop engaging in hateful rhetoric, would you take a moment to introspect on that, or would you first reaction be to argue and demand proof?
Mine would be to try and figure out what he was referring to, and then probably to do less of it. And indeed, when chastised by him, that's more or less what I've done.
>> EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.
> You suggest that people subject to social stigma and censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position?
That's twisting what he said. What he actually said is that people who are bothered by "hate speech rules" should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions." He didn't say anything about downvotes should lead to similar self-questioning.
As the original article itself pointed out, "hate speech" is an amorphous term that can refer to any socially unacceptable speech. Actual "hate speech rules" and "downvotes" are merely different mechanisms for enforcing social stigma and censure.
The real question is at what point should a person reevaluate their opinions in light of social pressure. The commenter I was responding to seems to think it should only happen when the opinions in question are ones he disagrees with.
EDIT: additionally, complaining about downvotes is also against the rules of this site. For someone to do that while extending no charity to those who break other content moderation policies is...interesting.
> As the original article itself pointed out, "hate speech" is an amorphous term that can refer to any socially unacceptable speech. Actual "hate speech rules" and "downvotes" are merely different mechanisms for enforcing social stigma and censure.
No, you're blurring things to the point of meaninglessness. For instance, "first post" competitions would clearly be unacceptable speech here, yet I doubt anyone in good faith would actually call such posts hate speech.
Also, downvotes are an opaque mechanism. Did your post get downvoted because you said something widely regarded as offensive, are this guy [1], or because you just had too many typos? You can speculate, but that's not very good basis for self reflection. However, if you're mad you can't post speech that (for instance) directly attacks some race as being inferior [2], you have a pretty clear thing to reflect on.
[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0701/What-happened-to-t...
[2] https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/objectionable_co...
No, but if you think "hate speech" is a clear and definite term with no room for abuse you are deluding yourself.
> Also, downvotes are an opaque mechanism.
The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being downvoted. He presented an unsophisticated and (on this forum) unpopular view of hate speech rules.
> If you're mad you can't post speech that (for instance) directly attacks some race as being inferior [2], you have a pretty clear thing to reflect on.
Insisting that people who are critical of hate speech rules are white supremacists is not a constructive take.
That's actually not an uncommon situation for a term, such is human language. Most terms have fairly established meanings with a bit of fuzziness around the edges. That doesn't mean they're meaningless, arbitrary, or not useful.
> The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being downvoted. He presented an unsophisticated and (on this forum) unpopular view of hate speech rules.
It was certainly unpopular with some, but I wouldn't say it was unsophisticated.
> Insisting that people who are critical of hate speech rules are white supremacists is not a constructive take.
I made it clear that was an example, not a general characterization of any group. You'll also notice I didn't specify any particular race, so you're basically putting words in my mouth.
The other commenter was insisting others take certain accusations or forms of disapproval at face value, yet was hypocritically quite defensive when challenged and down-voted.
The idea that "hate speech" accusations form some sort of special category where they should be taken at face value is absurd.
It was a rhetorical attempt to bully someone into submission that failed because most people here recognized it for what it was. And then he whined about people not approving.
Who decides if Nazis are allowed to put signs with Nazi slogans on your lawn?
Twitter and Facebook are common carriers[0], not private residences.
Edit: 0: By which I mean that are common carriers in practice, not that they are legally recognized as such.
Except they aren't actually common carriers. Some people are of the opinion they should be, but having an opinion doesn't make it so.
I think (based on this) that you mean they aren't legally recognized as common carriers (which isn't what I said, but fair enough; edited to clarify).
A few private platforms have stopped selling those books -- not all of them, neither all platforms nor books.
You can still find those books, you just won't be able to buy official reprints from the copyright holder.
I am not sure where you'll draw the line if you insist that copyright holders continue to issue reprints or if you insist that private platforms continue to offer trade in things they don't want on their platforms.
Would that rule apply to ebay, but not a physical retail store where space is at a premium and people have to make choices about what not to sell every day? And would that rule compel ebay to sell nazi memorabilia or pre-American civil war slave memorabilia (which, afaik, they do not sell)?
The Seuss stuff is something I really can't wrap my head around, because what is it people really want? Just the estate to be compelled to keep printing and selling them, that ebay be compelled to keep allowing them to be sold?
Or some broader rule where any copyright holder of some (contemporarily) objectionable material be compelled to keep offering it, and every store be compelled to keep trading in it? All of those put limits on people's freedoms to choose in ways that make me uncomfortable.
The production of an instant moral consensus - so that everyone, all at once, decides freely that it would be incompatible with their values to do what they were doing yesterday - is an exercise of a kind of power. “It’s just private entities doing what they want to do” doesn’t mitigate that.
Yes, Seuss's family pulled a few books from production but I don't recall anyone decrying them.
That's a bizarre assertion to make.
At best it's an annoying distraction; at worst it makes people feel like shit for needing to constantly justify their existence.
But in this case, my understanding is that the distinction of sex and gender is essential to the concept of transgender in the first place. Is insisting (perhaps somewhat pedantically) on using those terms in a consistent fashion really an offense?
Now, they are free to exclude people for whatever reason they want. Sub-reddits are not supposed to be all things to all people. But the statement does not strike me as obviously offensive to trans people (I've even seen them make the same distinction).
That... depends? I mean, consider that "male" and "female" (as buckets people are assigned to at birth) do a pretty bad job of describing actual biology in many cases, often with harmful results. And that's before we even get to the topic of gender identity! You can be a trans woman while you still have a penis, because being trans isn't just about having surgery. (Consider that the term "transsexual" has fallen out of favor, in part because "transgender" covers the idea that your birth-assigned sex or biological features don't always accurately describe your identity.)
Anyway, consider what the parent originally said:
> > I was banned from r/asktransgender for telling a girl in a relationship with a pre-transition MtF person that it doesn’t make sense to call herself a lesbian (since sexual orientation is based on sex and not gender)
That's.. just not correct at all. Who was the parent to decide that "lesbian" = "biological female in relationship with biological female"? If someone identifies as female and is in a relationship with someone who identifies as female, they are perfectly justified in calling themselves lesbians, regardless of what reproductive parts or hormonal levels they have. Disagreeing with that is just meaningless, because this is how the word "lesbian" is used in the real world, and fighting against reality is generally not a winning move.
> Is insisting (perhaps somewhat pedantically) on using those terms in a consistent fashion really an offense?
If you're someone who's tired of outsiders telling you how you're supposed to describe yourself, yes, it probably is an offense. It's even worse when said outsider doesn't know what they're talking about and is insisting upon something that's incorrect.
> Now, they are free to exclude people for whatever reason they want.
I don't know why the parent got banned, of course. It could have been because they offended people, or it could have simply been because they were being an annoying pedantic (incorrect!) language lawyer who was sucking the life out of discussions. Either, in my mind, is a valid reason for a ban.
> But the statement does not strike me as obviously offensive to trans people (I've even seen them make the same distinction)
"Trans people" is not a monolithic block of people all with the same attitudes and tolerances. One trans person may not be bothered by it (though I would hope they'd be bothered by the parent's statement, since it's incorrect), but another may be. That's just life. And regardless, it doesn't matter if it strikes you or me as offensive to trans people, unless we're trans people. (I'm not, and I assume based on how you've framed this discussion that you aren't either.) It only matters if actual trans people are offended, and perhaps some number of them were. And if you are a trans person, I would hope that you'd agree that you probably don't speak for all trans people.
Essentially, the idea that a person could be attracted to the body of the sex they aren’t attracted to is the same idea behind conversion therapy. Anecdotally, I’ve spent way too much time trying to change my “genital preference” for me to think it’s true.
It has nothing to do with your sexual preferences. It's because you went onto a message board for trans people to complain about trans people to other trans people.
Then when they refused to put up with your bullshit you tried to spin it into a grand censorship narrative, rather than bog-standard asshole behavior.
A "slightly bad opinion" has to be more than "slightly bad" to break hate speech rules.
If you feel a platform is overzealous in enforcing hate speech rules, don't use it. Or maybe ask yourself some questions before moving out.
EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.