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Is it possible to have a "free speech" platform that simultaneously stops "hate speech"?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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This thread alone is showing me how divisive this question is for a lot of reasons. Just the meta-question of "what's the definition of 'free speech' in this context?" on its own makes it a shitshow to answer, let alone the rest of it.
If that's what it means to you, then no, "hate speech", whatever it may be, is included by definition. There is no ambiguity. But that's a pretty inflexible answer that doesn't satisfy.
Sure. Under that definition, it's totally possible.
But congratulations, by restricting what 'free speech' is in any way whatsoever, you've invented an implicit judge who rules what is and is not free speech. (And, likely as well, rules what is and is not "hate speech".) That only kicks the can down the road to the question of, "Is this a fair judge?" And now we are back in the shitshow where we began, we just painted the walls a new color.
If that's the definition you're going with, then yes, obviously it's possible, because that's where many of us are at right now and have been at for ages. That makes it a rather nothingburger of an answer because it dodges the implicit question of whether we should uphold "free speech" as a principle outside of this context, whatever that may mean.
The way I see it, the two answers on the extreme ends are cop-outs that don't actually help anyone, and any answer that exists in the middle just becomes politics. Is it possible to allow "free speech" and simultaneously stop "hate speech"? Yes, with adequate definitions of both. Will any solution that does so be satisfactory to a critical mass of people, randomly selected from all people? Haha no.
Imagine that. Living in the real world, you are constantly faced with ethical choices.
Even the American constitution contains exceptions. There's a whole wiki article on the subject!