At least two brands have said they will suspend advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after their ads and those of other companies were run on an account promoting fascism. The issue came less than a week after X CEO Linda Yaccarino publicly affirmed the company’s commitment to brand safety for advertisers.
You’re partly right. But it’s the job of the citizenry to stand up to this stuff, not the state. We can’t keep our heads down and hope it goes away on its own. We shouldn’t allow the state, with its monopoly on violence, to fight our social battles for us.
I dislike the idea of the state getting to start making decisions on what is “hateful”. And I’m disgusted we don’t have more people standing up and loudly declaring how wrong the hateful viewpoints are. It is our responsibility and we are failing.
It is a tempting proposition to let the state handle hateful speech, but we don’t have to look much further than Florida to see what happens when the shit side is in power and starts redefining what is “hateful”.
Regulate an economy, maintain a border (meaning this is our stuff and everything outside the border is not it isn’t necessarily manning a border), and enforce laws. That’s the three basic tasks of any government.
If you take intro to poli sci literally anywhere in the world this is part of your first lesson. The three things listed are what makes a government a government. Kenya has no space program and is still a government.
This doesn’t define what a properly constituted government is though. Any government can prevent other worse governments from forming, all they need to do is massacre their citizens and there will be nobody left to form a government.
It is a tempting proposition to let the state handle hateful speech, but we don’t have to look much further than Florida to see what happens when the shit side is in power
You seem to be suggesting that separating hate speech prevention from legislation will protect you from a “tyranny of the majority” situation.
But if the populace has a bigoted plurality, won’t that also create a tyranny of the majority?
If the populace has a bigoted plurality, then they get to declare what is officially hateful. So yes, you’re right.
I put the onus on the collective citizenry, but there is no perfect solution in reality. There is a role for the state to play in protecting people, I just don’t think they should dip much into what speech is or isn’t allowed. The majority should rule in my opinion, but we have the job of maintaining a majority that isn’t regressive bigoted shitheads. It’s an eternal struggle, unfortunately.
Defamation, intellectual property, stalking/threats, harmful digital communications, false advertising, accurate declarations of food contents, protected names, conspiracy to commit serious crimes: all these forms of speech are regulated by law and the judiciary where I live, so I have no problem with hate speech laws as long as they are clear and reasonable.
Personally I am in favour of proportionally representative democracy with a lot of checks and balances to enshrine human rights in law, so that if a populace wavers toward the hateful there are still protections for minorities and the non-hateful.
Fair, but the more people you have, with more diverse viewpoints, the harder it will be to get people to agree on what is hateful. And the more nuanced your laws, the harder it will be to agree on what is reasonable or even clear.
But we have got people to agree on everything from what is a fair defense against defamation, right through to the percentage of meat a product such as a meat pie has to contain in order for it to be able to be labelled “meat”.
Democratic consensus is something that gets built up and refined over time. We don’t try to invent it all in a single day.
You’re partly right. But it’s the job of the citizenry to stand up to this stuff, not the state. We can’t keep our heads down and hope it goes away on its own. We shouldn’t allow the state, with its monopoly on violence, to fight our social battles for us.
I dislike the idea of the state getting to start making decisions on what is “hateful”. And I’m disgusted we don’t have more people standing up and loudly declaring how wrong the hateful viewpoints are. It is our responsibility and we are failing.
It is a tempting proposition to let the state handle hateful speech, but we don’t have to look much further than Florida to see what happens when the shit side is in power and starts redefining what is “hateful”.
So what’s the state for?
Serving the interests of the citizens.
That’s a good question ;)
Regulate an economy, maintain a border (meaning this is our stuff and everything outside the border is not it isn’t necessarily manning a border), and enforce laws. That’s the three basic tasks of any government.
Nah. Our state should do more and better things than that.
I like having a space program, for example. And education for all
Those are optional. The three things I listed are the basic requirements for all governments.
A space program is not optional in today’s world. As is education, among a huge number of different things
If you take intro to poli sci literally anywhere in the world this is part of your first lesson. The three things listed are what makes a government a government. Kenya has no space program and is still a government.
There are many schools of thought on what a government is for or should do and most people do not ascribe to the notions you are presenting as fact.
The three things listed are what every single nation state does. There is zero debate on this and it would be nonsensical to suggest otherwise.
Also make laws
The function of a properly constituted government is to prevent other worse governments from forming.
This doesn’t define what a properly constituted government is though. Any government can prevent other worse governments from forming, all they need to do is massacre their citizens and there will be nobody left to form a government.
‘Hate’ is vague. ‘Intolerance’ however, is probably legally definable.
Definition of intolerance: opposite of tolerance.
QED
You seem to be suggesting that separating hate speech prevention from legislation will protect you from a “tyranny of the majority” situation.
But if the populace has a bigoted plurality, won’t that also create a tyranny of the majority?
If the populace has a bigoted plurality, then they get to declare what is officially hateful. So yes, you’re right.
I put the onus on the collective citizenry, but there is no perfect solution in reality. There is a role for the state to play in protecting people, I just don’t think they should dip much into what speech is or isn’t allowed. The majority should rule in my opinion, but we have the job of maintaining a majority that isn’t regressive bigoted shitheads. It’s an eternal struggle, unfortunately.
Defamation, intellectual property, stalking/threats, harmful digital communications, false advertising, accurate declarations of food contents, protected names, conspiracy to commit serious crimes: all these forms of speech are regulated by law and the judiciary where I live, so I have no problem with hate speech laws as long as they are clear and reasonable.
Personally I am in favour of proportionally representative democracy with a lot of checks and balances to enshrine human rights in law, so that if a populace wavers toward the hateful there are still protections for minorities and the non-hateful.
Fair, but the more people you have, with more diverse viewpoints, the harder it will be to get people to agree on what is hateful. And the more nuanced your laws, the harder it will be to agree on what is reasonable or even clear.
That’s a fair point.
But we have got people to agree on everything from what is a fair defense against defamation, right through to the percentage of meat a product such as a meat pie has to contain in order for it to be able to be labelled “meat”.
Democratic consensus is something that gets built up and refined over time. We don’t try to invent it all in a single day.