This is what the paradox of tolerance is all about. Extending tolerance to those who are intolerant of others only serves to enable the rise and eventual dominance of intolerance, thus undermining the original principle. The only way to combat this is (ironically) to be intolerant of such behaviour on both a cultural and systemic level.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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Stochastic terrorism should be a crime. As it is, only if it's from the left. The right wing media as well as the current occupant of the executive branch, get away with it regularly.
It really depends on who defines what hate speech is.
Is questioning the Zionist genocide hate speech? Is being an outspoken socialist hate speech against capitalists? Is stating you want to separate church and state hateful against Christians? Is supporting Palestine hate speech in the UK?
I'm a fan of free speech. Unless it is literally inciting violence or panic.
It's fucked up innocent people holding Palestine action signs are being arrested in the UK. Attacking free speech is what leads to situations like that.
I feel like this is the only right answer and even then who decides what "inciting violence" is. As disgusting as it gets the only free speech in my mind is 100% free speech. Anything less is just free attack surface for those looking to oppress.
If for no other reason than to make bigots go full mask off so we know who they are, yes.
No, hate speech should not be protected, and there's an obvious reason for that. We already recognize that speech that purposely harms people is not protected, for example going into a theater room and screaming FIRE causing people to panic and stampede and killing someone the person will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. That is not so different from someone going online and saying "gay people should be killed" and causing people to go out and do that, in fact I would even drop the involuntary from the charges against that person, because his intention was clearly to incite someone to do it. I'm not taking away the responsibility from the person who committed the act, but this situation is similar to a how in a group planning a crime even the boss who was in every meeting telling people to commit the crime but did not actually participate in gets charged with. And the same excuses apply "No, I didn't think that because I told them to go and kill someone they would do it" is not a valid defense for a mafia boss, and it shouldn't be for any person with public influence.
I really wonder how many people in this thread have ever had hate speech directed at themselves.
Theyre also ignoring that the government is ultimately who will decide what hate speech is, not common sense. They could very easily decide “anti christian ideology,” such as lgbtq people existing, is hate speech.
No, it should not. "My freedom ends where it starts infringing on other peoples rights." is the basic law of humanity. Any law book should basically follow this line, and mostly actually do.
What human right does hate speech infringe upon? No one has, or needs, the right to be unoffended, imo.
Obviously, violent rhetoric is notwithstanding.
Forgive my ignorance, but how can words infringe on the rights of others? As a member of a minority class with several hateful and hurtful slurs (that were on their way to becoming hate speech prior to the second Trump administration) I understand that some folks can get very upset but I don't think anyone has the right to not be upset. I could be misunderstanding something though.
When someone would scream into your face "Animals like you should be shot!", wouldn't it hurt you?
If someone spread lies about you or your family or your business if you had one, wouldn't it do damage?
If someone spread the word that people of color or other minorities would do this or that (wasn't it "Haitians eating dogs" or something recently?) and it led to people attacking this minority, wouldn't it be dangerous?
Remember January 6th, where Trump whipped up the stupid to storm the Capitol? He did not use a cattle prod or stick, he only used words, and see what has happened.
And look closely at what the GOP is doing. They are spreading lies, and repeat them, until they fester and replace the truth in the hearts of the listeners.
And now tell me again that words can do no harm.
I mean I kind of see what you're saying but it doesn't really pass the smell test.
Yelling in someone's face is assault. Spreading harmful lies about specific individuals or businesses is lible. Speech that incites violence is not protected by the first amendment. And the rest: January 6th and the misinformation machine aren't something that can really be legislated. Lies unfortunately are protected speech unless they incite imminent violence. As much as I would like to hang the raid on the capital on Trump I watched his speech (and Bannon's) and he only ever implies violence. The crowd whipped themselves up into the violence frenzy we saw that day.
Words absolutely can cause harm in the right conditions, but the ones that do the most damage would definitely not be hate speech. Fox News ran a segment last year where one of the hosts said homeless people should be killed and within a few days there were three separate incidents where armed men walked into homeless encampments and opened fire. I think the death toll was 9 people across the three events. But fox news spreading lies about ivermectin and masking during covid killed potentially tens of thousands. In the case of the homeless what the host did was already illegal, but the lies can't be legislated.
The more I think about it the less I'm concerned about hate speech. The things that need to be illegal, inciting violence, already are, and the things that aren't are murky at best and a slippery slope at worst. Especially when you consider who would be determining what is or isn't hate speech. Right now the powers that be would label your comment as hate speech because it's critical of the gop.
If you think it is ok to spread hate, you'll have to live with the consequences. I don't think the world needs more hate.
And, btw, hate is what brought the GOP to power. Think about it.
I don't know why you are being downvoted, this is correct: "My freedom ends where the next person's freedom starts." We can do everything we want as long it doesn't harm or encroach (and "harm" and "encroach" are loadeds words in this context) on the next person. "Harm" and "encroach" here means you don't diminish the other persons rights, at all.
"At all" is kinda contradictory part. Limiting harm to others would already necessitate limiting freedoms and the more people and closer together they live the more freedoms are limited.
Living in the middle of nowhere and a person can do almost whatever pops in their mind, almost absolute freedom.
Living in a city and there's a long list of laws/rules/regulations that already limit what one can do. Not that those are bad limitations.
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My only gripe with this is that the state in its current form cannot be trusted to be an impartial judge of what constitutes hate speech. We see today that many states around the world are using anti hate speech laws to suppress criticism of the state of Israel. Giving the state broad powers to crack down on speech that it deems hateful will inevitably result in the state deciding that all criticism of its actions or the actions of its allies constitutes hate speech.
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If it already is, because it had already been decided. People once again misunderstand what exactly the 1st Amendment even covers. It protects you from the government silencing your voice and expression, which is what someone like Trump has been working hard to do.
It does not and should not protect you outside from that. You do not have a case on your hands when you're banned from an online forum for using hate speech. Because that forum, is not the government. Facebook, is not the government. Reddit, is not the government. So on and so forth.
Can you think of a useful purpose it serves?
If it were not, it would just be inviting the government take a massive dump all over it.
Despite the crapshow that is the current US government, you can't be arrested for standing in front of the Whitehouse shouting your support for whatever idea or group you beleive in (granted you are a Citizen of the USA).
Compare that to something like the UK where people have been charged and thrown in jail for wearing a t shirt or holding a sign, even outside of a protest because the government can just designate whatever it wants to be "hate speech".
Private spaces like social media are not bound by this which is fine, but social media is so ridiculously controlled and filtered as a result, that you're better off sticking to a non mainstream platform (like lemmy) where your comments won't get banned and deleted for stepping out of line.
You have to be a citizen for the constitution to apply?
The problem is you hand government and courts the right to decide what is hate speech.
I'm the UK the government is already trying to classify anti-zionist speech as banned hate speech.
Laws are weapons, your enemies can use them against you.
Imagine living in Queensland rn. Where the phrase “from the river to the sea” is banned…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-05/qld-hate-speech-laws-passed-parliament/106420306
"Hey Bob, want to kayak from the river to the sea tomorrow"
Government seething intensifies
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I think hate speech should be censored online and from the press, but allowed irl
Wanna say controvertial shit, own up to it in person lol.
Dont just hide behind a keyboard
(Should require a court to approve of such censorship
Something like a Grand Jury thats sitting for a long term, but require a 3/4 supermajority to censor it)
You cant sockpuppet IRL lol
Yes because otherwise you can shut down speech you dislike by labeling it "hate speech"
Canada restricts hate speech, as does most of Europe.
Yet its the US with the speech suppression issues going on right now.
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Yes.
They should be encouraged to say whatever they want to say.
What they really want isn't freedom of speech but freedom from consequence. And that's something they shouldn't have.
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Isn't it suspicious you're the one who said "Fuck them" about Gaza children?
Yes it should. "your freedom ends when you start to hurt my feelings" is just plain censorship, as anything you don't like can be labeled as hate speech
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The US extremist version of freedom of speech that also means freedom from consequences to what you say has nothing to do in a functional society. Which is why only the far right parties try to adopt it.
That's not how the freedom of speech works in the US. It frees you from consequences from the government, in theory. Not in general.
In practice it doesn't even work against the government when they choose to ignore it.
Everybody should be able to say anything they want, and everybody else should be able to make fun of them.
Or choose not to hire them, or ostracize them.
Hate speech is free speech. So is recording that hate speech and making sure that everyone the bigot knows is aware of their bigotry is free speech too.
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By voluntary associations (like a fediverse instance) absolutely not.
By government? Absolutely. What happens when disparaging the One True God Baby Jesus or His Followers is declared hate speech?
Whatever powers you give the government, you also give to the worst form of that government which you can imagine. The civil liberties that protect rapists and drug dealers are the same ones that are helping keep more people from being kidnapped by ICE in America.
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Despite interesting debates. I think they all ignore the big issue: the internet.
The internet was set up by people who all deeply, deeply, deeply believed in the idea that in a pool of ideas the best will rise to the top. That pure freedom leads to the best humanity has to offer. It was the time of Richard Dawkins memes and evolutionary thinking. Dawkins, and all the new atheïsts, presented it like this was the way nature actually worked and that we should set up the internet accordingly.
All websites from twitter to reddit to even Lemmy has been set up in this manner.. And whenever Lemmy when it gets popular, will suffer the same fate as all other publicly upvoted popularity aggregators. It's all based on the same principles.
We've figured out that freedom of expression can only exist when there are strict rules around it and the enforcement that comes with that.
Works inside a closed system! Too many bad actors/sites across borderlines all directions in the real world.
I think that if something is made illegal, it should be very clearly defined. "Hate speech" is wide open to interpretation and can easily be used to silence all kinds of speech. The issue isn't the obvious cases but where exactly we draw the line. If that line can't be made crystal clear, it's a slippery slope toward tyranny. Being offensive is okay - spreading hate and inciting violence isn't.
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