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I am not a guru to give the universal definition of what is hate speech in this forum. States adopt whatever laws they so desire. Possibilities to harmonize laws are always welcome. But we haven't reached that point yet. I've already pointed out that there are numerous recommendations, drafts, projects to accelerate unified regulations and practices in this respect. Make what you will of it. The tendency is unarguably towards criminalizing hate speech. Can't stop it. We don't live in a perfect world. You can't expect everyone to magically agree on a certain policy instantly. That's not how legislative process works. Look at the war on drugs. Decriminalization of drugs is very slow, but it still goes on with mixed success in different countries. Other countries like Russia, on the contrary imposed more severe penalties against drugs users and dealers. Bottom line - a magic wand to fix hate speech does not exist. That's why hate speech laws are the first step to solve the problem. You are correct that the rich use the poor when maneuvering for power. Everybody can make mistakes. Nobody is prescient or without fault. However I don't understand how hate speech should be extrapolated to compare it with censorship in North Korea. In other words, North Korea is lawless. It is only lawful evil in name only. In reality state actors there, like in any dictatorship have absolute discretion - no checks and balances. Every decision can be made arbitrarily. Each arbitrariness reinforces ordinary citizens' situation of being mere bargaining chips for total control over the region. You are mistaken though to see this as some kind of communist conspiracy. Communism is just a label. Eastern Europe is still plagued by old problems from USSR in mentality and so on. Hate speech laws though are progressive norms that can work if implemented correctly by the right people. You can turn any good law into a bad one by using bad faith techniques. For example you can make fake victims of human trafficking to testify against innocent people to make an appearance of super justice. In reality the fake victims were prostitutes who worked for their pimps. That's not justice. But it helps the USAID justify its grants as foreign aid to other countries. But as usual nobody cares. I see where you're coming from. I understand that you want to say enforcing certain laws against the rich - such as money laundering is more important than hate speech laws. I agree with that. More serious crimes should be investigated with priority. But technically it's all about properly implementing public policy and having the right people in power. If you see hate speech laws as an attempt to divide and conquer people based on disagreements between whites and other races... Well, IMHO the way is just to deal with these laws and accepting that the stereotypical straight white male isn't perfect. There's more important stuff than to bother with this. There are still undeniable truths in any joke or stereotype. Regardless how small they may be. For example many Romani are undeducated, illiterate and therefore prone to crime. But that doesn't mean they don't deserve a place in society like many other illegal immigrants.

It's apparently not easy at all. I've been trying to get a straight answer to "what hate speech is" for two pages now. Until we establish a clear definition of what hate speech laws are supposed to do, we can't begin to have a discussion about whether they are successful or not. But for some reason, hate speech proponents seem determined to avoid answering the question. That is absolutely NOT the way you establish laws in a just society. You don't just let the state make laws without explanation and hope they eventually work out...what could be more fascist than that? If the state doesn't have a good justification for making something illegal, then it should not be illegal.

That's about the most honest thing that's been posted in this thread so far. "Hate speech" is an invention of the political and cultural elites to promote their particular ideology, while ensuring that those disgusting "working class people", who are too stupid to properly understand controversial issues, don't have the chance to answer back. Of course this view of certain social classes as essentially brain-dead sub-humans is a form of hate in itself, but rampant hypocrisy and double standards are standard operating procedure for most authoritarians.

I've been known to enjoy jazz influence here and there. From the Perturbator album I linked. I'll listen to that all day.

In every era there was bad music and good music, real artists and those who only believed themselves to be artists. It is fallacious to affirm that music before was better, it was not, but the bad pieces and the 'Summer Hits' were forgotten and only the good works remain in the memory. Today there are a lot of great artists with sublime pieces, what happens is that due to the activities of record companies that only want to make money fast, they do not reach the mass media, believing the false impression that there is no longer the good music. There is, include with an instrument, invented 1000 years ago.

Ran into this a while back. I like it as a concept, but the album is barely listenable. I did try, though, practically all I do is collect weird shit from the dark corners of Bandcamp. Here is a sampling. https://djkhalab.bandcamp.com/album/mberra - "M’berra is the sound, the story, of a collective of Malian musicians from the M’berra Refugee Camp in southeast Mauritania and Italian producer and electro-shaman Khalab." https://wvsorcerer.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-taiwan-mystery - "We make blurry and raw music. Imagine that if ancient people could play guitar and bass, what would their music be like?" https://meitei.bandcamp.com/album/kwaidan - "Kwaidan is a style of Japanese ghost stories. Meitei took it as a challenge of his skill as a musician to transpose the folklore into intricate compositions, capturing this lost 'Japanese mood'. " https://kishibashi.bandcamp.com/album/151a - This is much more accessible, but hey, it's summer. Orchestral pop at its finest. https://burningwitchesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/alone-in-the-woods - Occult electronica. https://vill4in.bandcamp.com/album/void-003-sangam - Dreampunk by the legend Sangam. https://kayodot.bandcamp.com/album/blasphemy - Avantgarde metal? I can't believe I enjoyed this album, all of their other ones are awful. https://lighghtmusic.bandcamp.com/album/gore-tex-in-the-club-balenciaga-amongst-the-shrubs- I don't know what this is. "Psychedelic broken techno trance". It's weird, but bought the cassette. Considering how much new stuff I buy constantly, it's particularly funny to read comments that agonize about the state of modern music.

In the video, a politician was speaking out against immigrants and soon after people that had a clear connection to his party were acting out against immigrants, even naming the politician while doing so. I would say that there is a clear correlation, which cannot be made between violence and video games. Sure there are other factors that contribute to these situations. Maybe the person in question was beaten up by an immigrant one time, maybe he was stolen from and blames them or had other resentments to begin with. Still, the speeches of said politician incited him to act violently against immigrants. It may be that he would have done that at some point anyway, but the speech seems to have given him confirmation that what he is doing was right. I agree that the speech in itself was not the sole reason, but it contributed and may have given the final impulse he needed. What I am trying to say is that the right rhetoric can create an atmosphere in which violence against a singled out group is perceived as "not bad" or "acceptable" and humans tend to target their aggression, frustration etc. somewhere. So the aggression against these singled out groups is a welcome target for them to vent. It is very likely that this would have been targeted at someone else (their wife, a competing sports club, maybe even themselves), but being given a pointer they choose the singeld out group. The main problem I see in this discussion is exactly what you already pointed out: we are missing a clear definition of what "hate speech" entails. Is using the wrong preferred pronoun hate speech? Is insulting people? Is blaming the economic collapse on immigrants? Without a clear definition, I believe that this discussion is rather pointless, because people might simply talk past one another. And of course without a clear definition of "hate speech", we cannot define what the effect a law against them should have.

They do NOT care about, it's all fictional. It's posing having totally different goals. In a right-mirrored world you'll got the same "hate speech" nonetheless, targeting who writes/speaks against the "Motherland" or the "Fatherland" and you'll be prosecuted for treason....but not because the leaders are patriots nor because "Homeland" is a real thing, but because they need this idealistic machine working to process more and more consensus and getting voted! Just progressive constructs against tribal constructs with the same electoral goals: KEEP THE POWER.

Exactly. It's disguting political marketing targeting the desperate ones to create a poor-vs-poor constant state of war. And paranoid people / conspiracy theorists / keyboard warriors feed all this devilish dynamic on social medias. Useful idiots 2.0, so narcissistic to not realize they're tools in the hands of the REAL power, not the fictional conspiracies ones! Representative Democracy=marketization of the civilization itself, with the help of the willing slaves seeing themselves as freedom fighters! And in this history turn these self-proclamed/appointed "freedom fighters" are the right wingers in all the "civilized" West ,wanting to free us from the "globalist elites" with some nationalistic model of the society ahah. FOOLS. They're really can't undestand it's all a GAME. A perfectly bipartisan game.

Why single out working-class people? Everybody is affected by psychological biases, especially confirmation bias (seeking out information that confirms your views, ignoring everything else). This applies to educated, intelligent, supposedly rational people just as much as it applies to less-educated people. One of the main purposes of free speech is to cut through the cognitive biases and air a range of opinions, allowing the best arguments to win the debate. Obviously this can't happen if powerful actors legislate to protect their views by redefining any disagreement as "hate speech", which is why more aggressive censorship laws are associated with governments who promote ridiculous views (such as the North Korean leader being some kind of nature-defying god). Sure, but the bourgeois rich are the ones who make the laws, which is why the hate speech laws we see in the West are heavily skewed towards issues which the privileged elites care about (such as using the correct transgender pronouns), whereas there is very little desire to outlaw insults against the more socially conservative working classes ("chavs", "white van man", "thick Brexit-voting racists" etc).

I find it strange how hard it is to get a coherent answer to a simple question, given the sheer volume being written in response to it. Instead I'm getting lots of examples of speech that people don't like. And some of the examples that are presented as "obvious" reasons why we need hate speech laws seem to me to be obvious reasons why they're a bad idea. The closest things I could find as potential answers were: "The point of hate speech is to create a proper atmosphere where everyone can be encouraged to speak out" and to protect society against "ill will euphemisms thrown around, fake bot accounts, provocateurs that cultivate and spread the angst." Is that what you think hate speech laws are supposed to do? I think it's pretty clear that hate speech laws don't do any of those things, and aren't even designed to do so, but that would at least give us somewhere to begin a discussion. We can't even begin to talk about whether hate speech laws are important or effective or hypocritical until we have a clear answer to the question of what they are intended to do. How was it established that the increased aggression was "caused by speeches" as opposed to other factors? I've already pointed out how that exact same argument is used all the time to ban things: "Violent video games may not directly incite school shootings. But the bloodlust created by these violent, murderous games leads to increased aggression and violence in our youth, and school shootings have gone up ever since these violent games were released. Therefore violent video games should be illegal." If you're going to accept that argument for hate speech laws, you'd have to accept it for violent video games/movies, role-playing games, most forms of music, comic books, etc.

And the meme version to appease young people (intentional or not? Who knows) It's catchy as hell

"It's enough to keep throwing fuel at this partisan stand-off for activists and politicians to reap the profits." just cut the politicians from the equation..... Today politics are only markerting and engagement dynamics. A politician is nothing more than a "Chief Sales Officer" position and the prepackaged ideologies feeding sick or deranged egos are the products to sell to a more and more desperate electorate (and a politician NEEDS a desperate electorate). Ah, the (representative) "demo*N*cracy".....

Ok let me approach this from a different angle. There's ill will euphemisms thrown around, fake bot accounts, provocateurs that cultivate and spread the angst. Usually to the benefit of some political establishments and activists. Not all of that is direct incitement of violence. And working class people don't have the time to do mental exercises and balance this against other opinions. They pick the most sparkling, most loud, most angry views. It's enough to keep throwing fuel at this partisan stand-off for activists and politicians to reap the profits. As society evolves - new categories of population groups can fall under the protection of hate speech laws - new LGBTQ+ groups, new religions etc. Laws are always late for changes in society. That's why hate speech laws are needed. Whereas old hate speech laws often become deprecated and in need of updates, adjustments, improvements. The line is crossed when satire, irony is associated with the author. Many call out the cancel culture as being the culprit. But even here, people simply aren't used to a new perspective on their favorite media. Nor does it mean that ordinary, general discussions on more general, abstract topics should be restricted. Nonetheless the point is that politicians and public figures can always be criticized. Ordinary citizens however, may be protected from some criticism, especially if they do not expose themselves as public figures. This protection can be in respect of their private life, their reputation or their freedom of speech and information. Depending on the case. We have tons of cases of stalking, mobbing becoming more frequent as half the planet is now connected to the internet. The general rule is that the more public you are as an individual - the more inescapable is criticism against you. I figure that this is fair. It's not perfect, but it's a much better approach than letting ordinary citizens be harassed by politicians who have money and media on their side. That is why hate speech laws exist. To outbalance this unfairness. Here's a few curious case study examples of how hate speech can work in the ECHR - Case of Nix v. Germany This case concerned the applicant’s conviction for posting picture of a Nazi leader and swastika in a blog. The applicant argued that the domestic courts had failed to take into account that his blog post was intended as a protest against school and employment offices’ discrimination against children from a migrant background. The Court declared the application inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded. While accepting that the applicant had not intended to spread totalitarian propaganda, to incite violence, or to utter hate speech, and might have thought he was contributing to a debate of public interest, it considered that the domestic courts could not be reproached for concluding that he had used the picture of f the former SS chief Heinrich Himmler with the swastika as an “eye-catching” device, which was one of the things the law penalising the use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations had been intended to prevent (the so-called “communicative taboo”). Domestic case-law was clear that the critical use of such symbols was not enough to exempt someone from criminal liability and that what was required was clear and obvious opposition to Nazi ideology. In the applicant’s case, the Court saw no reason to depart from the domestic courts’ assessment that the applicant had not clearly and obviously rejected Nazi ideology in his blog post. The Court therefore concluded that the domestic authorities had provided relevant and sufficient reasons for interfering with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and had not gone beyond their room for manoeuvre (“margin of appreciation”) in the case. Case of Lilliendahl v. Iceland 12 May 2020 (decision on the admissibility) This case concerned the applicant’s conviction and fine for homophobic comments he had made in response to an online article. The applicant alleged that his conviction had breached his right to freedom of expression. The Court held that the applicant’s complaint under Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention was manifestly ill-founded and rejected it as inadmissible. It found that the applicant’s comments had amounted to hate speech within the meaning of its case- law. The Court accepted in particular the Icelandic Supreme Court’s finding that the comments had been “serious, severely hurtful and prejudicial”, and that the decision which had originally sparked the debate, concerning measures to strengthen education in schools on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender matters, had not warranted such a severe reaction. The domestic courts’ decisions in the case, taken after an extensive balancing exercise between the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and the rights of gender and sexual minorities, had therefore been reasonable and justified. Case of Gündüz v. Turkey 4 December 2003 The applicant was a self-proclaimed member of an Islamist sect. During a televised debate broadcast in the late evening, he spoke very critically of democracy, describing contemporary secular institutions as “impious”, fiercely criticising secular and democratic principles and openly calling for the introduction of Sharia law. He was convicted of openly inciting the population to hatred and hostility on the basis of a distinction founded on membership of a religion or denomination. The applicant alleged a violation of his right to freedom of expression. The Court held that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention. It noted in particular that the applicant, who had represented the extremist ideas of his sect, with which the public was already familiar, had been taking an active part in an animated public discussion. That pluralist debate had sought to present the sect and its unorthodox views, including the notion that democratic values were incompatible with its conception of Islam. The topic had been the subject of widespread debate in the Turkish media and concerned a problem of general interest. The Court considered that the applicant’s remarks could not be regarded as a call to violence or as hate speech based on religious intolerance. The mere fact of defending sharia, without calling for violence to introduce it, could not be regarded as hate speech. Everyone has been the persecutor and persecuted? There's probably a few exceptions to that with some really zen populations. At least if you mean military conquest and such - like the Tibetan people who were usually on the defensive and not invading. Other than that there's groups like the Falun Gong/Falun Dafa group. They were mostly persecuted. The Romani people are traditionally viewed as invading migrants although they've always been slaves in Europe for centuries until the trend to abolish slavery started in the 19'th century. Nonetheless even after the Holocaust against them, they aren't the most protected group atm. Romani people never had the money and influence like the Jews to create an image of their own victim-hood. Btw this is another curious point - like, does it really have any meaning to argue today that slavery is ok from a free speech perspective? It's really political if slavery conduct on the scale of a state can be called genocide. There's a lot of whitewashing here just for the sake of argument. For example, labor camps were present in the US during WW2. At the same time America used to drug its own citizens in experiments to create the ultimate soldier, to torture and extract confessions like Project ARTICHOKE, Project MKUltra, Project CHATTER. Half a century ago lobotomy was acceptable in psychiatry, even if it turns people into legumes. Persecuting all the whistleblowers after this means that the USA has a sham instead of genuine free speech. This free speech is meaningless. The peace movement of hippies eventually died out anyway. And so will the current BLM and the cancel culture. But generally the leftists of yesterday will remain leftist and their progeny usually follows in their steps just like the last generation. So I wouldn't be so categorical that things have radically changed lately. It's the same old battle. I don't really "get" the argument that "It just keeps certain discussions from even happening." And that "you cannot have have a remotely honest or open discussion of the topic". This is so abstract that this argument is meaningless. I mean it depends on who you're talking to. Talk to more people and odds are you'll find someone on the left who is open on this. You won't talk to anyone if don't commit to being open minded and outgoing. There's just some people with whom you'll never have any psychological contact. Ever. Period. If they've been gang raped by whites, what are the odds they will be delighted to accept the POV of whites? Don't they have the right to have a small bias? Not everyone feels great about talking on controversial topics. You can't force them to talk to you. I'm extrapolating but you get the point. These wounds don't heal so fast. Rome wasn't built in a day. Other people can be open. There's as many opinions as there are people. Each individual is different. The point of hate speech is to create a proper atmosphere where everyone can be encouraged to speak out. Even uncomfortable views from minorities or often overlooked opinions. It just sets limits that are common sense. The speakers probably won't be involved in violence. They reap the profits. The little people will suffer and die as always. I would argue on the contrary, silence allows people to ruminate, to ponder more on what they want to do with their lives. I don't see how endless bickering against minorities can help. I mean, looking for enemies outside is a basic psychological defense mechanism.

"Partito Democratico" = USA Democrats (after the fall of the socialist Left the actual Left is literally a clone of USA Democratic Party), progressive-liberal but not so liberist (well, in reality they are so it's why I consider them a USA Democrats clone - they got the same nicknames too "libtards" -> "PDioti" = PD + idiots and it's not by chance, it's of course because the Right got the same spin doctors of the GOP school) "Forza Italia" (now in decline thanks to Berlusconi's age) = classic liberal and liberist - a bit of libertarian too about economics. It's mortally tied to Berlusconi's family and business (Mediaset TV network/Mediolanum bank). "Movimento 5 Stelle" = "There's no more Right or Left, we're beyond that" - criptolobbistic movement using "socialist" populism as electoral form of engagement. Really a weasel party, linked for years to the Casaleggio's family foundation. It's like an "Internet Era" Forza Italia (Internet instead of TV as tool of electoral engagement and an ecology spin instead of the economy spin of Forza Italia). Inspired by the French Revolution (the party members used to call themselves "Citizens") with the declared goal to bring in this world the "Direct Democracy through Internet" and a Robespierre-like vision of the justice system..... Salvini's "Lega" = liberist but not progressive, massively - I mean MASSIVELY - fueled by a Trump-like propaganda but tied to Putin (and directly to Limonov and Dugin) and to Gazprom interests in Italy. The name now means nothing 'cause it's a party born from the ashes of the Lombardy secessionists ("Lega Lombarda") thanks to several actors from old right and far-right parties absorbed by Forza Italia (Berlusconi) in the middle of 2000s. These actors used the structure of the skeletal remains of the "Lega Lombarda" to create a Trump-like movement, but with the fall of Trumpism they've taken a big hit and are now the right wingers look to "Fratelli d'Italia" . Salvini acts as frontman (it's a master poser since ever) and "carismatic leader" exactly in the Trump's manner. It's the Trump-clone party in EVERY aspect. "Fratelli d'Italia" = liberist-dirigists and not progressive, pure nationalists and really GOP-like - totally tied to NATO (no russian interests there). You could call them "pragmatic grandsons of neofascists" and they're becoming the biggest party in the country eroding the "Lega" electoral pool day by day after the Covid-19. And yes, they're all clowns. Italy's political situation is like a "special kids" Kindergarten.....being the actual special kids more fun and intelligent.

Between what is said and what is done, there is often only one step, as I said before, depending on the person who says it. Among the population there are many people with little discretion of their own and that is why they are highly influenced, because obedience to Authority in consecuence, reinforced by a politics of fear. It has already been amply shown that signaling a group as 'enemies of the state' or as 'guilty of a crisis' can lead to dire consequences. A good example of the influence of many people is the well-known Milgram experiment. If a drunkard in a bar rants against foreigners or homosexuals, obviously it will not have major consequences, but it will if it is done by a public person, politician or journalist.

Me too (LOL) I'm NOT in love with "protection" policies (for ANY human group) but what about freedom to manipulate others thanks to the fascination of "controversial arguments" ? That's the real problem for me (I mean the engagement process that politicians must feed like a demonic beast to get votes - and after that do whatever they want, because they too are free), the one with unforeseen consequences.

Ah, ok. I do not use this function and can see why this is annoying.

The point is that the violence was not directly incited. The fearmongering and badmouthing led to increased aggression and violence against certain groups (in this case immigrants). That this violence was tolerated is, of course, another point, but the aggression itself was caused by speeches that were allowed.

It is not the question that there are laws against certain Hate speech, if the judges related to a certain ideology interpret it in one way or another. In Spain there are several examples of this. A rapper who insults the royal house in his songs faces 3 years in prison for this, while a journalist who threatens to kill a politician on the left in a tweet is okay. Nothing happens to insult or discredit a homosexual or an immigrant, but if he is still punished for making jokes about the cross in the Valley of the Fallen of Franco for hurting religious sentiment, etc.

An option to ignore the whole thread would be very appreciated. Just ignoring a user is not much of help when the activity stream is filled with responses from other users.

While I do not really disagree with your notion, I have to give Kurshok that this is the Off-topic part of the forum, so it does not really matter if the forum in general is dedicated to Thief/TDM/gaming. It is his choice to bring up this stuff on this forum and it is the choice of anyone else to engage in these topics. If they don't interest you, you are free to ignore them. Or to use a more "common" term (not meant as an attack against Kurshok): "Don't feed the troll." If noone will answer to the topic, it will simply die without any answer. If this happens often enough, he will most likely see that noone will engage in these topics and finally stop posting. If people do care about the same topics, he will have a conversation about it. In both cases, it does not really matter for you, if you ignore the post.

This is the exact same argument that is always used by those who want to control what other people are allowed to do. "It will lead to violence!" They used it against rock music, against comic books, against violent movies, against Dungeons and Dragons, against violent video games. Not only that, but the term "violent speech" moves the goalposts. There are already laws in most countries that restrict people from calling for actual violence, so if that were the real concern, there would be no need for hate speech laws.

I don't think so, discussing a problem is always positive, there is never only one truth and never one's own opinion, which is always subjective. But by discussing and talking with people you learn how you can change things, reduce to possible errors in your own opinion. But this, arguing and speaking, not waving flags and arguing with paroles and set phrases, this is certainly counterproductive and only causes rejection by those who think differently.