Hate speech on Ratz. Should we tolerate it?

[Coito ergo sum]

While it's right to make illegal the incitement of race-hate,

I can't disagree with you more. It is not, in my view, right to make it illegal to incited the emotion of hatred. It is right to make it illegal to incite people to immediate violent action. It is wrong to make it illegal to incite people to hate other people. The difference is that inciting people to immediate violate action is, for all intents and purposes, participation in that violent action, and inciting people to hate other people is merely causing them to think a certain way. Thought, in my view, should never - ever - be a crime, and therefore "inciting" people to think a certain way should never - ever - be a crime.

[Pappa]

I can merely shake my head in disbelief that such a law could exist in a civilized western country.

It gets worse... we have a "religious harassment" law here too.

We have you beat, we have a blasphemy law.

So do we... but nobody's been prosecuted with it for ages.

[Ronja]

Just read through all the thoughtful contributions to this topic.


On just about any other forum this discussion, whether to ban 'hate speech', would cause contention, offense and ill feeling among the participants (I've seen it a few times) ... Here it is thoughtful, respectful, peaceful ... and generously spiced with good humour.


Not only have many of you explained why we shouldn't, but all of you have demonstrated why we don't need to ban 'hate speech'.



I ♥ Rationalia

[Tigger]

Here's a thought though. What if the hate speech is tantamount to spam? We have a sub-forum here where just about every post is along similar lines. Hate speech, intolerance and usually the same subject or similar, or at least a certain similar, predictable, nauseating (IMO) theme. Is there a difference now?

[JimC]

Here's a thought though. What if the hate speech is tantamount to spam? We have a sub-forum here where just about every post is along similar lines. Hate speech, intolerance and usually the same subject or similar, or at least a certain similar, predictable, nauseating (IMO) theme. Is there a difference now?

We engage the poster, and debate him vigorously...

I assume you may mean Gawd...

I nagged and nagged him about using the word "Jews" in a perjorative sense, when he was posting criticisms of Israeli policy, many of which had a reasonable basis...

It seems to me that he has altered his language use somewhat, although the monomania remains...

[Robert_S]

Here's a thought though. What if the hate speech is tantamount to spam? We have a sub-forum here where just about every post is along similar lines. Hate speech, intolerance and usually the same subject or similar, or at least a certain similar, predictable, nauseating (IMO) theme. Is there a difference now?

We engage the poster, and debate him vigorously...

I assume you may mean Gawd...

I nagged and nagged him about using the word "Jews" in a perjorative sense, when he was posting criticisms of Israeli policy, many of which had a reasonable basis...

It seems to me that he has altered his language use somewhat, although the monomania remains...

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

[JimC]

Here's a thought though. What if the hate speech is tantamount to spam? We have a sub-forum here where just about every post is along similar lines. Hate speech, intolerance and usually the same subject or similar, or at least a certain similar, predictable, nauseating (IMO) theme. Is there a difference now?

We engage the poster, and debate him vigorously...

I assume you may mean Gawd...

I nagged and nagged him about using the word "Jews" in a perjorative sense, when he was posting criticisms of Israeli policy, many of which had a reasonable basis...

It seems to me that he has altered his language use somewhat, although the monomania remains...

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

And a lot of it has come from the experience of surviving forum wars in the past, and learning something about ways of treating our brothers and sisters of the net...

[owtth]

Not entirely sure what hate speech is?

But I do have some seriously f#cked up political views if anyone wants to hear them

Even I wouldn't want to live in a world run by people like me...........

I'd love to live in a world run by people like me. However, I know that 99.99...% of the rest of the world would hate it.

Stolen from XC, who stole it from Wiki:

Under the Law of the United Kingdom, "incitement to racial hatred" was established as an offence by the provisions of §§ 17-29 of the Public Order Act 1986. It was first established as a criminal offence in the Race Relations Act 1976. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 made publication of material that incited racial hatred an arrestable offence.
This offence refers to:

deliberately provoking hatred of a racial group
distributing racist material to the public
making inflammatory public speeches
creating racist websites on the Internet
inciting inflammatory rumours about an individual or an ethnic group, for the purpose of spreading racial discontent.
Holocaust denial is not covered under this legislation, but laws against incitement to hatred against religions were later established under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement ... ial_hatred

This is a wonderful example of politicians passing the buck to the judges. They couldn't be arsed actually expressing the law that they wanted or that would be acceptable to the electorate so they went ahead with the most wishywashy (yeah I can't believe I used it either) definition of hate ever. One that they knew would result in confusion and endless appeals. Each one of the referrals contains at least one ambiguous adjective which renders the legislation meaningless.

[charlou]

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

Indeed we do.


That said, I think many people prefer authority and boundaries (urggg) and that's reflected in the number of forums which offer those things and the size of their memberships. It's great when people find us and enjoy what we have here and become a part of it too.

[Feck]

We have some boundaries.

[maiforpeace]

We have some boundaries.

Don't cross the line, or we'll rip your ears off?

[Coito ergo sum]

[Trolldor]

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

Indeed we do.


That said, I think many people prefer authority and boundaries (urggg) and that's reflected in the number of forums which offer those things and the size of their memberships. It's great when people find us and enjoy what we have here and become a part of it too.

They enjoy it until they hit a wall, at which point suddenly it's 'oppressive'.

[kiki5711]

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

Indeed we do.


That said, I think many people prefer authority and boundaries (urggg) and that's reflected in the number of forums which offer those things and the size of their memberships. It's great when people find us and enjoy what we have here and become a part of it too.

:parrot: :parrot: :parrot:

[devogue]

Where else in the whole wide net could Gawd have had to post with an Israeli flag? I've noticed that Toontown has stopped using the word "Neoprog" so much. What forum besides Ratz could have accomplished that? I'm 10 times more laid back in general after joining this forum than I was.

I think Ratz has a good thing going with the existing approach.

Indeed we do.


That said, I think many people prefer authority and boundaries (urggg) and that's reflected in the number of forums which offer those things and the size of their memberships. It's great when people find us and enjoy what we have here and become a part of it too.

They enjoy it until they hit a wall, at which point suddenly it's 'oppressive'.

What do you mean? When the freedom comes back and smacks their sensibilities in the face?