We should not ban Hate speech, here is why| iefan

iefan
unorthodox
Published in
3 min readSep 20, 2021

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Hate speech is Free Speech

It may feel very desirable & necessary to regulate speech with a intent to eliminate/reduce hate speech or offensive speech. But it’s not that simple. Some of the biggest problems are:

What should be considered Hate speech

Who gets to decide

Does it work

Important notes

What should be considered Hate speech

Defining hate speech in some cases is very easy but most of the time it’s extremely difficult & nearly impossible. Different people can have different opinions on the boundaries of fair speech but the thing is “in order to think you have to be offensive sometimes” it can be distasteful to many but not doing it has much more consequences. In fact consequences aren’t even in a same universe. Being able to scrutinize ideas which are closely attached to our emotions isn’t just important but necessary thing to do for continuous evolution of ideas & humankind as a whole. Many people will find that offensive or even hate speech but it’s unavoidable process.

Story of Galileo

In 17th century (not so long ago) when Galileo refused to accept Church orthodoxy that the Earth was the immovable center of the universe in 1616 (Which was true by the way). Which was considered hate speech by many religious peoples & church. Church ultimately decided to ban Galieo’s book and he was sentenced to a light regimen of penance and imprisonment at the discretion of church inquisitors. After one day in prison, his punishment was commuted to “villa arrest” for the rest of his life. He died in 1642.

Study & arguments of Galileo may have been offensive to majority of peoples at that time but those studies became the cornerstone of modern Physics & Astronomy. Today we call him “father of modern science”

Who gets to decide

Constituting hate speech is nearly impossible in many cases & moment you start giving up your “Right to Speech” to the people in power, most of the times results Mass Censorship of ideas critical to ruling party. That censorship never ends. We have seen that most of the times in our entire human history.

Is idea of censorship really something we should stand for?

Does it work

Banning certain bad ideas from mainstream may cause more harm than good. When we ban a certain ideas they don’t vanish from people’s minds, they just become Underground ideas. They continue to evolve underground with not counter whatsoever due to lack of public discussion & debates. Which make them much worst than before.

Important note

I’m not arguing there isn’t any hate speech but moments we start regulating speech we end-up with Restricted speech. Which can’t be use to make necessary social changes & maintain power in the hands of ordinary people.

There’re clearly much more dangers in restricting the speech than having free speech.

Unlisted

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iefan
unorthodox

Machine Learning (AI) Dev | Crypto & Defi enthusiast | Space Guy.