• Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I know this will be an unpopular opinion in this thread but this isn’t hate speech in Canada. It’s a vile perspective shared by someone with many impressionable followers but it’s not hate speech. Labeling this exchange as hate speech weakens this term and is not useful in shifting discourse or people’s opinions.

    • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      When you use the phrase, “hate speech in Canada,” it is clear you are using the specific legal standard for criminal speech in Canada. That is not the only definition of hate speech. More generally, anything intended to express or incite hatred is hate speech, it need not be legally found to be a crime.

      • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Nearly any discourse can be considered hate speech using your broad definition. And when everything is hate speech nothing is hate speech, it loses it’s usefulness as a term. Let’s use accurate language

        • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Let’s deal with that problem if it comes up. And it never fucking has. But meanwhile we have had the converse problem an AWFUL lot of times.

          If you cannot recognize and boldly denounce hate, that’s a you problem, and you need to deal with it. If you cannot recognize these specific tweets as expression of hate, then just fuck off and leave the rest of us alone.

          Like seriously, you’re more concerned with some abstract “purity of the language” issue than opposing actual hate that is actually hurting people you probably know.

          • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Don’t straw man and then get aggressive about opinions I obviously don’t hold. Feel free to ask questions if something is unclear. These kinds of disingenuous discources are part of the problem.