Why does there need to be a way to takedown hate speech?
Moderation provides a way for communities to decide what they will and wont accept and you can choose what communities you would like to be a part of.
If a person spews hateful garbage all over the forum report or comments look to the people that run the community to take out the trash. If they wont find a different community.
There is no reason you ought to be able to shut down speech because YOU find it offensive. It sounds great when its happening to a lunatic spewing hate but its a perfect tool to squelch free thought and discussion and it can and will be used for less benign uses if you put that tool in the hands of government.
Because (hate) speech and (cyber)bullying can hurt and even kill people by pushing them into suicide. It's easy to ignore for you and me, presumable both straight white male in a secured position with a good solid job and enough free time at our hands for idle discussions on HN, but much harder so for people from minorities, with prior (mental) issues or other hardships to deal with.
Relying on a community works only where such a community exists, but twitter is not HN where moderators can and do take out the trash, it's a commercial enterprise with limited incentive to spend money on curbing even the most extreme cases and I think that's where some external entity needs to step in and remind them - and that's the law. And while such tools may be in the hand of the government, in germany for example the government does not have standing to sue. It's only the arbiter.
Bullets kill, which is unfair if you think about it. Why don't we organize a circle and come to a consensus that they really shouldn't because it's often used to silence valid discourse?
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That's also why we shouldn't waste a lot of time on why we should block hate speech. We cannot. If you care to confront reality you must defeat it in other ways.
I differ. I'm well aware that it's impossible to really block anything on the internet, just as it's impossible to really block any kind of speech in the real world. But we can try and curb the worst excesses - threats of death and violence - in the "public" spaces of the internet, that is twitter, facebook and so on. It's not only a way to make those spaces feel safer for those who are less privileged than us, it's also a statement from us, as the society that certain behavior is not accepted - because in the end, that's all a law is: A statement that we don't accept or condone murder, theft or other behavior and we, as the society will hand out punishment. And if you think about it - we punish putting bullets into people until they're maimed or dead - why should we not punish putting words into people until they're maimed or dead.
And ultimately even if you come up with a compellingly eloquent reason why it shouldn't, gravity still sucks.
Even though I know we're saying the same ultimate thing, it's not a should/shouldn't issue. It's a does/doesn't issue.
We wish (maybe) we should block hate speech, but we can not effectively. So we need to counter it with ... love speech ... or something. But something we can do instead of wishes and nonsense.
Moderation provides a way for communities to decide what they will and wont accept and you can choose what communities you would like to be a part of.
If a person spews hateful garbage all over the forum report or comments look to the people that run the community to take out the trash. If they wont find a different community.
There is no reason you ought to be able to shut down speech because YOU find it offensive. It sounds great when its happening to a lunatic spewing hate but its a perfect tool to squelch free thought and discussion and it can and will be used for less benign uses if you put that tool in the hands of government.