• Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    My country has hate speech laws and 99.9% of us aren’t concerned or yelling “censorship!”, because 99.9% of us aren’t running around saying hateful shit that would get us arrested for hate speech. Only a racist is worried about being cancelled for racism, only a bigot is concerned about hate speech laws.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think that works as a blanket statement, for example Australia has a law allowing takedowns for hate speech but it was recently used to censor a journalist who shared a video of an Isreal leader saying from the “river to the sea”.

      But in general, yes, censor hate and uphold journalistic integrity and freedom of the press in equal measures.

      • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I get that and agree. Biggest issue these days is, what is a journalist? There’s a half a billion YouTubers who call themselves journalists and do nothing more than Google things. We’ve seen fascists and bigots his behind the press badge, but I do agree that journalists are the last people those laws should be used on.

        I believe in Canada it’s mostly used as a threat against bigots but rarely anyone goes down for it unless they’re being blatant and relentless. I remember we had this tabloid pamphlet you’d see at news stands and the cover was always badly photoshopped anti Semitic, anti Muslim, anti immigrant shit that looked like an acid trip. The guy who ran it was cited for hate speech but while investigating him, authorities found other shit he was up to.

        Found one of their covers!

        • kerrypacker@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s hilariously bad and a good case for letting these idiots speak freely and draw attention to themselves.