“Hate speech” is a subjective phrase.
Far too often, “disagreement” is construed as “hate.” This is played out on college campuses through the U.S.
Furthering the subjective nature of defining “hate speech”, Facebook is relying “on its nearly two billion users to report any hateful posts they see. Workers then review the posts and decide whether to delete it.” That’s two billion people plus FB’s 4500 (soon to be 7500) “hate-speech-police” deciding what “hate speech,” in their opinion, is. Apparently, with “66k posted being deleted per week,” there’s not shortage of hateful posts.
FB says that this “can feel like censorship.” Ya think?
YouTube, owned by Google, has begun a similar crackdown on “hate speech.” As I stated earlier, “hate speech” inevitably will be defined differently by different people. Here’s how YouTube defines “hate speech”:
…anything that “promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization.”
This can/will get controversial quickly.
Although I completely agree with – and applaud – Facebook’s & Google’s premise, I’ll be interested to watch where this goes – more specifically, where it ends up where the freedom to convey biblical Christian doctrine is concerned.
People erroneously argue, “Jesus never offended anyone. He was a nice, wonderful, loving teacher.” I submit to you that being “nice” doesn’t get one executed on a Roman Cross.
Soli Deo Gloria, Nick