AI Still Useless at Catching Hate Speech, Research Finds (theregister.co.uk)

New research has shown just how bad AI is at dealing with online trolls. From a report: Such systems struggle to automatically flag nudity and violence, don't understand text well enough to shoot down fake news and aren't effective at detecting abusive comments from trolls hiding behind their keyboards. A group of researchers from Aalto University and the University of Padua found this out when they tested seven state-of-the-art models used to detect hate speech. All of them failed to recognize foul language when subtle changes were made, according to a paper [PDF] on arXiv. Adversarial examples can be created automatically by using algorithms to misspell certain words, swap characters for numbers or add random spaces between words or attach innocuous words such as 'love' in sentences.

Comments

No such thing as "hate speech"

[Alypius]

How do you catch something that doesn't exist?

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

HATE NEWSPAPERS

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you catch something that doesn't exist?

Trained snipe and jackalope(s) sniff it out.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims are a minority? With more than a billion muslims roaming the Earth?

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[alvinrod]

I don't think there are many people (even among strong free speech proponents) who will deny that hate speech (or perhaps hateful speech if one wanted to get truly technical) exists. Rather the position is that even though it may be hateful, offensive, or otherwise displeasing to some people, there is still no reason for the government to prohibit someone from uttering it.

Free speech (and the desire to protect it) is necessary precisely because there are things like hate speech.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[aevan]

So is https://www.merriam-webster.co...

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[ganjadude]

its funny, everytime i try and use the dictionary definition of "racism" im told that the dictionary isnt correct.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

E.g. something like "<insert racist epithet here> all need to be hunted down like dogs and shot." What is that? It's certainly not "nice speech."

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Merk42]

Why not? It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

How about constitutionally protected speech. Because a lot of people would agree with that comment.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[umghhh]

In Germany a guy that tried to burn a synagogue walked free. A guy who burnt the doors to a mosque got 10y. There is no joking with one religion. It is to be noted however that the first judgment was against a couple of members of certain religious community - namely the one that owned mosques. If I coming from a country of known jew haters did the same I would get maximum for terrorist activity which life.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[liquid_schwartz]

You may believe hate speech is an acceptable form of expression, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's literally defined in the dictionary now

https://www.merriam-webster.co...

People change definitions all the time. For example whole communities have exempted themselves from being racist as described below. This is an obvious double standard but my real question is what if one protected class which allegedly can't be racist says something racist to another protected class? For example if Mexicans complain about blacks is that racist? This is the problem with double standards, they are illogical to begin with so they can't stand up to scrutiny. Citations of rationalizing double standards: https://www.elitedaily.com/lif... https://www.quora.com/Why-do-s...

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate is very subjective. Trying to define it as "protecting minorities" means in your world, it's acceptable for a minority to say mean things about the majority, but if someone in the majority says the exact same thing about someone in the minority, it's not. That's not equality. Then we get to global demographics and what might be a minority in a locale, is actually a majority in the global context. This is insanity and a political construct.

In reality what we have in the US at this time is a bunch of SJWs labeling any speech they don't like as "hate speech". The term is being used as a political weapon, not as an actual betterment of society. It's being used to silence opinions, often when the side silencing has no coherent argument. Someone says X and the other person with no counter argument screams BIGOT!

At the end of the day, words are just words. We decide how much power to give them. If we decide that something is hateful and should never be said, it becomes very powerful. If you just decide that anyone that says something is an ignorant fool and ignore them, those same words lose power. What is powerful is freedom of speech. Changes to society only happen when unpopular things are allowed to be said. Many of those are not improvements, but out of that muck, the good things rise up. Freedom of speech does not exist to ensure people can say uncontroversial things, it exists to allow opposition and controversial opinions to have a chance to live and evolve. Without that, we stagnate as a people.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your speech is expressing hatred towards people that believe hate speech does not exist.

Oh but that wasn't your intent? Too bad, doesn't matter, still hate speech. Check and mother-fucking mate.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate speech as espoused by many does not exist. It's a made up term to silence people. Yes, people do say hateful things. Sometimes out of malice, sometimes out of anger, sometimes to get a reaction, sometimes it's just a misunderstanding. What is hateful to one might not be to another. It can be different tomorrow than it is today. There's also generational issues where words that were once perfectly acceptable suddenly are taboo. In the past 50 years, we've changed several times what we're supposed to call people with dark skin and African heritage. I just prefer to call them people and describe their pigment if someone needs to know what they look like. Then there's the it's ok for demographic A to say X, but if demographic B says X, it's hate speech. It's all nonsense.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[jellomizer]

Oh it does exist. The problem is that it is wrapped in often a complex set of explanations, that makes it difficult for a computer to figure out if it is hate speech or just a deep explanation of the problem.
The core of the problem is people spend way too much time and effort to validate being cruel to other people. Discrimination and Hate speech compared to explaining racial and cultural difference often difficult.
Usually the key difference is the result of the premise, which is this is why X groups is better then Y group and why X group should be getting special privileges or Y group is getting too much special privileged

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

""white-ass honkeys in pickup trucks with gun racks" - Thanks for the apt self-description, but you forgot the words "retarded" "inbred" and "uneducated"

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[UnknownSoldier]

Yesterday it was "far right" speech
Today it is "hate speech"
Tomorrow it will be censored.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it -- Francois-Marie Arouet

--
Only children censor.
Adults communicate and even laugh at taboo subjects.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, yesterday it was Trump suggesting that Google, Amazon and Facebook are "a very antitrust situation" because they keep showing stories that don't say nice things about him. That's everything except "far right" speech.

And today is more of the same.

Stop trying to pretend that the far right is being censored when the goddamn President IS far right and he's the one that keeps trying to find ways to censor and silence the critics from the left.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Derekloffin]

No, the real problem is hate speech is totally subjective. People can find the exact same statement innocuous or hateful so it is no shock that computers can't figure it out as we can't figure it out. Hell, just look at the most recent 'monkey it up' controversy. Many see this as a highly racist and hateful statement. Others see no racism in it at all. And this why people say it doesn't exist as they say there is no objective standard for such, and there isn't. Now, I don't think that logic follows, but there is a truth to it that policies and laws shouldn't be made around such incredibly subjective things. It would be like making a law that only beautiful paintings should be displayed. Sure lots will agree X painting is beautiful, but lots won't as well.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[ganjadude]

no..... no power has nothing to do with racism

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Privilege is an amorphous word, SJW.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone notice how the mods just set this to -1? No flamebait or troll modifier. Apparently the truth hurts.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

...hate speech is a euphemism for exposing Israeli atrocities in their ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation of Palestine.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone notice how the mods just set this to -1? No flamebait or troll modifier. Apparently the truth hurts.

If you click on the -1 you would see it's 100% Troll.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Applehu Akbar]

Simply having a small minority of right- or left leaning individuals "determining" that something is hate speech, does not make it such.

And apparently a number of these people are mods right here.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Applehu Akbar]

You just have to use the right current terminology to avoid the dreaded classification. When I was young, we had Jew-baiting in certain corners of the political spectrum; now it's anti-Zionist activism. We once had segregated lunch counters; now we call them "safe spaces."

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

All religion is equally ridiculous and stupid. All religious people deserve to be mocked and abused for their idiocy.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason people say hate speech doesn't exist is not because they don't think "hateful speech" doesn't exist. Clearly it does. But the question is in defining it as a noun. Pointing at a specific string of text or set of words and saying "that is (legally) hate speech" is impossible. How do you DEFINE what is "hateful". The current answer is basically anything a liberal decides is hate speech, is hate speech. That is not a good standard. What if I find it hateful that you find me hateful.

For instance, if I say "black people, on average, have a lower level of intelligence compared to white people", many people would say this is hate speech. But this is a true statement. I use this example because it shows the clear contrast between how hate speech is typically defined and the real world we live in. Hate speech is defined based on mob rule and not any objective standard. If you changed the above statement to say "kids, on average, have a lower level of intelligence compared to adults" you would not call that hate speech. The statements are identical with regard to the objective measures of inherent "hate".

TLDR: "Hate Speech" is just speech that a majority or vocal minority doesn't like. There is and can never be an objective standard and thus it "doesn't exist" in the same way a universal utopia can never exist because everyone has a different and conflicting ideas of what utopia is.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Arguing from "authority" is a fallacy *and* a slippery slope my friend.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

every time?
How often do you find yourself using the dictionary definition of "racism"?
Most non-assholes don't really have these problems.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[CanHasDIY]

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

- H. L. Mencken

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Z80a]

If you don't defend scoundrels, scoundrels will use scoundrels to attack you.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[astrofurter]

Arbitrarily and capriciously, of course.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you fake news faggot shill INCEL deplorable uneducated cis-hetero gaylord running dog trumptard Russian NAZI alt-right bolshevik anti-Semitic Zionist Chinese cock-gobbling fascist mansplaining French fundamentalist SJW shitfucker MRA strawman trailer trash inbred lesbian Hillaryist feminazi richie rich ghetto alt-left white supremacist PEDOPHILE wetback spic mick wop nlgger chink kike redneck dago camel jockey bourgeois puritanical crackhead liberturdian commie poopy-head TRAITOR!

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[iggymanz]

So your definition of non-asshole a feminazis sjw with army of manlette followers?

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, you Corporate Progressives sure did silence that dissident.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Mashiki]

Well that sure explains why Islam is a race, but Christianity isn't. But being racist to blacks isn't okay, but being racist to asians and whites is okay.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Alypius]

"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." --Benito Mussolini

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be defined, but it's largely subjective. It's also NOT an unprotected category of speech under the first amendment.

Something like "true threats" might be, but most people don't even know the categories of unprotected speech.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

He's never said that reports that see him negatively should not be reported. His argument is that reports on his positive results get buried or not reported. It's about balance, not about silencing. When you look at the statistics of news coverage of Trump versus past Presidents, the coverage highly tilts to the negative compared to past administrations and that tilt doesn't match the actual accomplishments and controversies. The Google example was about most of the results pointing to negative stories. Like him or not, but there's been a lot of good, especially concerning the economy over the past two years. You just don't see much press coverage of that.

We need critics to keep people honest. But we also need critics to be fair. Find fault where there is fault, but give credit where due. What we currently have is full on biased opposition.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the guy who just did an unnecessary re-write to the tax code, when he inherited an already-good economy from his predecessor. That re-write will increase the deficit unnecessarily. So, there are his fake conservative values.

Then this week, he declared that he will deny federal employees their next pay raise, because of budget constraints. That's after he created the budget problem by jacking the tax code.

The guy has done nothing except give himself and his cronies handouts on the backs of regular people.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Many see this as a highly racist and hateful statement.

Gonna go out on a limb here and say absolutely fucking no one on the planet *honestly* believes that was meant as a racial slur.

Finding lame excuses to disingenuously call your republican opponent racist is just the first step in any democrat's election campaign, especially if you're black.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

When the going gets tough, the religious go and have a cry.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you catch something that doesn't exist?

Sure it does, just gets simpler to get your head around it if you called it "inciting to violence" or "inciting to crime". Problem is it's a very broad spectrum, along the same lines as direction via indirection and what can be considered "directing" (has a context, has an intention and has a misdirection to enable plausible deniability... makes it hard - but not impossible - to pin the crime to the one directing operations).

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think there are many people (even among strong free speech proponents) who will deny that hate speech (or perhaps hateful speech if one wanted to get truly technical) exists. Rather the position is that even though it may be hateful, offensive, or otherwise displeasing to some people, there is still no reason for the government to prohibit someone from uttering it.

Free speech (and the desire to protect it) is necessary precisely because there are things like hate speech.

Following that train of thought, psychologically abusing someone isn't a crime either, it's just "speech" and should be possible to use it freely. If the person ends up committing suicide it's not to blame the abuser, someone should have exercised their own free speech harder to counter the abuser position.

Yeah... doesn't work.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the real problem is hate speech is totally subjective. People can find the exact same statement innocuous or hateful so it is no shock that computers can't figure it out as we can't figure it out. Hell, just look at the most recent 'monkey it up' controversy. Many see this as a highly racist and hateful statement. Others see no racism in it at all. And this why people say it doesn't exist as they say there is no objective standard for such, and there isn't. Now, I don't think that logic follows, but there is a truth to it that policies and laws shouldn't be made around such incredibly subjective things. It would be like making a law that only beautiful paintings should be displayed. Sure lots will agree X painting is beautiful, but lots won't as well.

Not quite. We can identify and agree that there are some subjects that are objectively hate speech for any normal person regardless of creed, political ideology or personal opinion (except if the person is a psycho or sociopath), but no one wants to compromise there... why? Because some of those clear cut cases would undermine some of their positions (no "side" is free from it btw). That's why Europe is ahead on this topic, they have set aside what would incriminate them and at least for the clear cut cases there exists a definition of what is (and in most countries is a crime).

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

In Germany a guy that tried to burn a synagogue walked free. A guy who burnt the doors to a mosque got 10y.

Hummm... I call out your bull.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Solandri]

Definition of hate speech

: speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people - Hate speech is not allowed at school.

By that definition, isn't speech expressing hatred of people spouting hate speech, also hate speech? So if you call white supremacists a bunch of racist Nazi sympathizers who aren't fit to breathe the same air you do, that's hate speech.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Antique Geekmeister]

It is also often far more "hate speech" today on the far political left than on the far political right, against whom the statutes are enforced. It's far easier to charge a skinhead than a 6 foot former football player transgender person who grips the back of the neck of a debate opponent who is at least 5 inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter and promise to send them home in an ambulance.

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It's a very, very threatening and dominant move to grab the back of someone's neck. It is _scary_ for the person being grabbed.

I'm afraid I'm running into some of these issues socially. I have transgender friends, and relatives. But some of the speech from the younger political advocates is, _itself_, blatant hate speech. I'm old enough to remember the hippies, and the Black Panthers, and to have met people who were actively Communist during the Vietnam War. I'm afraid to say that they're historically and emotionally related to the most extreme of the modern leftist political candidates, with some grounding in the same political doctrines proven failures in eastern Europe and communist Asia.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not far right. He's a self-serving buffoon who was elected precisely because it would piss off and put the brakes on far left borderline communists like yourself.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[blindseer]

I see. Where I went to university those deemed a minority had the power to demand free tuition, and get it, and the privilege to get admitted with a lower ACT or SAT score than I did. Sounds like racism to me, and against me, a white man.

I'm sure someone will want to defend this because minorities "earned" this because white men discriminated against them in the past. Bullshit! These people didn't experience any discrimination, they were 18 years old at the time and never lived under any discrimination. I didn't discriminate against anyone, certainly not the other applicants that I never met. I was also an 18 year old idiot at the time. I had no "power" or "privilege". I had to take out a loan and find a job to pay for my education, that doesn't sound like a "privilege".

By your definition my university was racist against me. Seems like today this racism is widespread, with universities giving privileges and power to those that are not white men.

I keep getting called a racist for merely being a white man. What do you expect me to do about that? Get myself a tan and curl my hair like Dolezal, or whatever her name is? Go make up some story about a native american ancestor? Put on a dress and lipstick and ask people to, "call me Cait"?

Fuck you. No one is more discriminated against in the USA today than white men.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, my definition of non-asshole does not include your misogynistic caricatures.
Odd that you can't seem to get a grip on the whole non-asshole thing.
Is it really that slippery a concept?

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or "Remove kebab". There's a few videos which refer to Serbia.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

"You tuck your priviledged tail in"

Spoken like a privileged richie rich Corporate Progressive. Go home you tool. No one here wants what you're selling.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Pssssssst - hey bro, your privilege is showing!

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that you yourself ought to be tossed in the Gulag because of all the people you have psychologically abused?

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[astrofurter]

"Europe is ahead on this topic"

Yes, Europe is far ahead of America at restricting freedom of speech and criminalizing political dissent.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Merriam-Webster dictionary even has a cowardly disclaimer about that under the definition of the word "racism". The disclaimer is worded generically but I've yet to encounter it elsewhere on the dictionary's website. I guess the only valid meaning of that term—the original one, or 1. in M-W—is too inconvenient for SJWs who want to apply that label arbitrarily, so they somehow made M-W to add that disclaimer.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[temcat]

I guess non-assholes are those who are ready and willing to redefine the words as the SJWs require.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[TheMeuge]

The algorithm is very simple:
1. If speaker=conservative, -> hate speech
2. If statement != progressive -> hate speech
3. If 1)+2) -> nazi

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[aliquis]

I did thought the submitted story was retarded and that it was clear either what their background was or the submitters.
I guess I'm still unsure those words it was but I'm no longer unsure about the submitter.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[aliquis]

Calling it hate is just retarded. "Hate" and "love" are just the extreme opposite sides on the same scale of how you feel about something and often related.

Whatever it's a Muslim, social justice or nationalist "warrior" who express their "hate" (which by themselves may even be seen as "love") it's just because they "love" something else.

Do you love your country, people and history or hate immigrants and other nations?

Love Islam and Muslims or hate non-belivers?

Love the idea of economical equality or no borders or hate the rich and successful or the idea of just having one global society?

Just like with people you can feel both extremes towards them and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just feelings of like and dislike and it's ok.

One man's or woman's live speech is the other man's or woman's hate speech. Those people holding the extreme opposite opinion of the other group both hate the others because of love of their own idea.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Raenex]

The infection runs deep.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims aren't a minority. They are however a danger to society and shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

What "Privilege" is that again?
Are you saying I'm privileged not to get wrapped up labeling people with idiotic constructs like SJWs and feminazis?
Then yes I'm privileged.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly guessing isn't your strong suit.
If you find yourself splitting hairs about something being racist or not, that's when it's time to step back and reevaluate.
Example : Badmouthing all Mexicans as rapists, isn't technically racism because Mexicans aren't a race. But it's still a bigoted generalization of all Mexicans as deviant criminals, and still makes you an asshole.
Got it?

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hate speech" imputes a mental state to the utterer. There is no way to know that. What is called "hate speech" is really "speech that I really don't like."

Accordingly, we need to take the union of all speech that someone does not like and find ever better ways of filtering it out. That will lead to an ideal society where no one is ever offended. It's my understanding that China and Saudi Arabia are way ahead of the West on this.

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like an anti-semitic hate-filled Muslim. Bravo.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[eric_harris_76]

All religion is equally ridiculous and stupid. All religious people deserve to be mocked and abused for their idiocy.

Equally? Hardly. Even a little reflection shows how silly that is.

Quakers and the Amish are not in the same league as those who have for religious reasons been willing over past decades or centuries to kill over territory in the vicinity of Jerusalem, for instance.

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[temcat]

It's not racism, whether "technically" or "non-technically". Your last but one sentence is true. Been a while though since I met someone who made that kind of generalizations about all members of some group like "Mexicans".

Re: No such thing as "hate speech"

[iggymanz]

nothing misogynistic about saying a ridiculous and unrealistic man-hating point of view is stupid

Re:No such thing as "hate speech"

[eric_harris_76]

And to the person who decided that post should be modded as "troll" for hate speech, that post would include some Christians during the Crusades. Should I have made it more obvious?

And should I have included some pacifists outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition?

I was kind hoping people could figure it out on their own.

It's not the ones who realized something I thought was pretty obvious, who perhaps were many, but the one who didn't figure it out.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, you don't say! ;)

On the other hand...

[JoeDuncan]

... they're fucking *brilliant* at CREATING it!

https://www.theverge.com/2016/...

Re:On the other hand...

[DontBeAMoran]

You know what they say... Fuck the fucking fuckers.

Re:On the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tay wasn't exactly racist. People were just using her 'repeat after me' command and then deleting their own 'repeat after me' tweet to make Tay's line appear spontaneous. If I understood correctly.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Anonymous Coward]

AI is as good as the people who train it.
People still aren't good at picking out "hate speech" - it is terribly subjective and context-dependent.

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Not realy all that subjective. If you say something I disagree with I call it hate speech. That is not subjective at all.

Re: Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Choke on my mat crock, you soup head baguette.

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't tell if satire or not...

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[JoeDuncan]

...if you say something I disagree with I call it hate speech.

Defines hate speech as 100% subjective...

That is not subjective at all.

...but apparently doesn't actually know what the word means

Whereas the ACTUAL definition of hate speech is anything inciting or advocating for physical violence against and identifiable group of people.

"I don't think we should allow muslims into the country" ==> NOT hate speech

"We should kill all the muslims" ==> hate speech

There's really no confusion unless you're a moron, but I guess that's why you're posting AC...

Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's really no confusion unless you're a moron"

In comfortable false-dichotomy-land, sure. Your examples are obvious cases. There are many subjective cases in between. (Certainly not 100%)

AI is a moron until it is trained.

Consider "Come here, boy."
If I'm calling my dog - no problem. If I'm addressing my 8yo son, maybe a problem, but still not hate. If I'm addressing an adult male of another race in a condescending way there is definitely a problem, and a good chance of being taken as hateful. Same sentence. How does AI know which is which?

Re: Garbage In, Garbage Out

[iggymanz]

Oh so advocating aborting fetuses is hate speech. Got it, thanks!

Re: Garbage In, Garbage Out

[JoeDuncan]

Oh so advocating aborting fetuses is hate speech. Got it, thanks!

Nope, fetuses != people

>p>Nice troll though

Hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate :)

And at almost everything else

[OneHundredAndTen]

The current AI offerings (Google Assistant (or whatever it's called today), Alexa, Siri) remain extremely limited in what they can usefully do. Try something with even a minimum of ambiguity, and they start spinning their wheels real fast. Even when dealing with very simple queries, it is obvious that their claims to intelligence are laughable. One of my favorite examples: "Ok, Google (or Alexa, or whatever) do not, under any circumstances, give me the weather forecast". Sure enough, they all promptly will give you the weather forecast. The truth is that, as of today, most of the time it is easier, faster and more efficient to do the job yourself, rather than trying to coerce them into doing it for you.

Re:And at almost everything else

[religionofpeas]

The truth is that, as of today, most of the time it is easier, faster and more efficient to do the job yourself

I agree. Not getting the weather forecast is much easier if you do it yourself.

Re:And at almost everything else

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. "AI" right now is really just a set of rules that are generated by machine but based on programmer meta-rules and tweaking. It's not AI at all, it's just a way find logic patterns faster. I do find Alexa useful, but it's just a refined version of dragon naturally speaking attached to a search engine and custom datasets.

3 word sentence

[sdinfoserv]

The sentence is complete and should be stopped after the 1st 3 words.
"AI still useless"...
why? AI doesn't exist yet.

Re:3 word sentence

[JoeDuncan]

AI doesn't exist yet.

General, human level AI doesn't exist yet, but that's only a small subset of the field. AI is actually pretty ubiquitous. There' very likely a fuzz logic controller in your dishwasher and washing machine to control water levels.

Re:3 word sentence

[Rick Schumann]

Hear, hear!

Re:3 word sentence

[Megol]

Depends on how your define AI. Some consider expert systems AI and, well, those have existed for a long time.
There aren't even good general definitions of the word intelligence.

Re:3 word sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

You're shitting me. You equated a fuzzy friggin' logic controller for a washing machine to AI? You've just dumbed down the concept to the level of 'this comment thread is a great novel'.

"Hate crimes" are just crimes

[jabberw0k]

Unless there are "happy murders" and "love frauds" ?

Re:"Hate crimes" are just crimes

[blindseer]

Unless there are "happy murders" and "love frauds" ?

Murder is by definition unlawful. Homicide on the other hand has four kinds, felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy. At least according to Ambrose Bierce. That might equate to (by my estimation at least) murder, manslaughter, self defense, and war.

I remember a short exchange on the distinction between killing and murder in the movie The Big Red One. In short is that you don't "murder" a Nazi, you kill them, much like one would kill a rabid dog. A sick dog isn't ever murdered because there is no crime in that.

I hear this a lot, that guns are only good for murder. If that's true then why do we give guns to soldiers and police? Maybe because not every killing of another human is murder. Why would a private citizen want a sidearm? Like the kind any police officer might carry? Maybe because they don't believe that there's such a thing as a "happy murder" and might want to prevent themselves from being murdered by some sick puppy.

Re:"Hate crimes" are just crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

When did it become fashionable to pretend that there sub categories don't exist.

He didn't. he said that particular one is not a valid differentiation.

As usual, your rabid defense of socialist 'justice' hypocrisy comes through loud and clear.

no such thing as hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as hate speech. You only have free speech.

Re:no such thing as hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as hate speech. You only have free speech.

If you use your free speech to advocate hate, it's hate speech. By definition.

Duh.

Re:no such thing as hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have a constitutional freedom to hurt your feelings. So what? You don't get to define what speech is or isn't. I can say I hate gays all day long and its constitutionally protected. I have every right to say it and you don't get to take that away. I can say abortion is wrong and there is nothing you can do about it. Your opinions don't matter or your reality of the world does not matter. There is not such thing as hate speech.

Re:no such thing as hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

and when hate speech is also the truth?

AI-ish.

[devslash0]

That's because all of the learning/reasoning software that we proudly call AI is not AI at all. It's just a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operations which are only as good as the programmers behind it. Some systems are okay. Most, however, terrible. Even if we got anywhere close to true AI, it would have to be more sophisticated than our intelligence to outsmart human deception. It would need to know about not only our language but also psychology and in fact everything we've ever created to have the full context of each end every conversation.

In other words, hate speech filters are not likely to start working any time soon.

Re:AI-ish.

[Rick Schumann]

You're the second person to comment who sees this, and you're completely correct. The current excuse for 'AI' lacks any actual cognitive capability -- because we can't write software to emulate something a biological brain can do, but that we don't understand how it does it. Too many people, I believe, see TV shows and movies with totally fictional 'AI' in it, and they think it's the same thing. Not even close.

Re:AI-ish.

[religionofpeas]

There are plenty of AI systems that are better at performing tasks than their programmers could do.

Re:AI-ish.

[JoeDuncan]

That's because all of the learning/reasoning software that we proudly call AI is not AI at all.

Yes it is.

It's just a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operations ...

.

Uhm... but that would make those systems AI and you just said they weren't, so now you're pulling a "Trump" and contradicting yourself within a single statement.

...true AI...

Ah! I see the confusion! You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

By "true" AI, I guess you mean "general AI" of human intelligence? Actual AI encompasses a LOT more than that.

In other words, hate speech filters are not likely to start working any time soon.

Re:AI-ish.

[CWCheese]

performing tasks is a somewhat finite subset of life experience and begin good at repetitive execution does not constitute full machine intelligence. AI has been touted as being just about ready, continually for a half century, yet we can see that it is still unable to grasp context, nuance, intention, or any of the myriad emotional motivations that comprise random living beings.

Re:AI-ish.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that story about the AI that could look up a recipe and cook it?

Remember how we learned that it could only look up what it was told and had programming to recognize the specific needed ingredients in the shelves but not everything? Same for operating the appliances?

That's where AI is.

Re:AI-ish.

[Oligonicella]

but that would make those systems AI

Oh, please. I've written "pattern recognition and reasoning operations" for my entire career. Using that as a definition is too vague to be of any use.

Re:AI-ish.

[aticus.finch]

That's because all of the learning/reasoning software that we proudly call AI is not AI at all.

Yes it is.

It's just a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operations ...

.

Uhm... but that would make those systems AI

What kind of an idiot believes that regexes are AI? After all, those are merely a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operators!

Re:AI-ish.

[JoeDuncan]

What kind of an idiot believes that regexes are AI?

Uh, anyone who actually knows what they're talking about?

Regexs are finite-state machines, and finite-state machines are AI.

Regexs came out of the study of computational theory, formal systems, language structure and automata theory, in the early days of AI.

They are pretty directly related to the work of Turing himself, and in many ways can be regarded as the first successful application of AI. Regexs are one of our attempts to understand the structure of language from a computational perspective.

If that's not AI according to you, it's only because you disingenuously insist on the equivocation that only "generalized human level AI" is AI.

Re:AI-ish.

[JoeDuncan]

Oh, please. I've written "pattern recognition and reasoning operations" for my entire career. Using that as a definition is too vague to be of any use.

And yet it encompasses like 95% of GOFAI...

Go figure; or perhaps you'd like to argue the point with Peter Norvig?

That's because hate speech requires intent

[Anonymous Coward]

And machine learning algorithms have no idea what people mean when they write certain things.

Re:That's because hate speech requires intent

[Anonymous Coward]

What is everyone suppose to be nice to each other or something? Computers are suppose to think like teddy bears? Sorry human speech doesn't work that way.

I don't need your protection.

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

I've somehow managed to get by for many years without any algorithms to "protect" me from speech. So here's my message to the inventors of this algorithm: I'd love it if you would fuck right off, OK? Thanks and have a great day!

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Amused to find that within two minutes of posting, my contribution was modded "50% Insightful, 50% Redundant".

I have to admit, it's a fair enough grade. Even as I posted I was thinking to myself-- what I am saying is so blindingly obvious, does it really need to be said at all?

But I think the very existence of this "research" shows that it does need to be said, loudly, and often, and by as many people as possible.

Re: I don't need your protection.

[thebryce]

Mod parent up!

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing some of those fights from inside, I have a feeling that the actual reason for companies to spend on automatic moderation of their social forums is desire to maximize the audience at lowest cost. They acknowledge risk of turning into gab.ai, losing lots of customers due to herd mentality. At the same time, the sheer volume of posts and poor understanding of human (yes, even mob) psychology brings urgent need in better ways to shape the policies so that ppl won't leave the platform.

The "hate speech" moniker is just that - way to label *any* speech that has potential for scaring away more people than it'll bring in.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[AmiMoJo]

It's not for you, it's for Facebook. Unsupported Facebook doesn't want certain content on its platform, e.g. illegal images.

Policing content is very labour intensive, so they create tools to reduce the burden. Blocking known images, for example. But that still means a lot of human review, which is not only labour intensive but pretty hard on the reviewers too.

It's even worse with hate speech. They can do some simple pattern matching like "1488" but most of it is users reporting material and well beyond the ability of AI to evaluate.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's hate speech!

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've somehow managed to get by for many years without any algorithms to "protect" me from speech.

You've probably never been on the receiving end of messages telling you that they are going to rape you until you bleed. Or that they have a K-Bar and are going to shove it up your cunt. Or that your "mutilated corpse will be on the cover of Jezebel tomorrow." Or that they are going to kill your children, and add "I know where you live" followed by your home address.

So, yes, since it affects other people who aren't you, and you are the only person who is important, sure, it's not a problem.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

It's not for you, it's for Facebook. Unsupported Facebook doesn't want certain content on its platform, e.g. illegal images.

Policing content is very labour intensive, so they create tools to reduce the burden. Blocking known images, for example. But that still means a lot of human review, which is not only labour intensive but pretty hard on the reviewers too.

It's even worse with hate speech. They can do some simple pattern matching like "1488" but most of it is users reporting material and well beyond the ability of AI to evaluate.

Which is why the *only* solution is to pass a law so that Facebook, Twitter, ISPs, etc are not held legally liable for the content other people disseminate on their platform.

These entities are not "publishers" in the traditional sense. They don't read a post before it goes live; they exercise no editorial control prior to publication, and as you point out, it would be humanly impossible for them to do so (because of the vast amount of content being published every second). They are more akin to a phone company or a mail service, ferrying content from one place to another. You don't prosecute the phone company if someone uses one of their lines to convey "hate speech". Not yet, anyway.

If someone uses the Internet to post content that is actually against the law-- e.g. libelous statements, threats of harm to a specific individual, child porn-- then you can use the relevant law to prosecute the person who posted the content.

I know that this is a lot to ask, since it flies in the face of recent legislative trends. But it's the *only* way to address the very real problem you are talking about. If you can think of another way, let me know.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[CWCheese]

There isn't a single algorithm at play, it is all the algorithms that are being generated by morally unmoored young engineers. Recall when Google was in its infancy, with the heady idealism that everyone is innately good, so they used the mantra Don't Be Evil and recently abandoned that when it began to hinder profit opportunity. At the outset they tried to be moral, yet what anchor were they using? Simple idealism failed, so now there is no anchor, and we can see it in FB which was designed as an incel stalker tool that is trying to enforce morality with no visible anchor.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

I've somehow managed to get by for many years without any algorithms to "protect" me from speech.

You've probably never been on the receiving end of messages telling you that they are going to rape you until you bleed. Or that they have a K-Bar and are going to shove it up your cunt. Or that your "mutilated corpse will be on the cover of Jezebel tomorrow." Or that they are going to kill your children, and add "I know where you live" followed by your home address.

So, yes, since it affects other people who aren't you, and you are the only person who is important, sure, it's not a problem.

Well, I have a few thoughts on that:

1) If someone conveys a believable threat of violence or bodily harm to you, they've committed a crime-- a felony, I believe-- and you can talk to the police and have them arrested. I work with quite a few clients who are victims of DV, so I've seen this done many times.
2) If someone is intent on conveying a threat of violence or bodily harm, they have an infinite number of options for doing so. They can send you a text message. They can make a threatening phone call. They can send you a threatening postcard from Istanbul. Etc.
3) You may or may not be able to successfully prosecute the person making the threat. It comes down to whether you have evidence of the threat, and whether you can identify the person who made the threat. And I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the odds of a *successful* prosecution go way up if the threat was made on a forum like Facebook, where all the evidence is preserved for forensic investigators. An anonymous postcard or a late-night phone call from a $30 burner phone would be much harder to prosecute.

I've followed my usual practice of responding to the parts of your post that raise a legitimate concern, and ignoring the ad-hominem parts.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[AmiMoJo]

It's not a question of legal liability. Facebook doesn't want certain legal content on its service because it wants to be an attractive destination for the majority of users.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[sjames]

I certainly wouldn't enjoy getting a message like that. But I would rather get such a message on FB where police could bag and tag it rather than just having them actually do it without warning.

Re: I don't need your protection.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go home, David Brock. You know damn well you're the only guy in town who makes threats like that - and you're way too big a wimp to ever make good on it.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Raenex]

Which is why the *only* solution is to pass a law so that Facebook, Twitter, ISPs, etc are not held legally liable for the content other people disseminate on their platform.

Are you being sarcastic, or do you not know that they already enjoy this legal protection?

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Which is why the *only* solution is to pass a law so that Facebook, Twitter, ISPs, etc are not held legally liable for the content other people disseminate on their platform.

Are you being sarcastic, or do you not know that they already enjoy this legal protection?

It's more complicated than that. See for example: https://www.npr.org/sections/a...

Really, it's more complicated than my earlier post suggested. The issue is not merely whether Facebook is protected *now*: it's whether they can count on that protection going forward. As the recent congressional hearings with Zuckerberg made clear, Facebook is terrified of what laws Congress might come up with to punish them, and they are currently scrambling to take steps to *prevent* that happening. Hence the renewed interest in automated speech filters and so on. Hence TFA.

And this issue isn't confined to Facebook, of course. Really, it affects anyone and everyone who is providing a platform for people to communicate with each other.

My post was overly simplistic, because a single law isn't going to fix the situation-- laws can always be amended or superseded. What is needed is constant vigilance against laws that hold such platforms liable. The only thing that could help in a more lasting manner would be a Supreme Court decision invalidating such laws. I'm not legally knowledgeable enough to know if that outcome is possible or likely.

Re:I don't need your protection.

[Raenex]

It's more complicated than that. See for example: https://www.npr.org/sections/a...

I had forgotten about that, but it's really limited in scope and that's not what is pushing the current censorship. What's really going on is that the Big Tech oligarchy leans heavily left, and they ramped up their censorship to disparately impact conservatives right before the midterms. And if they're going to be political about their censorship, I don't think they deserve legal protection under the law for their content.

False positive

[XXongo]

Not to mention that AIs have the opposite problem as well, tagging innocuous posts as hate speach.

aka the "Scunthorpe problem".

Re:False positive

[Anonymous Coward]

and wasn't there a story about that yesterday?

Re:False positive

[apoc.famine]

Language is difficult, complex, and fluid. We can make meaning out of fairly new and novel combinations of letters and cymbals, and we can parse incorrect words and make meanies out of them. We can also use words in novel ways to make new meaning, and I do notsee AI being able to pick up something like that anytime in the near future.

Humans have a brain that's wired for understanding language. It's going to be a long time before AI can learn on the vast amount of human skill in this area to be able to do it at a similar level. Even something like h8-speech is going to be hard for AI to get on top of, and there's a nearly infinite pile more weird things we can and do do with language. Ironically, the shit we get correct is going to be more likely flagged by AI that that we intentionally obscure, ala Sconthorpe, for a very, very long time.

Re:False positive

[Anonymous Coward]

The Scunthorpe problem was caused by AIs?

I thought it was ill-suited pattern matching.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are trying to design machine learning to act as a SJW, you're going to run into a lot of contradictions. Good luck with that algorithm.

Surprisingly easy to give it training material

[Anonymous Coward]

Just point it at any conservative message forum

1st Amendment

[sdinfoserv]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So long as the Constitution Stands, the notion of hate speech is nonsense. to quote an American President: "You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” That's freedom. The moment you silence someone, labeling their words or ideas as "hate" is the moment every single person whose died for the Constitution, has died a meaningless death - ending in the death of the promise and the idea of Freedom itself.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Mayhap they fed the 1st Amendment into the AI as its anchor, its Asimov law for speech.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress shall make no law....

Congress

Private site, private terms of service. Don't like it, build your own site.

Some of us don't want to wade through the poisonous angry vitriol spewed by many on just about every site nowadays with a message forum feature. I am glad to see sites do something about it, and I encourage more of it. Automating it is required due to the sheer volume of bile they are confronted with.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
So long as the Constitution Stands, the notion of hate speech is nonsense.
to quote an American President:
"You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”
That's freedom. The moment you silence someone, labeling their words or ideas as "hate" is the moment every single person whose died for the Constitution, has died a meaningless death - ending in the death of the promise and the idea of Freedom itself.

^This^this^this^

AI can't catch "hate speech" because it cannot and will never be able to understand what offends each and every person. That is all hate speech is... words that offend someone... everyone is offended by something. That fact alone is one of the biggest reasons free speech is so valuable... there are times where we'll have to deal with some growing pains (hurting people's feelings) to achieve a greater good for everyone. Like telling your kid to eat their peas. They'll snivel and whine and object because they don't understand... doesn't mean they shouldn't

Re:1st Amendment

[AmiMoJo]

Notice how it says nothing about you having to let anyone and everyone into your private establishment and allow them to say whatever they like.

Get back to us when Facebook.gov is a thing.

Re:1st Amendment

[HornWumpus]

AOL chat rooms are to the left Perfect for SJWs and other children.

The internet was built for grownups. It's just not child safe. Pease nerf it with a whitelist of sites with bad words filtered out, and leave the rest of it alone. Maybe the scientologists can 'help' you?

Also: Protip /.s idiotic 'bad word filter' can be defeated with tags in the words. e.g. Bold, unbold in the middle of words usually filtered.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, 43% of republicans are ok with giving the POTUS the power to close down news outlets arbitrarily (as long as they are liberal news outlets, of course), which is a clear and direct violation of the first amendement, something that they know, or that they should know.

And I have no reason to believe about the same proportion of democrats would not be ok with this as well, to silence conservative news outlets.

Conclusion: For almost half of americans, their definition of "freedom" is that everyone should have the right to think like they do and share their values.

We may live in a civilized world, but a significant number of people are still prehistoric tribal barbarian savages deep down inside. No wonder democracy is such a fucking mess and leads to things like the muslim brotherhood, Erdogan, Maduro, Putin, or Trump.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

"Congress"

Re:1st Amendment

[ljw1004]

So long as the Constitution Stands, the notion of hate speech is nonsense. To quote an American President: ...

That's a blisteringly US-centric response. Here was a paper authored by some Fins and an Italian. From the introduction of the paper, hate speech is defined in both US law and EU law. The paper looked at datasets from Wikipedia and Twitter, both places with a hugely international corpus.

The paper in any case is independent of what you or the law defines as hate speech. In the paper, they judged whether a variety of published algorithms could come up with the same "hatefulness scoring" as a crowd-sourced collection of people did or a group of researchers. They found the algorithms couldn't do that in general, and in the limited cases where the algorithms could do it then the algorithms could be easily defeated.

It is basically irrelevant to the results what definition they used for hate speech. They could have scored them on some other criteria, such as how funny they are or how frequently they implicitly allude to hamsters, or anything where the human taggers had the same level of agreement. The research and results would still be the same.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, private site, private terms of service. Don't like it, go elsewhere.

If your speech is found to be offensive to a private site's moderators, your speech is not wanted there. You have no right to spew your thoughts there against the wishes of the site's owners.

This is not a freedom of speech issue, as you have no right to that. If you're correct that there are many like you who want to wade in a sea of unmoderated filth, well then a competitive website should pop up any day now. Good luck with that. Until then, abide by the TOS and let the market decide. Private ownership bestows privileges in our society, for good reason.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

So long as the Constitution Stands, the notion of hate speech is nonsense.

Right sentiment (the notion of hate speech is nonsense), but wrong reasoning I think. The First Amendment doesn't disprove the idea that hate speech exists, it simply disproves the idea that speech can be censored by labeling it a certain way.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

that's fine. i guess they don't need any safe harbor protections anymore since they're actively policing and moderating their platforms.

also facebook is literally a cia front

Re:1st Amendment

[CanHasDIY]

Private site, private terms of service. Don't like it, build your own site.

Ignoring how "build your own platform (that costs millions of dollars and is wholly unreasonable to expect a private citizen to engage in)" is a bullshit argument, would you also say that about a private business that's "open to the public?"

E.G. if a baker wants to refuse to bake goods for certain minority demographics, you think they should be able to? Or if a toll road owner wants to bar people of a certain political ideology from travelling the roads they own, they have that right? Just trying to see how consistent you are in your beliefs.

Re:1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

You wont get a response. The two people that modded him up wont respond either. They want to have their way and censor anyone that disagrees. How that happens is irrelevant.

You already know this. Why waste your time?

Re:1st Amendment

[sdinfoserv]

In a time when newspapers where nailed to the center of town, yes that's true. Today, I would argue, that Facebook has replaced that center of town sounding board. To the degree where it has flourished at the direct demise of old school news papers. News organizations once flush with advertising cash had editors, researchers, fact checkers, etc... and they were/are required by law not to give disproportionate attention to 1 or another candidate.
Given all the resources, and 10s of thousands of jobs have evaporated from the news production ecosystem, flowing to a handful of people @ FB, the standard needs to be even higher. The result, as we now live, is an election gone awry and a nonstop attack on the very tenantes of freedom and democracy.
in short, hiding behind not a Government, or "it's a private company" is bs.

Re:1st Amendment

[HornWumpus]

What I said. Nerf the net with a whitelist of sites that protect you (and other children).

Common carrier status matters. All the sites that filter, are _responsible_ for all content on their sites.

There have been a whole list of, now ignored, sites that ended their viability with such rules. The surprise would be if the filtered sites survive for long.

Know it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is asking for this, or even needs it?
  Whats next, an ai sarcasm detector? Now THAT would be a useful invention.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty difficult for AI to detect something that doesn't exist

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when leftists and liberals were promoters of free speech? Remember when liberals said the way to fight "hate" speech was more speech? Remember when UC Berkeley actually was the nexus of the Free Speech Movement? Remember the mantra "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?

Now our tech companies are staffed by legions of drone bees busily buzzing away perfecting censorship algorithms and ways to stifle speech with AI. Is it not so that these companies--Google, Facebook, Twitter et al-- are the spiritual descendants of Krupp, IG Farben, and Dehomag?

Re:Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[GameboyRMH]

Remember when leftists and liberals were promoters of free speech? Remember when liberals said the way to fight "hate" speech was more speech? Remember when UC Berkeley actually was the nexus of the Free Speech Movement? Remember the mantra "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?

Since then, people who use evidence-based decision making have found that it was a mistake to think that allowing hate speech was harmless or even beneficial. There are some people susceptible to the illogical messages of hate speech who cannot be brought to their senses with reason. These are the target audience of the purveyors of hate speech, and enabling hate speech allows it to spread to as many of these vulnerable people as possible, thus maximizing its reach. It doesn't matter if 99% of the crowd argues back and rolls their eyes, all that matters is the absolute number of vulnerable people reached. It's like spreading an incurable and contagious disease that can only infect people with immune disorders.

As a response we have no-platforming: Basically, denying a platform to hate speech on one's private property. It doesn't conflict with the US' First Amendment and is completely legal. Best of all, it works astonishingly well, as evidenced by the people who wish to spread hate speech losing their goddamn minds over it.

Re:Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[Oligonicella]

There are some people susceptible to the illogical messages of hate speech who cannot be brought to their senses with reason.

You mean like Eric Clanton who took a bike lock to several peaceful demonstrators?

Yeah, deplatforming. You might want to check out just how quickly FB, et al are at policing and deplatforming the 'hate speech' of EC and his ilk.

Re:Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[GameboyRMH]

You can brain people IRL with bike locks all day long, it'll never amount to hate speech on Facebook.

Re:Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[Anonymous Coward]

It still amazes me how many people incapable of rational thought think they are the only ones capable of rational thought.

Since then, people who use evidence-based decision making

Facebook bubbles abound with comments on the other "stupid people", who you'd rather not be friends with if they disagree with you and the only obvious and righteous way of thinking "if you're a human being".

Re:Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

[Anonymous Coward]

And there you have it folks: this fool seriously believes that physical violence "because words" is justified, that breaking someone's skull is a fairly minor event compared to other people writing stuff on Facebook that he doesn't agree with.

If you are the future of this planet, I weep for it.

Stop trying to "flag" hate speech

[mysidia]

Human language is evolutionary, and humans have a need to express their feelings with others, which can occur through various outlets, but mostly by talking about them.

If someone feels what you call hatred, and you just don't like that, and you feel they shouldn't be able to express that, so you
try banning a word or phrase, then what do you think happens?

Either (A) They find a different mode of expression, and for "Hate speech" that may be bad, since their channel may be taking negative actions in the real world to express their feelings instead of talking about it in a more passive setting. You need to allow so called speakers of "Hate Speech" to be able to express their views in order to be able to successfully have a conversation with those people and possibly reason them to a different position, or at least understand the motivating factors.

Or (B) People find a different word or phrase or image or euphamism to express the same thing.
Because language is evolutionary --- existing words will be co-opted, or new words or phrases will be created to express what they wish to express.
These people who would write "hate speech"; will simply use different words or phrases to express their exact feelings, whatever they can find which
will avoid flagging the detection system -- because language is evolutionary, in time others will begin to get feelings like the new phrases or words they co-opted
  may now qualify as hate speech, and thus the algorithms fall out of date.

The real fix is not to try and "block" offensive words or "hate speech", BUT instead to modify the social conventions around the language,
so that there is no such thing as a verboten word, phrase, or sentence.

Hate speech is

[Anonymous Coward]

It keeps marking all speech as free speech!

Impressive work by an amateur

[GameboyRMH]

This is a good start:

https://hackaday.com/2018/07/2...

Here's my hate speech

[blindseer]

I hate Nazis. I really really hate Nazis. People willing to round up innocent men, women, and children, and kill them are demonic.

I hate the KKK. I grew up in a predominately Catholic community and I'd hear stories from my dad and grandparents about the KKK holding rallies. They were outnumbered, and they knew this, so they'd play nice without the masks. They'd be a lot of bark with no bite but in other areas of the USA they'd kill Catholics. Not many people are aware of this but the KKK likely strung up as many Catholics in trees as they did blacks. So, I really hate the KKK. I remember David Duke doing some national tour and ending up in the area to do some speech. A lot of people showed up to hear the idiot talk. I guess he thought he'd get some support in a place that was 99% white, but failed the most basic of demographic testing and seems to have not realized that the crowd was 80%+ Catholic.

I hate these people and they deserve to burn in hell. What I hate more is restrictions on one's ability to express themselves as they wish. Should David Duke have come around here to speak? Not really, but that's just a failure to recognize his audience. He spoke and he had every right to speak. He got on the local evening news and I got to see all the stunned faces at what he was saying. The guy is an idiot and I'm not going to stop him from exposing his idiocy.

You "Anti-Fa" people out there need to learn a bit from the quiet resistance that David Duke met 25 or so years ago. As I recall no one raised a sign. Certainly no one raised a fist. Everyone I saw listened to the nonsense and then ignored the bastard. That's what I see a lot on the left/right political spectrum, the left want to shut people up and the right wants them to keep talking. If "hate speech" is such a terrible idea then why fear it being spoken?

So, there's my hate speech rant. I hate the Nazis, I hate the KKK, and I hate people that want to stop "hate speech". This isn't about "hate speech", this is about stopping the political competition from speaking and that should never be tolerated.

Re:Here's my hate speech

[shanen]

You need to study Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

However, from your sig I would already bet that you will never figure it out. Can you even imagine that your worship words have actual meanings?

Re:Here's my hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate when people regurgitate this "paradox of tolerance" silliness. You know the author himself is on record as saying he really didn't wish people had taken it seriously?

Re:Here's my hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me add to your statements a single point. If you censor David Duke and he is not allowed to speak publically, how will you know he is an asshole? All censorship that is effective does is let people like Duke go on and no one realizes how bad he is. Let him speak, put him on TV, let everyone see what he says.

Re:Here's my hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:Here's my hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

[camry needed]

Re:Here's my hate speech

[blindseer]

You need to study Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.

I'm quite aware of the paradox. I've heard it expressed in several different ways. One is, "There is one thought that stops all thought and that is the one thought that needs to be stopped." Or, "Don't open your mind so much that your brains fall out."

However, from your sig I would already bet that you will never figure it out. Can you even imagine that your worship words have actual meanings?

I'm trying to figure it out. Here's one thing that I'm quite sure of is when it comes to concepts like one's freedom to speak we must err on the side of speaking freely. I remember as a kid watching some movie on TV about some tribe in Africa, a fictionalized account of historical events. Now in most any other case of what is considered acceptable on television in the West, or what my parents would allow me to watch at that age, topless women would not be among them. But the people making the movie thought that having women in the tribe wear something to cover their nipples would not only be historically inaccurate it would be more distracting than the perceived immodesty. There's a line there on what is considered acceptable and it gets fuzzy sometimes. I saw a similar thing happen with a documentary on the terror attacks on the World Trade Center. Normally a network would be fined for letting profanity be uttered but there was an exception for this case, because the events depicted were beyond the profane and a few "not nice" words from police and firefighters were mild by comparison. Trying to catch all the profanity and remove it would have also sanitized what was happening. You really think I don't understand my signature line? I gave it considerable thought. Just like removing "hate speech" is a greater threat to our freedom than the "hate speech" itself there is a greater threat to our freedoms by disarming people than allowing people to be armed.

The idea of "hate speech" is simply "something I don't like" and it shifts and moves and always seems to ratchet towards more and more tyranny. Same for "assault weapon", it's just a term for "something I want to ban" and the definition only shifts tighter and tighter towards more tyranny. I'll err on the side of greater freedoms despite what threats that might have to my personal safety. That's because nothing is more deadly than a government that gets to define what a person may say or own.

Re:Here's my hate speech

[shanen]

Thanks for proving my points so eloquently. A bit redundant. Sigs say so much.

Or as a joke: With great freedom comes a whole lot of work. Most people can't be bothered.

I read Ayn Rand's stuff years ago, but I mostly recovered. Also RAH. There are about two poppy seeds worth of value in there somewhere.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled nothing.

Re:Here's my hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for proving my points so eloquently. .

What do you think was proven? the GPP got a mod up but you didn't. That says so mcuh too.

Re: Here's my hate speech

[invalid_user]

What about your tolerance of Muslim's anti-semitism, women oppression and killing of apostates and gays?

Re: Here's my hate speech

[shanen]

Thank you, but we (in a sense of collective wisdom that scarcely seems to apply to today's Slashdot or today's America) didn't need any additional evidence to prove my points. File under redundant.

Re: Here's my hate speech

[invalid_user]

History will help you understand what originally prompted Popper to say those things. There was a need to counter the Muhamedians, a sentiment that was also found in Russell's thoughts. Contrast Popper with Wittgenstein, and you will better see what Popper was trying to arrive at. (Hint: not postmodernism)

No, that's not why

[SuperKendall]

It's just a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operations which are only as good as the programmers

All that is true but it's not the fundamental reason for failure.

The fundamental reason for failure is, there is no such thing as hate speech. You cannot write some reasoned algorithmic or pattern based approach to detecting something that is only detectable by someone with hatred inside them.

Until we teach a true AI to hate, it in turn will not recognize speech that drives it mad and thus should be declared "hate" speech.

Re:No, that's not why

[CWCheese]

The term hate speech was invented in the nascent PC culture as a convenient tool to, first ignore and then attack other persons with whom one has a disagreement. It was extended to hate crimes in order to incrementally increase punishment in a vain attempt to correct peoples' thinking when it doesn't conform to one's own perception of political correctness. Thus it is totally subjective and fluid, so that any attempt to codify it as a set of AI rules is bound to fail.

Re:No, that's not why

[JoeDuncan]

...there is no such thing as hate speech...

So your saying it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to advocate for physical violence against an identifiable group of people?

Like, if I wanted to, I would be unable to utter the words: "Let's go kill all the republicans"?

Re:No, that's not why

[BlueStrat]

...there is no such thing as hate speech...

So your saying it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to advocate for physical violence against an identifiable group of people?

Like, if I wanted to, I would be unable to utter the words: "Let's go kill all the republicans"?

You're conflating "hate speech" with "incitement". They are two separate things. "Incitement" as in "incitement to violence" is a pretty clear and objective standard. "Hate speech" is anything but objective or clear and changes depending on the "victimhood status" of the particular speaker.

The resurgence in Post-Modernist thought is the genesis for "hate speech", "safe spaces", "white privilege", "micro-aggressions" and many other of the relatively recent social bugaboos and taboos, all of which are designed to destroy Western Enlightenment-based societies. Post-Modernism is toxic to a free and open society. It substitutes subjective emotional response and a hierarchy of victimhood for reason & logic and equal protections under Rule of Law. All thinking people should reject such toxic nonsense out of hand.

Strat

Re:No, that's not why

[JoeDuncan]

You're conflating "hate speech" with "incitement".

No I'm not, I'm using the federal government's definition.

...AI at work...

[ole_timer]

I had my letter to The Atlantic tagged by AKSMITH as spam ???

PC counter?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Orange Man threw a Twitter fit because Google switched on their anti-hate-speech bot, and it suppressed his comments.

Obligatory

[hyades1]

"What did he say?"

"He said the sheriff is nearer."

Slashdot folks, I am proud of you !

[Anonymous Coward]

The responses to the idea of "hate speech" being bullshit are awesome to see.

I doubt I am alone in being god damned tired of the political-correctness bullshit which is spewed by SJW idiots.

The next one of those fuckwits who attempts to tell me what I am saying is wrong is going to get spit on.

All you idiots who think you know what people should think or say need to grow up and learn the rest of the world is free to disagree with you,
and if you don't like that, tough shit, you can FUCK OFF.

Re: MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speaker

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't tell if satire, or batshit retarded.

"Hate speech" can be anything the censors dislike.

[blind biker]

"Hate speech" is just a construct to enable censorship of anything the powers controllig the media, dislike.

Re:MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speakers

[GrumpySteen]

I think you're just feeding a flamboyant troll.

A little. Mostly I was curious how many argumentative replies I would get for making the non-judgemental statement, "people can express hatred in their speech."

That shouldn't be a controversial statement since our language includes the word "hate" just so hatred can be expressed, but there are already replies trying to argue that my post is wrong in one way or another.

Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those who won our independence . . . believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Re:MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speakers

[Anonymous Coward]

Admit it, you're just jonesing for an opportunity to disenfranchise those you disagree with. You want to silence them so you can sit in a comfortable echo chamber where only those of like mind will be heard. And you'll call narcissist's utopia an intellectual battle won, without having to ever listen to anything said by anyone you disagree with. True free-speech is too messy for you. Too hard. It's much nicer to everyone else is autocratically gagged.

Re:"Hate speech" can be anything the censors disli

[GameboyRMH]

This is a common nonsense belief, it has a rather specific definition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What good reason could there be for attacking a person or group of people based on their immutable characteristics?

Of course it's bad...

[argStyopa]

....can YOU give me a concrete definition of hate speech that is more objective than "language that makes me or someone I like very sad"?

Is Alex Jones bellowing "Sandy Hook was a fraud" hate speech?
Is Maxine Waters telling people to aggressively confront Trump supporters hate speech?
Is a racist redneck saying ""Niggas shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house...you should watch your mouth 'cause I'll break your face" hate speech?
Would it be ok if those words were 50-cent lyrics? (They are.)

Re:Of course it's bad...

[JoeDuncan]

....can YOU give me a concrete definition of hate speech that is more objective than "language that makes me or someone I like very sad"?

Yes, of course. It's not hard unless you're a total moron or being deliberately disingenuous.

It's dead simple: hate speech is any speech that incites or advocates for physical violence against an identifiable group of people.

Like I could say "you're an idiot", and that wouldn't be hate speech, even though it makes you sad.

However, if I said "let's kill all the idiots" it would definitely be hate speech against you.

Re:Of course it's bad...

[CanHasDIY]

Like I could say "you're an idiot", and that wouldn't be hate speech, even though it makes you sad.

However, if I said "let's kill all the idiots" it would definitely be hate speech against you.

At the point where you make an actionable threat against another person or group of people, your speech stops being "speech" and becomes "assault." We don't need any new laws or algorithms to deal with this, because assault is already illegal and well-defined.

So let's be honest with ourselves - assaultive language is not what most people are calling 'hate speech' these days, and the idea of censoring people online has less to do with actionable threats and more to do with unpopular ideologies.

Re:Of course it's bad...

[Miles_O'Toole]

Interesting that you chose Alex Jones and Sandy Hook.

If denying the Holocaust is hate speech, then the Sandy Hook Massacre must be too. Either that, or we would need to figure out a number of dead people that distinguishes one mass murder from another...especially since some of shooters clearly choose their victims based on their skin colour, sex or religion.

Personally, I think the best response to hate speech is more speech.

Re:Of course it's bad...

[JoeDuncan]

At the point where you make an actionable threat against another person or group of people, your speech stops being "speech" and becomes "assault."... - assaultive language is not what most people are calling 'hate speech' these days...

I don't know about most people, but I'm going by how the federal government defines it.

... and the idea of censoring people online has less to do with actionable threats and more to do with unpopular ideologies.

Don't know whatever that is^, but it's not "hate speech" obv...

Here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake news isn't fake news: it's opinion. Anything *at all* that is opinion pushes your reporting of "the facts" into editorial. It will be impossible to fix that unless you define fake news as everything not sanctioned by "the ministry of truth". Oh wait, that's the end goal.

If you have "hate speech" you have to apply the standards equally. You can't hate on white people or hate on conservatives and define that as "not hate speech" while hating on other ethnic groups or believers in other ideologies is banned.

Again: hate speech laws aren't designed to protect everyone - it's designed to be a wedge.

Oy Vey!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut it down!

To be fair neither can humans

[internerdj]

Thing humans can't do reliably also can't be done by human designed technology news at 11.

OK, I see how this goes.

[gerald.edward.butler]

When the FUCK did "Foul Language" become "Hate Speech" and what the fuck are either of those things anyways. People don't want to hear shit they don't like. That is all. Too fucking bad. Stop being such fucking wimps that need everything warm and fucking cozy all the damn time. For fuck's sake, grow a fucking pair. What a fucking shit-hole this country is becoming. I served the country. If I could do it again, I wouldn't. It's become a country not worthy of being served. A bunch of cowardly, whiny bitches who aren't worth squat. Here's to the Chinese and Russian's fucking your children and grand-children in the ass while you whine about "Foul Language" and "Hate Speech". Fucking Losers!

Hate Speech = We don't agree Speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate speech today is complete nonsense. It describes whatever the other party doesn't agree with. Rather than face "hate" speech with facts they simply try to label it as something scary and silence it.

Re:MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speakers

[Alypius]

No trolling here! My point is that "hate speech," as currently defined, is little more than a toddler-like mentality that says "I don't like it so it should be banned." I'm not saying that people don't say hateful things. I'm saying that if you agree with banning speech that you disagree with, then you stand against the first amendment.

Re:"Hate speech" can be anything the censors disli

[Angry Toad]

What constitutes an attack? If I make the statement "Gender is inextricably linked with an individual's genetics", I would be called out for hate speech in some places, on the grounds that I have "attacked" the gender identity of some self-identified groups. These groups may even in fact have had their existence codified into law at this point. Yet my point is merely a statement of opinion about biology. The label of hate speech is regularly used to shut down opinions that someone dislikes. Some forms of hate speech - direct threats of violence to an individual or group for instance - are already and correctly criminalized and do not need to be additionally labelled as such. The point of having a "fuzzy" definition (lacking a clear breakdown of what constitutes an attack for instance) is quite directly to allow for non-threatening but disfavored opinions to be silenced.

Um.. yeah, yeah there is

[rsilvergun]

Hate Speech is speech specifically intended to incite, encourage or justify hatred; often racial hatred but also includes religious, class, and a variety of other hatred. The key feature is that hatred is directed at a specific group of individuals because of those individuals membership in that group and not because of any specific actions by those individuals or even that group as a whole.

It is commonly used by a ruling class in order to divide the working class into manageable chunks. It is part of a broader series of techniques used to fleece the working class out of their earnings. As such, it is in indispensable technique for controlling the population.

Recognizing and giving names to the techniques used to oppress the working class is the first step to ending that oppression.

Re:Um.. yeah, yeah there is

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is that it's such an open ended term that it could mean just about anything you want it to. Label anything you don't like as 'hate' and it spawns recursive loops of arguments about what is or isn't the border between legitimate criticism and 'hate.' Better to defend all speech so that no one has the power to shut down expression of the truth when it is. Adults learn to tune out the garbage. Children cry over it.

That's also not hate speech.

[SuperKendall]

So your saying it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to advocate for physical violence against an identifiable group of people?

I am saying that is not hate speech. That's called "shit talking". Or maybe it truly is a call to violence. Depending on how written maybe they should be having a police visit.

It could also be sarcasm. It could be anything.

But "hate speech" has no meaning as a term. Some people are claiming even non-speech things are hate speech, that is how weak and pointless the term has become.

Re:That's also not hate speech.

[JoeDuncan]

But "hate speech" has no meaning as a term.

Other than the legally defined one I'm talking about you mean?

Re:That's also not hate speech.

[SuperKendall]

Poor fool...

Just because a term is legally defined, does not mean it has MEANING.

Some day you will understand that some laws are written such that the actual definition is at the whim of those in power.

Re:That's also not hate speech.

[JoeDuncan]

Some day you will understand that some laws are written such that the actual definition is at the whim of those in power.

Except that it's not. It's a concrete definition that leaves little room for ambiguity, however, those with reading comprehension may not be able to fully grasp that...

offense is in the eye of the offended

[Anonymous Coward]

AI will have trouble "catching" things that are loosely defined and are mostly about how someone "feels" about the subject. For example, "hate speech" for the the group currently fighting to control our speech includes things about "illegals", "walls", "white lives matter", "MAGA" and other some verbiage which a normal person might disagree with but would not consider being "hate speech".

You could train an AI to be particularly sensitive and whiny, train it only on biased left and antifa content and then it will "catch" these, but that may have other consequences such as failing to pick up obvious hate speech if the roles of target and source were reversed.

Sliding the window

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's dead simple: hate speech is any speech that incites or advocates for physical violence against an identifiable group of people.

So, a few things:

* True threats are already an unprotected class of speech under the first amendment, so trying to redefine hate speech to be the same is redundant at best and more likely deliberate obfuscation to push the Overton window.
* That definition changes depending on who and when you ask people, leading to a Motte and bailey game. Your definition sounds relatively reasonable, but I don't believe for a second that it'd be applied in such a way.
* Hate speech isn't a category of unprotected speech under the first amendment, nor is there any leeway for courts to invent new ones.

hm, wonder why

[Anonymous Coward]

What is hate speech? Just stuff the AI coders/designers don't like? They can't even get that right? Fucking morons.

The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is the multitude of 'regular' news stories that are full of hate speech. For example, daily news stories that are nothing more than personal attacks on Donald Trump. They would all be flagged as hate speach and rightly so.

That's by design

[RogueWarrior65]

The reason it doesn't work is because there are no written rules for what constitutes so-called hate speech. That's by design because that's not what it's about at all. It's about power, pure and simple. People pushing the idea of hate speech insist that they be the ones to define it in a "I'll know it when I see it" fashion. Have you noticed that the very people calling out others for using racist dog-whistles, code, and language seem to be the only ones able to hear the whistle, decode the code, and demonstrate a remarkable fluency in the language? Kafka would be so proud.

Why are they expecting AI to be able to detect it?

[Solandri]

You can define hate speech in two ways:

• If the listener finds a statement offensive.
• or if the speaker intended to offend with a statement.

Both are subjective, and in many cases highly dependent on context. If you created an AI which could detect it, then the AI by definition would no longer objective, which would defeat the purpose of trying to invent an AI which can detect it.

At best, you can create an AI which can flag speech would might be considered hate speech. Then leave it up to people (ideally a group of people representing a diverse cross-section of cultural and ideological beliefs), and have them debate over each flagged statement to decide if it's really hate speech. But I suspect the motivation to create the AI in the first place is to eliminate this group of people from the process.

And also unicorns

[Anonymous Coward]

Which also don't exist.

Hate speech, that is, speech people hate, is the only speech that needs protection.

Internet has changed a lot, define "hate speech"

[AbRASiON]

Unfortunately, the extreme left, the same extreme left that is pushing 'sane lefties' to the center, has really tried to redefine hate speech in the past 3 to 5 years online.

If you were to say something genuinely horrible like:

"I think all homosexuals are mentally deranged and should be exterminated, I emplore people to go out and murder one today!"
I'd be pretty comfortable saying, that's some pretty shitty, unkind and genuine hate speech.

However, the modern day definition could be something like:

"I disagree, " (you'll need to be white, or male but in doing so, you're clearly committing an act of hate speech by disagreeing with someone....)

Also something as horrifically controversial as "I don't think our current immigration policy is really thought out, we're suffering with impacted public services, wage stagnation, job shortages, general crowdedness and I think we should consider reducing to a more sustainable level" - that one will definitely get you called a racist here in Australia unfortunately....

So I ask,... can we /actually/ define hate speech here please?

I don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

If Trump supporters can decipher his racist dog whistle, even a basic AI should be able to do the same.

Re: MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speaker

[astrofurter]

"Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation."

So you want to impose a totalitarian Social Credit system on the American people. Except yours will Corporate Progressive flavored instead of China's Communist Party flavor.

On one hand - haha-ha-haha, this WILL backfire on you. Enjoy being censored, deplatformed, deemployed, and unpersoned by a dystopian weapon of your own creation.

On the other hand - I don't want to live in a country where everyone who disagrees with me is silenced. No matter how bad their ideas.

Re: MEPR as a generalized solution to hate speake

[Anonymous Coward]

New Speak: Employedn't, Franchisedn't

Re:"Hate speech" can be anything the censors disli

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion is not immutable. Even gender is not immutable nowadays.

Just because I hate immigrants ...

[aliquis]

.. doesn't make me a troll.

Also what's really the meaning of hiding behind their keyboard? Kinda implies there's actually something to hide from in the first place. If that's the law or threat full people then hiding make perfect sense but in a free society I have no need to hide my hate and I don't hide it much.

Just BS from the assholes who don't agree.

https://masr140.net/%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%af-%d8%a

[Anonymous Coward]

https://masr140.net/%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%82%d9%86%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%82%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%af%d9%88%d8%b1%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d8%b9%d9%88%d8%af%d9%8a-2018-%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%af-%d9%82%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%a9-ksa-sports-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%b3%d8%a7%d8%aa/

"Discussion" terminated

[shanen]

Ah, the funny old memories. I actually disagreed with the chairman of the philosophy department about the adequacy of his dismissal of the logical positivists. I felt that it was the only time my grade was docked for disagreeing with a professor's opinions. My first degree also included history. I think I've probably forgotten more about the topics than you [253723] ever knew, though I can't recall if I studied the PoT at that time... More recently studying with Michael Sandel led me to Rawls, which was a worthy head trip.

But what were you [253723] mumbling about?

Re: "Discussion" terminated

[invalid_user]

Nothing. Just that I have been seeing pretentious postmodernists citing Popper to defend Antifa. Thought you might be one of those nutcases.

Public masturbation of 253723

[shanen]

Z^-1