Facebook is diluting what hate speech means. And that’s dangerous
Facebook thinks I owe men an apology. I can only hope this article helps heal their distress
So yesterday, I commented on a friend’s post: she had been struggling to report racism and sexism, but was still getting banned herself for extremely innocuous comments such as ‘you’re a f****** idiot’ and, hilariously, ‘silly sausage’. To my intense amusement, it turns out that I, too, was guilty of driving men into the pits of emotional despair through my unwavering hate speech.
No doubt the men reading this are shocked by my venom, my unrivalled cruelty. You must be clutching your handkerchiefs and weeping at my utter betrayal of your gender. Because I am, basically, Hitler. What I’ve said has wounded you to the core of your being, shaken your safety and questioned your ability to function in a world where evil people like me can make such horrific comments. As you turn the world blue with the salt of your tears, maybe you’ll call the police to see what they can do to protect you from such triggering and frightening language as “Men are crabs”.
On a serious note, I find the Facebook understanding of ‘hate speech’ deeply offensive, not just to men, but to all people. As I understand hate speech, it is the deliberate use of hateful, aggressive language to promote fear or persecution of a people; be that race, gender, sexuality or disability. A joke, in itself, is not hate speech. It can be nasty, vindictive, callous and hurtful, but I’m not going to be at risk because you said ‘get me a sandwich’ on a Facebook thread. For me, at least, hate speech is anything that directly encourages violence, hatred or persecution against me. Anything outside of that is just being mean. And we have a word for that: being mean.
As an example, I consider “Madelaine, like all women, deserve to have their tongues cut out and whipped for speaking in public. We need to unite against feminism and force women back to where they belong- find where she lives” a hateful statement and a scary one.
I don’t consider “Madelaine you are such a bitch” or “girls are the worst” hate speech. It’s a bit mean and crude, but it’s not anything even close to hateful. I’m not really bothered by it. I don’t feel unsafe in any way. I think most people will agree that using hate speech to simplistically mean ‘this person was mean to me’ or ‘this person made a joke in poor taste’ is deeply worrying.
It discredits those who face serious harassment and persecution through hate speech for their race, gender, religion and sexuality, as simply being offended. Hate speech is not about being offended and never has been. I’m offended by my dad in neon lycra, but I’m not banning him from wearing it. Hate speech is there as a concept to protect people from those encouraging, very specifically, violence, assault, or discrimination. It does nothing for anyone to irritate people through blocks and bans over comments everyone except for an algorithm finds completely innocuous. If even one man is offended by my joke at Jordan Peterson’s lobster theory, I’d be stunned. This is getting not just irritating, but frightening.
There’s going to be a serious section of society that stops discussing their feelings publicly and goes underground with increasingly isolated views on ‘the others’: black people, muslim people, south asian people, western women and gay people will all be unable to push back against (or discuss) bigoted concepts if they are kept entirely behind closed doors. I, like most people, don’t mind gently correcting people on what ‘bisexual’ means or encountering soft sexism, because it means I can tackle it without that person going underground and getting radicalized into believing all feminists are topless lesbians who hate men. Let’s face it: very few incels are going to go read ‘How To Be A Woman’ or ‘Living Dolls’ on their own. As a woman, I’d rather Facebook tackled directly threatening or violent language, rather than offensive jokes.
I digress. This is, superficially, very funny and I’m the first to leap on this as an opportunity for ad absurdum. But how long until even this article is considered too hateful for delicate little men to read without being overcome with emotional distress?
