28 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Should we have freedom of hate speech?
The only problem I could see here is that “someone’s freedom to live happily” or “peacefully” isn’t an objective standard. I’m sure the law in the UK is more granular. But if we start regulating speech based on how it makes people feel, you’re going to end up in a problematic situation because people are complicated and you don’t have to be expressing racial slurs to ruin someone’s peace or happiness-even inadvertently.
Comment by [deleted] at 30/01/2025 at 23:28 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by VickiActually at 31/01/2025 at 00:57 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Agreed, and yes the law is more granular than I described it. Hurting someone's feelings is not a crime.
This is what I think people don't get - you never get arrested just for saying a word. There are no illegal words. Words have meaning *in their context*.
Pick any crime at all. Now add racial slurs to it - it's a racially motivated crime. That's how it works.
So "hate speech" itself is never going to be picked up unless it's within a crime. Imagine it as just adding severity to something. Like 0 crime with added severity is still 0 crime. 1 crime with added severity is now **1 crime**.