Thread by @_HelenDale

Hate speech & offence archaeology, a thread.

I’ll start with this (I’ve screenshotted because an attempt to retweet loses the original Monbiot tweet & looks weird).

First up, I don’t think ‘hate speech’ is capable of legal definition [1]

This pair of graphics sums up how hate speech is supposed to work, and how it actually works.

Sorry, Americans, with their 1A, are right about this. Yes I realise it’s annoying if you’re British to admit the Yanks are in front of the UK on anything, but here we are. [2].

However, in may case - and in some of the others to which I’ll refer, the problem is not legal definitions of hate speech as enacted in these Islands. It’s every Tom, Dick, and Harry having a subjective definition of hate speech, which leads to absurdities. [3]

I addressed a few of these issues in my response to last week’s Twitter contretemps (in the Speccie) [4]: blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/greta-…

With everyone running around trying to hang the label ‘hate speech’ on things opponent say, the door is opened to offence archaeology and attempted social media bans. Here’s my latest from this morning. It’s one of about 100. [5]

However, because I don’t think hate speech is real and because I simply refuse to apologise to card-carrying members of the Moaning Industrial Complex - and also because I’m not standing for office - I’m relatively immune. [6]

Not so politicians. You’ve all read about UKIP’s Carl Benjamin. At the moment the Daily Mail is accusing him of endorsing kiddy-fiddling. And lefties who’ve spent years pointing out that the Daily Mail is full of 💩 have suddenly decided it’s the fount of all wisdom. [7]

But it’s not just Kippers and other Brexiteers in the firing line. Have a look at this piece, about the hit-job on CUK candidate @NoraMulready. It’s not pretty [8]: unherd.com/2019/04/labour…

FWIW, I don’t think the other CUK candidates discussed in that piece should have crumpled like that, apologising and quitting the campaign. They should have told the offence archaeologists who went after them to develop an interest in sex and travel [9].

It’s got that way that anyone who told a joke that doesn’t land is barred from high public office [10].

You know we’ve got a freedom of speech crisis when even right-on Remainers aren’t safe [11].

This is in addition to Toby Young and Roger Scruton and John Finnis and anyone else fired on the basis of either old tweets or their substantive views. [12]

Part of being an adult is understanding that you can’t make everyone like you or speak well of you. That’s one of the reasons why Twitter provides a mute mutton. When people who don’t like me want to give me an earful, I turn them off. [13]

They can still dislike me as much as they like, and I can get on with my day job/gardening/etc. [14]

Thank-you for coming to my TED talk. [15/end]

[Apologies for typos, I’m really not used to the new Twitter.]