Hate Speech and the Internet

Very recently I did write a Hub (in response to one of the HubPages questions) about Gays and Lesbians, and, based on what I've seen in the forums, I was kind of surprised at how little "negative attitudes" showed up in comments.  Of course, maybe people who "have their issues" wouldn't even read the Hub. I think, maybe, people with an "axe to grind" are more likely to be "inspired" to post threads/responses on the forum than to read and comment on a Hub (maybe percentage-wise, anyway).

The type of "negative (as opposed to "absolutely supportive of all things Gay and Lesbian" comments" I got on the Hub weren't all "obviously homophobic" (such as something like, "I hate all those _____.  They should be shipped to an island." (or something like that)  They were mostly along the lines of, "I don't have anything against gay people, personally, but I don't like _______."   (Again, it wasn't like there was a big wave of negative stuff.  The Hub is new, so there's only a handful of comments anyway.).  Personally, I think there was some closed-mindedness (I sometimes have my own on any number of issues too), and even short-sightedness and unfairness; but most of the "negative" comments didn't necessarily strike me as homophobia.  A few did.  It didn't occur to me not to post them because they more struck me as "negative opinions/theories" about homosexuality, itself, rather than attacks on people, themselves.  I thought "opposing opinion" (even "negative" opinion) should be shown.  Even on my one, little, Hub, I think what everyone is dealing with, and any reasonably legitimate concerns, should be shown. 

There's "negative" and there's "hate", and I'm not sure all the negative is always hate.  Neither am I always sure that negative (even REALLY negative) is because someone really wishes he, himself, were gay.

I'm an adoptive mother, and I've seen absolutely hateful, horrible, blanket statements about adoptive mothers.  There are books about adoptive mothers too.  The "hate speech" is that all adoptive mothers want to take someone else's baby away, they're mentally ill people who are in "denial" about not being the child's "real mother".  They're "bitter" - and worse.  Some of this stuff has even been written be "experts".  Without getting into that particular can of worms, the point is that no matter what group we're in, there's a good chance there's a lot of rotten, ignorant, things being said about us.  People who say such things don't always want to be us.  They genuinely are glad they're not and think we shouldn't exist at all.

Should there be "hate speech" on HubPages?  No.  I've flagged it whenever I'd seen it, myself.  There's the thing that it can be tricky, though, to see where the "hate-speech" line is crossed (not always, of course); because if people are going to be allowed to post their religious beliefs and quote religious books, there'll be really awful things posted.  A lot of it can make you cringe, but I'm not sure it isn't still a good thing for "everyone else" to see how hateful some religious teachings are.  

Personally, I'd like to see all religion on religious sites and not on "mainstream sites", but I have to admit since it's here it certainly has been eye opening for me.  Never would I have realized the extent of "what's out there" if it weren't.  (If Bible quotes were to show up on my "Gay" Hub comments they're not going up.)

When it comes to non-religious "negative" remarks, I think whether or not they're hate speech is sometimes like whether or not something is pornography.  The person judging, ideally, can stand back, try to be objective and fair, and clearly see what is out-and-out hate/pornography and what is someone else's idea of what's acceptable.  Some people, more than others, will have a higher bar for what's acceptable and/or in the interest of presenting "the whole picture".  Others will be more sensitive, often for their own reasons.

In my online travels I've run into what amounts to hateful, ignorant, speech about any number of things I am/do.  Besides a shocking load of ignorant, misguided, junk about "all" adoptive mothers, I've run into hate for all Americans, loads of nasty misogyny, and even people who seem to think that anyone who admits to being a "neatnik" is mentally ill.   With regard to being a woman, even when misguided, ignorant, remarks aren't "hate" (misogyny) or made with with intent to be hostile, they're often so misguided and ignorant they amount to unintentional belittling of women. 
On the "neatnik" Hub,  I got really nasty e.mails that would be considered "hate speech" - no question about that.   I'm fairly certain most of those people who despise "all " Americans (as if we aren't individuals), "all"  women, or "all" adoptive mothers are glad they don't belong to the group they hate.  I'm pretty sure most of those sloppy people, who can't imagine that "neatniks" could possibly be that effortlessly neat and yet not be mentally ill, are glad they "aren't like that".  

No, I think the scary thing about hate and a sense of superiority may be that those who hate or feel superior actually often are, down to the core, very glad they aren't among the group for whom they have such little regard and respect.   Have we seen, time after time, the classic case of someone like a Congressman who goes around talking about morality and the Bible, only to have his own secrets about his own sexual orientation?  Yes.  Sometimes I wonder, though, whether all that kind of "heterosexual puffery" and "moralizing" is more a matter of reputation, the wish for power, and/or career opportunity than core.   I sometimes think in those cases what looks like hypocrisy and envy is often nothing more than being the same kind of phony a lot of politicans and "moral leaders" are.

I could be wrong, but I think the more sobering concern might be with the "everyday person" (or other person) who truly feels superior to anyone in any particular group, and who is truly, truly, thankful he's not among such a "detestable" group.  That's genuine hate.  Sometimes those other people are just pretending to hate for their own reasons.  I'm not saying they can't be a serious problem and should be welcomed with open arms.  I'm just not sure they're the most hateful among people who commit hate speech.  

There's often lots of hate directed toward people who don't belong to one religion or another, and then there's hate directed to people who do.  Heck, this is a silly one, but I've even seen it said that people who don't post a picture of themselves with their online account are all phonies, are deceitful, and (I love this one) are "fat and ugly" and don't want anyone to see them.  Anyone trying to point out the error of such thinking is likely to run into the over-used line, "Thou dost protest too much." - so there's no "reasonable debating" or pointing out why someone is wrong with someone who has it in his head that someone else does or is something for the reasons he imagines, or that all people in any one group do/think one thing or another.

Then, too, even if it wouldn't technically be considered, "hate speech" by definition, there can be some real ugliness and hostility directed at any one individual for no apparent reason other than one person seems to hate another for one or another remark/belief.  It may not be so much hate as anger (or something someone did or didn't really say, do, mean, or think).   Most of us (not all) are "fine enough" with "plain, old" anger or hate, as long as it wouldn't be "officially considered", "hate speech".  Some of us think hate speech should never be censored or prohibited.  Others believe it shouldn't ever see the light of day.

If you go to a site like Yahoo Answers and go to the "gender" category, you're likely to see any number of misogynistic statements (disguised as questions) that, to me, are so ignorant and hateful they shouldn't be allowed - and yet they are.  If I could be "King of the Internet" I'll admit that I'd close down a lot of accounts and stop a lot of ignorant, hateful, ideas from being spread around and reproduced like single-cell creatures do.  I might be tempted to turn the whole Internet into one, big, haven of educational material, child-friendly sites in tasteful but bright colors, friendly interaction, "help" sites, and, of course, sites for convenient online shopping.  I'll never be "King of the Internet", though, that's a good thing; because the Internet does bring the world together (for good or ill), and it's not some separate, online, world that has nothing to do with the "real" world.

The Internet is a "sampling" of the "real" world, and the "real" world has a whole lot of ugliness in it.  I might be happier with a La-La-Land- Internet that was "all nice", but bliss and ignorance have been said to often go hand-in-hand; and I don't think that's kind of bliss I want.  I don't think hate speech should be tolerated online or anywhere else, but sometimes people call remarks "hate speech" when they just don't really meet the definition.

If some nineteen-year-old young man goes to the HubPages forum and posts the thread, "What's a good way to pick up girls?" he's pretty misguided to think that all girls/women think alike; or even to think all girls/women are "dumb enough" to fall for an approach that someone offers as a "formula".  He's pretty much being sexist, although his sincere question isn't a matter of his hating women.  If someone reading his question responds with, "You sexist pig! " the response would be an angry one, and it would an insult.  Technically, it would be as equally misguided as the young man's question, because this young guy most likely likes girls.  He's just fallen for the belief that "all" girls are the same.  He isn't a hater.  He didn't mean any harm.  Again, he's just misguided.

The person who sends back the insult may violate the "no-personal-attacks" policy on a site like HubPages,  and it shouldn't be difficult to express a "negative" reaction without attacking.  Even such an attack, however, isn't hate speech.  Someone who cares about, and respects, all living creatures may see using the word, "pig", as "hate speech" toward all pigs (of the "real animal variety").  There's a point where we all have to kind of say, "Where does it all end?" when it comes to rotten remarks, or blanket statements, that aren't intended to incite violence or even get other people to share the rotten opinion.

If we got out in the world where people are,  we're all going to see nasty hand gestures in traffic, and we're all going to hear nasty words yelled in public or written on walls.  We're going to see trash people have thrown out their car windows and people whose looks we don't think much of.  We might even get into the occasional "little verbal thing" with someone who cuts us off in line or parks too close for us to open our own car door.  We aren't going wilt and melt away when any of these things happens.

This week (I guess because I must have been in one mood or another) I wrote one Hub about attitudes towards Gays and Lesbians and another one about attitudes toward obese people. The matter of hate speech didn't come to my mind at all, because there wasn't any hate in what I wrote.    It wasn't until someone on the forum raised the issue of hate speech that I thought about the fact that, as long as I have Hubs about any group posted, there'll be the chance hate speech could show up in comments on them.  I pondered the comments I deem as "negative" and have so far decided to leave those particular comments up.  They're not "nice" thoughts or opinions, but I don't think they qualify as "hate speech" either.

There's a part of me that sees hate in anyone who doesn't respect each and every other person in this world (provided that person hasn't intentionally harmed someone/something and lost the the right to be respected) as "equal".  I once read that the only time real love exists is when there is respect and admiration.  The person who can't/won't respect people who are different from him may not think his feeling of being superior to someone else is "hate", but it's a form of it.  After all, where love can't exist hatred will, even in small and subtle ways, find a way to start taking hold and taking over.

Most of the stuff I write online isn't anything too many people would find too much to disagree about.  When I decided to write my own thoughts on attitudes towards Gays and Lesbians, and towards overweight people, I knew there are a lot of people who don't share my views; and I expected there to be opposing views showing up in the comments (maybe even mean e.mails).  I've seen/heard so many hateful remarks being made about people in one group or another, though, I just kind of realized that it isn't always enough to prohibit rotten, or even hateful, remarks from Internet sites.   There comes a time when, instead of trying/hoping to stifle the crummy attitudes of other people, maybe it's more effective to share our own, respectful, attitudes, explain our reasoning, and be willing to stand up for them (rather than just stand up for "niceness in general", without kind of going on the offensive).

Being born not all that long after the end of World War II, I grew up hearing how the way to stop Hitler would have been if people had stopped him in his tracks long before got the least bit of power.  I heard how hate in societies can be like a bunch of little fires people start; and how if those little fires aren't put out soon enough, they can turn into fires so big nobody can put them out.  Even decades after such "fires" do their horrific damage, remnants of the damage, and even embers, can remain.

On the one hand, I do think what qualifies as "hate speech" should not be allowed on Internet sites like HubPages.  On the other hand, we can't put out little fires if we can't see them.  Should hate speech be on the Internet?  No - but what we can't see can hurt us.

Those of us who write online (or who has access to the Internet and a PC and could write online if we decided to) may not always have it within our own, individual, power to stamp out all hate speech and hate, in general, on the Internet; but each one of us has it within his power to at least once in a while forget about our reputations as "artists", "creative people",  "cool people", "entertaining people" , or "good pals" to our Internet buddies; and instead try to contribute to the Internet something we believe may, in some small way, be yet one more antidote to a lot of the hate that's out there. 

It is, after all, one thing to try to put out little fires (whether or not when we can see them).  It's another to try to try to find ways to create conditions where fires die, instead of burn.