I've been watching sh.itjust.works implode in hand-wringing what-ifs over the prospect of having to defederate alt-right instances to keep from having their hate speech plastered all over the internet. This is an appropriate time to remember the actual human life costs of letting people think their anti-human garbage is widely accepted.
I moved my secondary account off there (@Quill7513@slrpnk.net, now, for transparency) because I did not feel an 8 day time gap between the community at large saying it was time to defederate from the Nazi instance to admins saying it was time to contemplate defederatonf from the Nazi instance was a short enough time frame. One of their moderator / admins seems to think that's a very fast turnaround but I just don't agree. If they needed to define a process first, that time was 8 days ago, when the community asked for the process to start
They're up to two weeks now. I mean it's taking three or more days just to debate removing it and hold an - almost unanimous - vote. They're sending a very clear message that they're much more worried about showing due process towards violent fascists than looking out for the people those violent fascists would target. This whole delay after delay appears to be for the benefit of about twelve if their users, so it must mainly be for the admins themselves
I also have pretty much abandoned my account there
The KW subreddits have a terrifying amount of hate. When they think that they can get away with expressing hatred for the homeless, it gets so ugly so fast. You can get away with saying a lot of disgusting things about poor and homeless people, if you're just a little bit careful about it, and a lot of "reasonable people" will tolerate it or not even notice.
A lot of the same people start chirping every time gender comes up in one of those subreddits, except they know they have to be about ten times more careful with their slime. A dozen obtuse microaggressions from a dozen different accounts. Someone always gets too emboldened by it or is too stupid to play the game and says something that crosses the line. They're always testing and pushing to see how much hatred other people will tolerate.
There are hundreds of people in the local subs that are getting something out of openly hating people. It feels like decades of hard won battles slipping away month by month. No wonder they've been bitching about "political correctness" all this time, they thought that having respect for each other was bullshit this whole time and everyone was just pretending to care about not hurting each other.
When they think that they can get away with expressing hatred for the homeless, it gets so ugly so fast. You can get away with saying a lot of disgusting things about poor and homeless people, if you're just a little bit careful about it, and a lot of "reasonable people" will tolerate it or not even notice.
A homeless person was shot and murdered in British Columbia and while generally sentiment was respectful and mourning the deceased, I definitely noticed almost a general understanding and even acceptance of the motivations for the killer, almost as if to pardon them and insinuate the homeless "have it coming". Really made me disgusted at the lack of empathy some people have for those less fortunate than them.
It really feels like they don't care who the target is. Any group that is socially designated as inferior will do. It's the actual act of hatred that they are getting something out of. Their victims are totally incidental, it's just whomever is vulnerable and stigmatized enough that no one will come to their aid. And right now it seems like they have so much they can't keep it in anymore.
That Lindsey Shepherd thing and Peterson's tiff with WLU certainly had an effect on local people. His grandstanding that looks so ridiculous to us actually sells to authoritarian personalities.
Musk over here trying to conflate gender-affirming hormone medication being taken by 16-17 year olds with the mutilation of children's genitalia.
This is thinly veiled hate speech. They are straw-manning those they see as "other", for the purpose of placing themselves in a morally superior position. It is arguably defensible lies (I didn't mean, I just meant...), functioning as a dogwhistle to manufacture outrage over imagined extremes that aren't actually happening, all to stir hatred in the public against LGBTQ+ people and ideologies. And they cap it off with a call to action.
This is painfully similar to how hate speech against the Jewish people started.
I know this will be an unpopular opinion in this thread but this isn't hate speech in Canada. It's a vile perspective shared by someone with many impressionable followers but it's not hate speech. Labeling this exchange as hate speech weakens this term and is not useful in shifting discourse or people's opinions.