Comments on: (Guest Post) Words of mass destruction: the weaponization of 'free speech' https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2015/02/04/guest-post-words-of-mass-destruction-the-weaponization-of-free-speech/ ... Because I don't watch enough hockey, drink enough beer, or eat enough bacon. Tue, 10 Feb 2015 20:36:56 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.6 By: John Horstman https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2015/02/04/guest-post-words-of-mass-destruction-the-weaponization-of-free-speech/comment-page-1/#comment-29255 Tue, 10 Feb 2015 20:36:56 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/?p=14224#comment-29255 I, too, was raised with the “your rights end where someone else’s begin” concept for dealing with conflicting (or seemingly-conflicting) conceptions of “rights”. I find it similarly useful. Great piece!

]]> By: We are Plethora, Protectors of the Orb of Tranquility ~+~ Seated on the Throne of Fantasia https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2015/02/04/guest-post-words-of-mass-destruction-the-weaponization-of-free-speech/comment-page-1/#comment-29254 Thu, 05 Feb 2015 02:03:17 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/?p=14224#comment-29254

Dear reader: are you male? White? Heterosexual? Cisgender? Healthy? Congratulations: this text is for you. It also means you are among us lucky ones who get to play the game called ‘life’ on the easiest setting there is. Don’t believe it? Read on.

Thank you, this is brilliant! Been looking for something we can refer our more privileged friends to that might help to clue them in about the world outside their privileged bubble.

treating a human being like shit just based on something they cannot change, based on who they are, is simply WRONG. And you, I, we all need to stop it. Immediately. Even if it is ‘just’ the internet. Even if it is ‘just’ words.

Precisely, and this one simple principle is in many ways the very foundation of true social justice. It’s depressing to see how many fail to live up to such principles on account of their own agenda or their own ideology or their own unchecked privilege or unchecked biases and preconceieved notions. Fixing this is going to require raising the public consciousness in a big way.

A magazine article might be offensively stupid, but reading it is not actually mandatory for anyone. So the author has had every right to write and publish it. That is free speech. And we have the right to criticise (or ignore). That is also free speech. Online stalking, doxxing and forcibly outing people are not, however: those things are just harassment.

This / QFT!

Writing or saying offensive things that others can choose to ignore is one thing. But abusing the right to free speech in order to justify doxxing and outing people, or sustained harassment, or threats of any kind, are completely indefensible.

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