Hate speech and incitement to be mandated

[Guy Profumo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42481329

Odious shitty cunt orders universities to condone hate speech and racism.

[Snake Plissken]

Because apart from social media, websites, television, radio, newspapers and magazines, these cunts really don't have anywhere to make themselves heard.

[linus]

Be careful what you wish for though, for instance BDS or Israel Apartheid Week is being banned on the basis of it getting defined as hate speech.

[Lang Spoon]

This is a Student’s Union issue surely anyway, not something under the direct remit of the Unis themselves, no? Threatening the Universities themselves seems more directed at destroying critical thinking by academics in general, like them being accused of showing disloyalty over Brexit.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Be careful what you wish for though, for instance BDS or Israel Apartheid Week is being banned on the basis of it getting defined as hate speech.

Well, quite. If you allow people to ban anyone from saying anything that upsets them, it's likely that sooner or later it'll be the "wrong" people who are allowed to determine the scope of permitted public comment.

The whole "no platforming" thing needs addressing in some way or other - perhaps in a different way from what the UK Government is currently proposing, but certainly in some way, before it gets even more out of hand as it has done in US universities, where, for example, Charles Murray of The Bell Curve, one of the greatest sociologists of our time, has been no-platformed for daring to maintain that intelligence has a hereditable component.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Murray can fuck off and die in a fire. That cunt made a living providing a thin scientific veneer of respectability to many of the worst cunts ever to walk this earth.

[treibeis]

I'll probably get clubbed off the board now, but no matter:

I've not lived in, or even been to, Britain for quite a few years now, so it may be completely different to how the media says it is. But I have the feeling that many people, of whatever political hue, spend more time talking about how they might be "offended" than actually saying something that may be of interest or effect.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is a Student’s Union issue surely anyway, not something under the direct remit of the Unis themselves, no? Threatening the Universities themselves seems more directed at destroying critical thinking by academics in general, like them being accused of showing disloyalty over Brexit.

Yeah, there's "no platform" by an institution being deliberately confused with "bunch of students don't want somebody to speak to their club".

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

1. I believe I am a good person
2. I believe what I want to believe, and believe I am right. I have a very limited concept of other people, and how they might have a different point of view.
3. you find my blacking up/ slapping arses/ gay jokes/ paki/mick/...... jokes offensive. My immediate response is to become defensive and treat this as a personal attack.
4. I call you a snowflake
5. I try to undermine your position by also taking offence
6. I turn your desire to be treated equally into some kind of shit throwing squabble.
7, I successfully muddy the waters and prevent social progress.

Simples.

[Satchmo Distel]

Well, quite. If you allow people to ban anyone from saying anything that upsets them, it's likely that sooner or later it'll be the "wrong" people who are allowed to determine the scope of permitted public comment.

The whole "no platforming" thing needs addressing in some way or other - perhaps in a different way from what the UK Government is currently proposing, but certainly in some way, before it gets even more out of hand as it has done in US universities, where, for example, Charles Murray of The Bell Curve, one of the greatest sociologists of our time, has been no-platformed for daring to maintain that intelligence has a hereditable component.

He went a lot further than that, basically saying that blacks are inherently inferior and that this explains social inequalities so any programs to reduce social inequalities should be abolished. Nazi race science essentially.

[Etienne]

This is very good on Charles Murray.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some good stuff in here on Murray by David Frum, who (as he says) ought to be the perfect audience for Murray's stuff about the government, but just finds assertions all over the place.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-the...partdavid-frum

[DCI Harry Batt]

Murray can fuck off and die.

[DCI Harry Batt]

In a fire.

[DCI Harry Batt]

(The government's "Prevent" programme is the biggest threat to freedom of speech in universities here)

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jeff Sessions has said the same as Jo Johnson, hasn't he?

[Bored Of Education]

Of course, none of the 'Prevent' agenda is affected by this because, you know, brown mussies.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think citing Prevent (whatever you think of it) muddies the water a bit. The Prevent "duty" exists right across the public sector. It's not just universities, social services have Prevent training and are supposed to report people on the same basis as universities are.

Johnson's doing something very different, going after universities specifically, because he fancies a bit of Jeff Sessions culture wars. "We've had enough of experts".

[DCI Harry Batt]

I don't see how the fact that Prevent exists across the public sector (though I have to say no-one has ever told me to report Muslims for supporting Palestine's right to exist and I'm not sure who I'd report them to anyway) means that mentioning it here is "muddying the water".

[Satchmo Distel]

I think citing Prevent (whatever you think of it) muddies the water a bit. The Prevent "duty" exists right across the public sector. It's not just universities, social services have Prevent training and are supposed to report people on the same basis as universities are.

Johnson's doing something very different, going after universities specifically, because he fancies a bit of Jeff Sessions culture wars. "We've had enough of experts".

It's dumbing down and saying that there is no criterion for distinguishing a valid argument from a race-baiting one.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I'll probably get clubbed off the board now, but no matter:

I've not lived in, or even been to, Britain for quite a few years now, so it may be completely different to how the media says it is. But I have the feeling that many people, of whatever political hue, spend more time talking about how they might be "offended" than actually saying something that may be of interest or effect.

yes, it's very different to what the media says.

The following have been reported as instances of "no platforming" or shutting down free speech in recent years

- people not buying enough tickets to a comedy gig so it got cancelled
- someone refusing to appear on a panel with someone
- people attending events and challenging the speaker.
- a completely made up story where someone claimed they were punished for criticising ISIS

In addition, the discredited weirdos at Spiked Magazine published "research" on free speech at universities that treated anti-sexual harassment policies hate-speech bans as "censorship". This was dutifully written up as "90% of universities restrict free speech" in all the papers.

There have been a number of other instances where speakers have been shut down by student activism, mostly around kicking virulent transphobes off campus. But can you suppress the free-expression of someone with a newspaper column and publishing deal by cancelling their speaking event? No.

The biggest threat to free-speech on campus is the government's Prevent programme. The government recently attempted to introduce legislation (now ruled unlawful) to prevent public bodies - including universities - from "ethical investment" - i.e. boycotting things. They also ban certain organisations it views as extremist and criminalises hate-speech so they clearly accept some restrictions to free speech and expression.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I think citing Prevent (whatever you think of it) muddies the water a bit. The Prevent "duty" exists right across the public sector. It's not just universities, social services have Prevent training and are supposed to report people on the same basis as universities are.

Johnson's doing something very different, going after universities specifically, because he fancies a bit of Jeff Sessions culture wars. "We've had enough of experts".

It's nothing to do with that. It's clearly an attempt to suppress student self-organisation - and an attempt to step up the culture war against young people (especially young left-wing lgbt people) that's hitherto been largely prosecuted in the broadsheet press. In particular, this is about the fact that transphobic feminists have been (correctly) getting the no platform treatment and it's bending to the moral panic whipped up in certain circles.

It's important to recognise that this moral panic and drive towards authoritarianism has been driven by people who largely sit on the centre-ground politically (the Times, the New Statesman, Spiked Magazine). May's attitude is probably that young people are a lost cause while middle-class transphobic remainers are winnable ground.

[Nefertiti2]

Spiked magazine and the Spectator don’t sit on the centre ground politically

[NickSTFU]

So, how many people on here are involved with 'Prevent' and have had 'training'?

[Satchmo Distel]

Giving racists and transphobic cunts a platform creates the impression that there is a legitimate debate. No Platform draws a line which says, "No, my right to exist is not up for discussion."

Hate speech kills people; it is homicide by indirect means. Cloaking it in pseudoscientific dross, like Murray does, makes no change to that fact. Free speech is not an absolute right; otherwise theatres throughout the land would have people being crushed to death on a regular basis.