Comments on: Twitter tackles online hate

By: Bill Rubinstein

Bill Rubinstein — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 07:44:08 +0000

Readers may well not be aware that Dr Oboler is the self-appointed censor of online “Hate Speech.” What is “hate speech”? No one knows – it is whatever he thinks “hate speech” is. I and others have repeatedly asked him how he defines “hate speech,” and he has consistently refused to answer. In matters of defining “hate speech,” he is the prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and executioner, and the court proceedings are secret. Sounds like North Korea? You bet it does. And how many examples of, say, leftists calling Israel “genocidal” or “an Apartheid State” has he zapped? How many online Islamic sites denouncing the Jews in anti-semitic terms has he zapped? Maybe zero is the answer? Only right-wingers need apply. Frankly, if it is a choice between some ratbag online nonsense and a self-appointed private censor answerable to no one, the latter is the more dangerous. America has a First Amendment to protect its people from self-appointed censors. I also notice that he is on the executive of the JCCV. Its present leadership is fond of excommunicating persons it doesn’t like, such as Rabbi Shimon Cowen, and no doubt he feels right at home.

By: Lynda Hynes

Lynda Hynes — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 05:14:18 +0000

Sorry, but I don’t agree with “hate speech laws”. What a person thinks doesn’t hurt anyone: what they say can lead to someone being hurt, but it is what they DO that can hurt people, and that is punishable by law, as it should be.

I have seen many good people hurt by these “hate speech laws” simply for telling us news we are not hearing, and expressing a concern for the safety of innocent people – and that often includes Jewish people. To be labelled “far right” these days is merely to be proud of your race, faith and country, and unwilling to throw it all away for some disastrous Utopian fantasy.

Freedom of speech is the most important asset we have, and we must not sacrifice any of it in the false hope of protecting innocent people. Rather, we should meet any hateful speech we hear with a deafening crescendo of disapproval and ridicule.

By: Steven Meyer

Steven Meyer — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 00:44:27 +0000

I guess once again it is up to me to be the contrarian.

Do we really want a privatised censorship?

Do you all understand that one day pro-Israel speech could be deemed “hate speech”?