Is This Free Speech?

First, there was the complaint against Maclean's arguing that Mark Steyn's article and its excerpt in the magazine promoted hatred towards the religion of Islam. Steyn was forced to defend his right to free speech in front of the BC Human Rights Commission, who deem it their responsibility to determine and restrict speech that they feel is hateful.

I have a problem with people who are like the commission. More specifically, I hate political correctness. There exists a problem in any society where intellectual discussion can be attacked and curtailed in order to make sure no one's feelings are hurt. I don't see how a society can be progressive when it lacks the ability to speak freely on any subject.

That being said, I believe there is a difference between free speech and hate. Christopher Maughan has brought to attention the existence of "Hatebook." A play on the popular social networking site, Facebook, except for creating online identities built on the topics people hate.

How come there hasn't been more publicity about this site? This site actively promotes hatred and its greatest number of users are registered in Montreal. The creator maintains that the site is not designed for discrimination but this isn't the message that the site sends. On the home page it says that users may "upload somebody's lies or publish secrets - get the latest gossip from your enemies and friends - reveal photos and videos on your 'hate profile' - tag your enemies - join a 'hate-clan' to get rid of all annoying this around you - take over the world."

This sounds like discrimination to me!

But let's be real, we're dealing with internet politics here and it is almost impossible to limit what content can be found online. To attack this would draw the ire of free speech activists and would just result in the website being moved to a different domain.

So where is the real discussion here?

Well how about this: do we enjoy hate? We like to hate on people because they hate on us. We join social network sites to bring people who hate together. It seems to me that we have an inherent disposition to hate others or even that we enjoy it. What does this say about us as a society? Personally, I would rather see the BC Human Rights Commission and the other bodies like it to to address this rather than bullshit complaints like that against Mr. Steyn. Doing so would be of greater benefit to Canadians than curtailing productive discussion.

- blenCOWe