Q2

Q: Visit the Free Speech Museum's Hate Speech Page.  What did you learn about how hate speech is defined, who engages in it, and efforts to regulate hate speech on the Web?  What should be done about hate speech on the Web and off it?  Should we censor it?  Would doing so violate our constitutional right to freedom of speech?  Are there other, perhaps less formal, ways to reduce hate speech?   http://www.spectacle.org/freespch/musm/hate.html

A: Hate speech is defined as "communication that vilifies a person or group based on color, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic" on Wikipedia. In simple English, it means to express hatred loudly and bluntly. Mostly those who are racist engage in this activity. Some of the efforts to regulate hate speech on the web is to simply ban it by law. I think that hate speech definitely should be kept at a minimum; especially for those who take offense easily. Although it is common to see many races, nationalities, and sexual orientations in the bay area, other parts of the United States and other countries do not have similar views as us. One of San Francisco's favorite land marks is "Gay Street" and all of their celebrations and gay lounges/bars. A lot of time when you read the news a lot of teens are taken into offense when friends, family members, classmates, etc. laugh, make fun of, or hate the fact that they are gay or lesbian. A lot of people have narrow minds and are not open to this new generation of people being created along with the technology. With the ease of access of the internet, its honestly very hard to regulate every single thing that happens and even little blog posts that are written on the topic. I believe that off web these people that are being hated upon, whether it is because of their skin color or their accent, should learn to be proud of who they are and not take offense so easily. Offline, they should build confidence and understand that some people are just narrow minded and have potty mouth. You can't control what they say but you can control your own actions. Be proud of who you are and stand up for yourself and others can say whatever makes them happy. Unless they come knocking on your door like KKK, you should just brush it off. Online, to make it more safe, there should be a filter to these websites. Not saying I support Sopa, but I think that the government or companies should definitely do some weeding and take out growing hate sites or hate videos on YouTube. I had a friend tell me that there is a Russian girl on YouTube who hates on the gays and lesbians and a lot of them went to go kill themselves after watching her video or hearing about it.  Honestly, YouTube, take it off. Please be more aware of what these people are posting online. I think that censorship is stupid. If Sopa had passed I honestly would give up on the future. A lot of amateurs build home brew games and stuff on the internet and if Sopa were to take over and censor things like that. There is no way for censorship to just censor out the hate speeches. If we censor, we will most likely go all the way. In the United States, we highly value our freedom speech. By disagreeing we explore more options. Everyone is allowed to have opinions and definately this, in my opinion, does not violate freedom of speech. Whether or not this is considered starting a riot I will change my answer as need be because the effects of simple YouTube videos is quite amazing. I think that a hate speech awareness is very important. If we could push "Don't text and drive" with advertisements and actors and actresses it is possible to push "no hate speeches" if we really decided to. It just depends on how heavy of an impact this becomes in the United States.