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With regards to a 'citation' my statement was very literal, I'm really not sure either way and would be happy to see evidence either way as I really don't have a strong standpoint on the matter.
With regards to the second point. That's kind of my point, you can change the laws and people carry on having abhorrent views but before they'd just come out and say their hateful shite so it was always clear who they were, now you have to really dig deep to work out who's who.
You're not going to change these people's minds by sitting down and engaging them in debate and 'tackling the hard subjects'.
And you're not going to change their minds by changing the law on what they can and can't say
Festerban-
If your objective is to stop neofascism from spreading what is going to be more effective
a. Remove them from major platforms and prosecute in extreme cases, severely limiting their ability to recruit, disseminate and organise
b. Just kinda let them do their thing in the open so we know who they are
We are currently at option b for the most part and it isn't working. YouTube is particularly bad for it, the comment sections are full of literal nazis and their algorithm constantly recommends alt-right propaganda no matter what your viewing history is. Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens have each been cited as inspirations in the manifestos of separate mass murderers. How much more white supremacist violence will it take before we accept that the current laissez-faire approach is not working?
You're right, of course, that criminalising the symptoms doesn't eliminate the hatred. But until we can address the more complicated underlying societal issues it seems obvious to me that quarantining it is preferable to doing fuck all.
Drano
[citation needed]
They sure as hell give vulnerable people some sort of recourse when they're being verbally assaulted because of their gender.
Neofascists have been dog whistling white supremacy, islamophobia and anti-queer rhetoric for years and will continue to do so regardless of legal advances made for trans rights. You're not going to change these people's minds by sitting down and engaging them in debate and 'tackling the hard subjects'.