A question about hurt feelings became, on this page, a referendum on whether offence deserves institutional treatment. The interesting asymmetry was that the winning side made a coherent distinction between offence and harm, while the losing side’s best arguments pressed the cost of ignoring harm.
The floor’s most-respected Yes case drew that boundary plainly: “We shouldn't confuse being offended with being harmed.” Another well-rated Yes voice widened it beyond policing, saying “people seem to have become increasingly rude to each other”, especially online, while others insisted that “No-one has a right to not be offended”. The tone was sometimes earnest, sometimes gleefully sardonic: one voter answered the premise with mock demands for apology, reparations and prison.
No voters did not dispute the value of free speech so much as its consequences when rhetoric targets minorities. The strongest No case warned that “Anti-black, anti-migrant, annti-trans and anti-muslim sentiment” was becoming more prevalent, while another cautioned that “words aren’t always ‘just words’”. The two sides often talked past each other: Yes was arguing against records and investigations over lawful speech, while No was arguing that public language can normalise hostility before it becomes a crime.
The background policy gave the exchange a concrete centre of gravity. A highly rated Yes argument called recording lawful speech as a “hate incident” “a bit ridiculous when there was no crime involved”; a reply agreed that the category was a waste of resources, with the room even enjoying the prospect of an elaborate official process for someone told to “go forth and multiply”. The ECHR and free-speech references placed the vote inside a wider rights argument, but the page’s clearest shared instinct was narrower: protect people from genuine threats without turning offence itself into an administrative event.
The decisive instinct here was not that nobody should be offended, but that offence alone should not summon the state.
20 Opinions
I've noticed it a fair amount on social media, some people are easily upset or hurt by a reply. On the other side of this, people seem to have become increasingly rude to each other. Easy to do hiding behind a screen. Is it frustration because we can't have what we think we should, do we expect too much from each other? My feelings are that we do feel offended far more often now than we did years back.
Yes, to an extent. We shouldn't confuse being offended with being harmed, and the police shouldn't be wasting time investigating perfectly lawful arguments or petty online rows. The whole idea of recording someone's legal speech as a "hate incident" was always a bit ridiculous when there was no crime involved. Protect people from genuine threats and hate crimes, absolutely. But being offended isn't, and shouldn't become a police matter like it is being at present
Any time someone hears something they don't like they only need to say they are offended and they push their own agenda forward. Whilst hatred is an offense, being offended is part of life. You can't go through life agreeing with everyone
YES No one has a right to be not offended. Unfortunately unless you live on an island there's always going to be someone who may get offended by what's been said, because people have different beliefs The thing is, just because something someone says might offended your beliefs it doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to say it We have free speach in the UK, as long as what's been said isn't illegal, challenge what the person has said rather than use law to silence them
No-one has the right to not be offended.
I'm deeply offended that anyone should think I'm easily offended. Anyone who thinks that should apologise. And do so publicly. And make reparations. And lose their jobs. And be thrown in prison so that they can't offend anyone else. <satire>
We've made it too easy for people to be offended by mollycoddling delicate sensibilities. It's by design though, aiding in the suppression of free speech. Make people afraid of the consequences of speaking out, they will stay quiet.
You can find offence anywhere if you look ,I sometimes believe the ones that shout loudest about people being racist, bigoted,remember him !! Are the racists bigots. You look for it.
Too easily offended and too easy to communicate their hurt feelings. From a keyboard in their bedroom in their Mum’s house - to be picked up by a cut & paste “journalist” - creating clickbait stories to being quoted as an opinion on a News story… Karen from Kent said… as if it’s a scientifically researched, substantive comment. Sorry if I’ve disrespected anyone here. But you’re the problem! 😎
When free speech is systematically undermined so that citizens have to check what they think/ say then the winners are those whose siren voice is ‘you can’t say that’. We have always been a tolerant society & we used to be relaxed in our own skin. So the left hating freedom of thought decided we were racist sexiest & systematically undermined who we we were/are. Enough, I no longer care.