Following his trial for defamation of the families of the children and school staff killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is using Valve Corp.’s Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for PC games, to sell an Infowars-themed video game. Jones claims to have earned hundreds of thousands in revenue from the video game, yet he has refused to pay the Sandy Hook families. Alex Jones: NWO Wars also mirrors and cartoonishly repackages the conspiracy theorist’s regularly violent, hateful rhetoric despite the platform’s policies against hate speech.

    • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yes you can.

      Those groups are not fully in religious in nature but represent in part a political movement with a history of violence. As long as the ire is not placed on the entirety of the faith, a particular sect that is enacting it’s ideology based on violence is not a criticism based from the religion but by the actions of the group as a political and military force. Still not cool to infer they are genetically inferior or sub human or even that they are all pedophiles or something but the fact that they have been actually commiting specific crimes as an organized group means that they are free game to be critiqued for their crimes.

      You can also actively critique the writings and dogma of a religion itself but the hate speech portion doesn’t kick in until imply that the people who follow it are mentally ill, inferior, predisposed to crime or all going to enact all the practices listed in their holy texts that represent a modern illegal practice etc. etc. etc.

      There is a distinction between nationality and government/ politics as well. You can absolutely exercise free critique of someone as long as it is not based on the criteria of their national origin. As long as you stick to talking about the facts of what specific individuals or political groups have actually been accredited as doing you are in the clear.