This sounds like an awful lot of assumptions.
Come on. There's a debate to be had about hate speech and free speech, but it can't even get started on a reasonable footing if some of the participants don't know enough history to be able to answer this question.
What is hate? What is offensive? It's whatever you want it to be!
When in doubt, err on the side of freedom and liberty.
The definition of minority is just as subjective.
Perhaps you're conflating hate speech with hateful (and harmful) actions. History is full of examples of the latter, but it's also full of examples of the former where no one was actually hurt, minority groups included.
Speech can be a precursor to action, but that doesn't make it a crime in itself (unless you're living in "1984"). What's that old rhyme about "sticks and stones..."?
While your questions are fair, it is noteworthy that you haven't clarified or backed up your original claim. As someone reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised people are engaging with you. Personally, I would not engage with someone who makes an unsubstantiated claim, and instead of backing it up keeps trying to poke holes in others' responses.
The fact that hate speech is subjective is evidenced by my questions which examine just how loose and vague the definitions are. There still is no clear answer on what hate speech is, beyond the 1st Amendment which I think is good enough.
If you mean something else, then please state what it is that's unsubstantiated.
Large amounts of anecdata of people reporting (e.g. with the first post on a new blog) that they have finally found places where they can freely engage in Internet discourse; and explaining that they hadn’t been engaging in Internet discourse up until then, because any attempt previously was met with people reacting to the cultural “outgroup” signifiers in their message, rather than to the content of the message itself.
> What does hate speech have to do with minority populations?
Pretty much every country other than the US has an official legal definition of hate speech—but even the US has a definition of hate crime. Both terms are defined in terms of prejudice toward a group. Wikipedia’s definition of “hate crime”, for example:
“A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or race.”
> Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other?
“Hate speech” doesn’t literally mean “hateful speech.” If just say something with hatred, you’re not engaging in hate speech. If you say something with prejudice, intending injury to the victim because of that prejudice, you’re engaging in hate speech.
Keeping that in mind, you can certainly commit an act of hate speech (or a hate crime generally) against someone in the same intersection of groups as you. It probably implies that you hate yourself (or don’t consider yourself a part of such group/groups), though.
Group membership doesn't have anything to do with minorities though. You can define groups however you want, so a "minority" is entirely dependent on the context of the situation and just as subjective as the hate speech. So who are you considering minorities and what is this anecdotal data that claims they did not participate in forums? Must every forum be welcoming to everyone? Did no other forum exist? Could they not have created their own forum? If they talked to each other, does that mean a forum exists? And if so, doesn't that mean they are free to engage in their own discourse after all?
(I'm also aware that these are not easy issues to tackle but they haven't been met with a lot of care in the last few years)
Allowing conflict does not obviate a need to allow safe spaces, either.
No, they did not. They looked they were creating environments in which inevitable conflict was common, and in which the discussion of that conflict sometimes lead to helpful resolutions and improvements, and sometimes did not.
