Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition.Cambridge Dictionary defines hate speech as "public speech that expresses hate orencourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation".[1] TheEncyclopedia of the American Constitution states that hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation".[2] Hate speech can include incitement based onsocial class[3] orpolitical beliefs.[4] There is no single definition of what constitutes "hate" or "disparagement". Legal definitions of hate speech vary from country to country.
There has been much debate overfreedom of speech, hate speech, and hate speech legislation.[5] The laws of some countries describehate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays thatinciteviolence orprejudicial actions against a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or that disparage or intimidate a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. The law may identify protected groups based on certain characteristics.[6][7][8] In some countries, a victim of hate speech may seek redress undercivil law,criminal law, or both. In the United States, what is usually labelled "hate speech" isconstitutionally protected.[9][10][11][12]
Starting in the 1940s and 50s, various American civil rights groups responded to the atrocities ofWorld War II by advocating for restrictions on hateful speech targeting groups on the basis of race and religion.[14] These organizations used group libel as a legal framework for describing hate speech and addressing its harm. In his discussion of the history of criminal libel, scholarJeremy Waldron states that these laws helped "vindicate public order, not just by preempting violence, but by upholding against attack a shared sense of the basic elements of each person's status, dignity, and reputation as a citizen or member of society in good standing".[15] A key legal victory for this view came in 1952 when group libel law was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court inBeauharnais v. Illinois.[16] However, the group libel approach lost ground due to a rise in support for individual rights within civil rights movements during the 60s.[17] Critiques of group defamation laws are not limited to defenders of individual rights. Some legal theorists, such ascritical race theorist Richard Delgado, support legal limits on hate speech, but claim that defamation is too narrow a category to fully counter hate speech. Ultimately, Delgado advocates a legal strategy that would establish a specific section oftort law for responding to racist insults, citing the difficulty of receiving redress under the existing legal system.[18]
The rise of theinternet andsocial media has presented a new medium through which hate speech can spread. Hate speech on the internet can be traced all the way back to its initial years, with a 1983bulletin board system created byneo-NaziGeorge Dietz considered the first instance of hate speech online.[19] As the internet evolved over time hate speech continued to spread and create its footprint; the first hate speech websiteStormfront was published in 1996, and hate speech has become one of the central challenges for social media platforms.[20]
The structure and nature of the internet contribute to both the creation and persistence of hate speech online. The widespread use and access to the internet gives hate mongers an easy way to spread their message to wide audiences with little cost and effort. According to theInternational Telecommunication Union, approximately 66% of the world population has access to the internet.[21] Additionally, the pseudo-anonymous nature of the internet imboldens many to make statements constituting hate speech that they otherwise wouldn't for fear of social or real life repercussions.[22] While some governments and companies attempt to combat this type of behavior by leveragingreal name systems, difficulties in verifying identities online, public opposition to such policies, and sites that don't enforce these policies leave large spaces for this behavior to persist.[23][24]
Because the internet crosses national borders, comprehensive government regulations on online hate speech can be difficult to implement and enforce. Governments who want to regulate hate speech contend with issues around lack of jurisdiction and conflicting viewpoints from other countries.[25] In an early example of this, the case ofYahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et l'Antisemitisme had a French court holdYahoo! liable for allowing Nazi memorabilia auctions to be visible to the public. Yahoo! refused to comply with the ruling and ultimately won relief in a U.S. court which found that the ruling was unenforceable in the U.S.[25] Disagreements like these make national level regulations difficult, and while there are someinternational efforts and laws that attempt to regulate hate speech and its online presence, as with most international agreements the implementation and interpretation of these treaties varies by country.[26]
Much of the regulation regarding online hate speech is performed voluntarily by individual companies. Many major tech companies have adoptedterms of service which outline allowed content on their platform, often banning hate speech. In a notable step for this, on 31 May 2016,Facebook,Google,Microsoft, andTwitter, jointly agreed to aEuropean Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours.[27] Techniques employed by these companies to regulate hate speech include user reporting,Artificial Intelligence flagging, and manual review of content by employees.[28] Major search engines likeGoogle Search also tweak their algorithms to try and suppress hateful content from appearing in their results.[29] However, despite these efforts hate speech remains a persistent problem online. According to a 2021 study by theAnti-Defamation League 33% of Americans were the target of identity based harassment in the preceding year, a statistic which has not noticeably shifted downwards despite increasing self regulation by companies.[30]
After World War II,Germany criminalizedVolksverhetzung ("incitement of popular hatred") to prevent resurgence ofNazism. Hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity also is banned in Germany. Most European countries have likewise implemented various laws and regulations regarding hate speech, and the European Union's Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA[34] requires member states to criminalize hate crimes and speech (though individual implementation and interpretation of this framework varies by state).[35][36]
International human rights laws from theUnited Nations Human Rights Committee have been protecting freedom of expression, and one of the most fundamental documents is theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) drafted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948.[37] Article 19 of the UDHR states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."[37]
While there are fundamental laws in place designed to protect freedom of expression, there are also multiple international laws that expand on the UDHR and pose limitations and restrictions, specifically concerning the safety and protection of individuals.[38]
Article 19(3) of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits restrictions on the human right of freedom of expression only when provided by law, and when necessary to protect "rights or reputations of others", or for "protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals".[41]
Article 20(2) of the ICCPR prohibits national, religious, or racial hatred that incites violence, discrimination, or hostility.[41]
Most developed democracies have laws that restrict hate speech, including Australia, Canada,[42] Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland,[43] South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.[44] The United States does not have hate speech laws, because theU.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that they violate the guarantee tofreedom of speech contained in theFirst Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[12]
Laws against hate speech can be divided into two types: those intended to preserve public order and those intended to protect human dignity. The laws designed to protect public order require that a higher threshold be violated, so they are not often enforced. For example, a 1992 study found that only one person was prosecuted in Northern Ireland in the preceding 21 years for violating a law against incitement to religious violence. The laws meant to protect human dignity have a much lower threshold for violation, so those in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands tend to be more frequently enforced.[45]
Several activists and scholars have criticized the practice of limiting hate speech.Kim Holmes, Vice President of the conservativeHeritage Foundation and a critic of hate speech theory, has argued that it "assumesbad faith on the part of people regardless of their stated intentions" and that it "obliterates the ethical responsibility of the individual".[46]Rebecca Ruth Gould, a professor of Islamic and Comparative Literature at theUniversity of Birmingham, argues that laws against hate speech constituteviewpoint discrimination (which is prohibited by theFirst Amendment in the United States) as the legal system punishes some viewpoints but not others.[47] Other scholars, such as Gideon Elford, argue instead that "insofar as hate speech regulation targets the consequences of speech that are contingently connected with the substance of what is expressed then it is viewpoint discriminatory in only an indirect sense."[48] John Bennett argues that restricting hate speech relies on questionable conceptual and empirical foundations[49] and is reminiscent of efforts by totalitarian regimes to control the thoughts of their citizens.[50]
Civil libertarians say that hate speech laws have been used, in both developing and developed nations, to persecute minority viewpoints and critics of the government.[51][52][53][54] FormerACLU presidentNadine Strossen says that, while efforts to censor hate speech have the goal of protecting the most vulnerable, they are ineffective and may have the opposite effect: disadvantaged and ethnic minorities being charged with violating laws against hate speech.[51] JournalistGlenn Greenwald says that hate speech laws in Europe have been used to censorleft-wing views as much as they have been used to combat hate speech.[53]
Miisa Kreandner and Eriz Henze argue that hate speech laws are arbitrary, as they only protect some categories of people but not others.[55][56] Henze argues the only way to resolve this problem without abolishing hate speech laws would be to extend them to all possible conceivable categories, which Henze argues would amount to totalitarian control over speech.[55]
Michael Conklin argues that there are benefits to hate speech that are often overlooked. He contends that allowing hate speech provides a more accurate view of the human condition, provides opportunities to change people's minds, and identifies certain people that may need to be avoided in certain circumstances.[57] According to one psychological research study, a high degree of psychopathy is "a significant predictor" for involvement in online hate activity, while none of the other 7 potential factors examined were found to have astatistically significant predictive power.[58]
Political philosopher Jeffrey W. Howard considers the popular framing of hate speech as "free speech vs. other political values" as a mischaracterization. He refers to this as the "balancing model", and says it seeks to weigh the benefit of free speech against other values such as dignity and equality for historically marginalized groups. Instead, he believes that the crux of debate should be whether or not freedom of expression is inclusive of hate speech.[44] Research indicates that when people support censoring hate speech, they are motivated more by concerns about the effects the speech has on others than they are about its effects on themselves.[59] Women are somewhat more likely than men to support censoring hate speech due to greater perceived harm of hate speech, which some researchers believe may be due to gender differences in empathy towards targets of hate speech.[60]
^John T. Nockleby, "Hate Speech," inEncyclopedia of the American Constitution, eds. Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, vol. 3 (2nd ed., Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000, pp. 1277–1279); quoted byBrown-Sica, Margaret; Beall, Jeffrey (2008)."Library 2.0 and the Problem of Hate Speech".Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship.9 (2). Retrieved22 June 2021.
^Cotler, Irwin (2012). Herz, Michael; Molnar, Peter (eds.). "State-Sanctioned Incitement to Genocide".The Content and Context of Hate Speech:430–455.doi:10.1017/CBO9781139042871.030.ISBN978-1139042871.
^Mendel, Toby (2012), Herz, Michael; Molnar, Peter (eds.), "Does International Law Provide for Consistent Rules on Hate Speech?",The Content and Context of Hate Speech, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 417–429,doi:10.1017/cbo9781139042871.029,ISBN978-1139042871
^abHeinze, Eric. "Cumulative jurisprudence and human rights: The example of sexual minorities and hate speech."The International Journal of Human Rights 13, no. 2–3 (2009): 193–209.
^Kreander, Miisa. "The Widening Definition of Hate Speech – How Well Intended Hate Speech Laws Undermine Democracy and the Rule of Law." (2022).[ISBN missing][page needed]
^Conklin, Michael (2020). "The Overlooked Benefits of 'Hate Speech': Not Just the Lesser of Two Evils".SSRN3604244.
^Downs, Daniel M., and Gloria Cowan. "Predicting the importance of freedom of speech and the perceived harm of hate speech."Journal of Applied Social Psychology 42, no. 6 (2012): 1353–1375.
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