Countering Public Hate Speech

Abstract

This chapter considers how we should respond to deeply disrespectful or hateful public speech. Unless public hate speech is countered appropriately, it risks eroding the standing or dignity of its targets, and thereby preventing them from participating effectively in democratic public discourse. It is often held that this problem cannot adequately be addressed via ‘more speech’, and that, consequently, we must legally suppress hate speech. But this view relies on an overly limited understanding of how we might counter hate speech with more speech. First, it overlooks the role that the state can play in endowing ‘counterspeech’ with authority. Second, it overlooks the distinction between ‘negative’ counterspeech (which focuses on rejecting hateful perspectives) and ‘positive’ counterspeech (which instead affirms a countervailing and inconsistent perspective). Counterspeech that is both state-sponsored and positively framed constitutes a prima facie preferable tool than legal norms for upholding the standing of targets of hate speech.