HATE: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen

Purpose – This chapter has three general purposes: to trace Canada’s hate speech laws from their policy inception to their current state; to identify the importance that media and mass communication have played in the creation and development of Canada’s hate speech laws; and to demonstrate the critical relationship that media has had to significant legal cases on hate speech. Methodology/Approach – This chapter historically maps the policy development of and legal challenges to Canada’s hate speech laws. It takes directed notice of the relationship of media and mass communication to the development and implementation of those laws. It engages with libertarian and egalitarian arguments on free speech throughout the chapter testing these ideas through an examination of the legal cases cited. Findings – Canadian legislators and courts have long grappled with the balancing of rights with respect to the issue of “hate speech.” Advances in mass communication technology have added intricate challenges to that legal balancing. Awareness of media’s allure to hatemongers and racial extremists and of media’s protean characteristics make regulation of its hateful content a continuous legal challenge. Canada’s greatest challenge yet to the regulation of hate speech will be its adaptive response to the growing phenomenon of online hate. Originality/Value – This chapter highlights the little recognized prescient statements made by the Cohen Committee about the allure of media and the dangers of its technological advancements in Canadian free speech debates. Providing a comprehensive survey of Canada’s “hate speech” laws, it recognizes the importance that advancements in mass communication have played in the creation and development of Canada’s “hate speech” laws.

Hate crime and hate speech are extreme examples of negative intergroup relations. It is thought that it would be very useful to analyze the variables that lead up to for dealing with hate speech and crimes that have many physical and psychological destructive consequences for the exposed group members. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to address some of the social psychological variables associated with hate speech and hate crimes and to suggest solutions to reduce hate speech and hate crimes in this context. For this purpose, first of all, hate speech and hate crimes were defined and various examples were presented in this direction. Later, hate crimes and hate speech were examined in terms of social identity identification, social dominance orientation, system justification, realistic and symbolic threat perception, frustration and scapegoat concepts. The relationship between hate speech and crimes of this concept has been embodied with research findings and examples from various regions in Turkey and the world. Finally, some solution suggestions have been presented by making use of this theoretical knowledge in terms of combating hate crimes and hate speeches. Keywords: Hate crime, hate speech, intergroup relations, social psychology

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Counterspeech

This chapter distinguishes between open-mindedness, an epistemic virtue, and free speech, a political principle. It argues that open-mindedness is truth oriented. The principle of free speech in the United States, on the other hand, applies to speech that is false and misleading as well as to claims that are true. Free speech is not sacrosanct, however; there are exceptions such as defamation and libel and misleading advertising. Should hate speech join the exceptions to free speech? If so, how should hate speech be defined? This issue is particularly pressing in universities that are working to expand inclusion of groups often subject to hate speech while endorsing open-mindedness and free speech, and academic freedom. The chapter draws on Jeremy Waldron’s distinction between offenses to the dignity of persons and being offended to attempt an account of hate speech. Nevertheless, if hate speech laws are not in the offing, as seems likely, how should universities deal with hate speech on their campuses? What can universities legitimately do to encourage the virtue of an open-minded pursuit of truth while rejecting hate speech and abiding by the principle of free speech?

Reviewed by: Speaking back: The free speech versus hate speech debate by Katharine Gelber Mousa A. Btoosh Speaking back: The free speech versus hate speech debate. By Katharine Gelber. (Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture 1.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. xiv, 177. ISBN 1588111881. $59 (Hb). Gelber presents a new hate speech policy whereby victims of hate speech can speak back whenever such speech occurs. Throughout the book (which consists of six chapters, with abstract, introduction, conclusion, notes, references, and appendices), G argues convincingly that her ‘speaking back’ policy is better than the punitive hate speech legislation used in New South Wales, Australia, and some other Western countries. In the introduction (1–11), she provides a rationale for her study by stating the deficiencies of the hate speech laws and the inconsistencies between the goals of securing free speech and ameliorating the negative effects of hate speech. Such deficiencies and inconsistencies, according to G, justify the urgent need for a new balanced proposal. The introduction also presents an overview of the rest of the book. The first chapter, ‘The problem: An example of racial antivilification laws in practice, 1989–1998’ (13–27), familiarizes the reader with the reasons behind the legislation of the New South Wales’s racial antivilification law, the structure of the legislation, and three empirical problems resulted from its application. The second chapter, ‘Expanding speech liberties: A capabilities approach’ (29–47), sheds light on two proposals that differ in their assessments of free speech, hate speech, and speech policy. The first represents the current deficient major arguments in defense of free speech, which emphasize the quantity of speech: the more the better. The second represents G’s view, which aims to empower people to respond to hate speech rather than to be silenced by it. Another area of difference between G and defenders of free speech appears in the third chapter, ‘Speech as conduct’ (49–68), which analyzes speech conceptions within the framework of speech act theory and communicative action theory. Unlike many free speech adherents, G argues that hate speech is a kind of conduct and that any proposed distinction between speech and conduct is highly challengeable. The fourth chapter, ‘Hate speech as harmful conduct: The phenomenology of hate-speech-acts’ (69–91), presents an analysis of a number of hate speech utterances in terms of the validity claims model by which it has become feasible to identify and understand hate-speech-acts. Trying to investigate whether the weaknesses in the application of hate speech policy is universal or just a state-specific issue, G, in the fifth chapter entitled ‘Australia, the UK and the USA compared’ (93–115), adopts a com parative method, whereby she investigates hate speech policies in all three countries. The final chapter, ‘A policy of speaking back’ (117–34), deals with the core value of the book, G’s ‘capabilities-oriented hate speech policy’ which provides the institutional, material, and educational assistance that victims need to respond to hate speech. In brief, this policy suggests that hate speech should not be banned, but rather be answered. This book makes an important contribution to the field of discourse studies, providing a consolidated hate speech policy whereby the goals of both securing free speech and ameliorating the negative effects of hate speech are achieved simultaneously. Mousa A. Btoosh University of Texas, Arlington Copyright © 2003 Linguistic Society of America

“Islamophobia” in the western world is not only considered as a fear and disliking towards Muslims but also a concept that involves the complete erasure of Muslims by western society. The international media is considered a major collaborator in keeping Islamophobia the most prevalent issue in the western culture by directly attacking Muslim sentiments through state-based hate speeches or indirectly by projecting only the negative news of Muslims. Holland’s Mohammad Cartoon Competition once again processed a continuing conflict between the right of free speech and hate speech. The aim of this article is to analyse the Muhammad Cartoon Competition 2018 and Geert Wilders comments in the light of Holland’s hate speech provisions. The Holland cartoon contest will also be examined in light of past examples of racial and religious discrimination in Holland’s media against Islam in the name of free speech. The study intends to answer whether the Mohammad Cartoon Contest organized by Geert Wilders and his comments constitute hate speech according to the Dutch penal codes of Article 137c and 137d? The study uses the Methodology of Content analysis and an analysis of the Mohammad Cartoon Contest, Geert Wilder’s comments regarding it were made. In addition, a comparative analysis of the past cases of these legal violations in Holland was made in the study to draw up the results. Findings of the analysis suggest that most of the Geert Wilders comments and his organized cartoon contest qualify as hate speech according to all the clauses of article 137c and 137d of hate speech. However, keeping in consideration the previous trials against Geert Wilders and him not being convicted renders Dutch hate speech laws questionable. This brings us to conclude that there is a dire need to clarify and amend Holland’s hate speech laws. Keywords: Islamophobia, caricatures, international media, hate speech, freedom of speech, Muslims, Holland.

Previous articleNext article No AccessLiberalism and Campus Hate Speech: A Philosophical ExaminationAndrew AltmanAndrew Altman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 103, Number 2Jan., 1993 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/293497 Views: 140Total views on this site Citations: 33Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1993 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Suzanne Whitten Critical Republicanism and Harmful Speech, (Oct 2021): 85–133.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78631-1_4Suzanne Whitten Questioning the Non-Interference Paradigm, (Oct 2021): 17–50.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78631-1_2Jessica Flanigan, Alec Greven SPEECH AND CAMPUS INCLUSIVITY, Public Affairs Quarterly 35, no.33 (Jul 2021): 178–203.https://doi.org/10.2307/48628247Susan J. Brison Hate Speech, (Jun 2021): 1–11.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee771.pub2Gideon Elford FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND SOCIAL COERCION, Legal Theory 27, no.22 (Aug 2021): 149–175.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325221000124Seydi ÇELİK, Biruk PAULOS THE CHALLENGES OF REGULATING HATE SPEECH ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN LIGHT OF THE THEORY OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi (May 2021).https://doi.org/10.52273/sduhfd..922588María Antonia Paz, Julio Montero-Díaz, Alicia Moreno-Delgado Hate Speech: A Systematized Review, SAGE Open 10, no.44 (Nov 2020): 215824402097302.https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020973022Stavros Assimakopoulos Incitement to discriminatory hatred, illocution and perlocution, Pragmatics and Society 11, no.22 (Jul 2020): 177–195.https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18071.assR. George Wright Freedom of Speech as a Cultural Holdover, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2019).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3399624Grant M. 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Throughout the 1988 Presidential campaign, George Bush drew cheers from supporters by attacking Michael Dukakis's membership in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization that he charged was out of the mainstream of American life. Indeed, throughout its history, the organization has championed some decidedly unpopular causes, including free speech rights for racist groups and due process for even the most vicious criminals. But as Samuel Walker argues in his provocative new book--the first comprehensive history of the ACLU--the organization has played a leading role in shaping principles of individual freedom that are now a cornerstone of American law and the way all of us conceive of personal liberty. It has been involved in most of the Supreme Court's landmark cases expanding individual rights, and today argues more cases before the Court than anyone but the federal government. In fact, as American Liberties makes clear, the organization has played a central role in creating that mythical American mainstream that its opponents so often invoke. In fascinating detail, Walker recounts the ACLU's stormy history since its founding in 1920 to fight for free speech. He explores its involvement in some of the most famous causes in American history, including the Scopes Monkey Trial, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the Cold War anti-Communist witch hunts, and the civil rights movement. And he examines its most famous personalities, such as its puritan and autocratic founder Roger Baldwin; Felix Frankfurter, a long-time member who later voted against many ACLU cases while a Supreme Court justice; and Morris Ernst, who won the landmark case involving James Joyce's Ulysses and led the ACLU to take up the cause of free expression for sexually-frank publications. Walker deals candidly with the ACLU's less praiseworthy episodes--such as the expulsion of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from the Board during the ACLU's anti-Communist phase, and he dissects the organization's constant struggle within itself to define the proper scope of civil liberties, revealing facts that will surprise even members of the ACLU. As Walker's engrossing story demonstrates, the history of the ACLU embodies some of the most important changes in American society in the twentieth century. The principles for which the organization has fought--such as free speech, fair play, equality, and privacy--are now accepted and cherished by Americans from all walks of life.

In recent times, South Africa has been witnessing insurgence of offensive and hate speech along racial and ethnic dispositions on Twitter. Popular among the South African languages used is English. Although, machine learning has been successfully used to detect offensive and hate speech in several English contexts, the distinctiveness of South African tweets and the similarities among offensive, hate and free speeches require domain-specific English corpus and techniques to detect the offensive and hate speech. Thus, we developed an English corpus from South African tweets and evaluated different machine learning techniques to detect offensive and hate speech. Character n-gram, word n-gram, negative sentiment, syntactic-based features and their hybrid were extracted and analyzed using hyper-parameter optimization, ensemble and multi-tier meta-learning models of support vector machine, logistic regression, random forest, gradient boosting algorithms. The results showed that optimized support vector machine with character n-gram performed best in detection of hate speech with true positive rate of 0.894, while optimized gradient boosting with word n-gram performed best in detection of hate speech with true positive rate of 0.867. However, their performances in detection of other threatening classes were poor. Multi-tier meta-learning models achieved the most consistent and balanced classification performance with true positive rates of 0.858 and 0.887 for hate speech and offensive speech, respectively as well as true positive rate of 0.646 for free speech and overall accuracy of 0.671. The error analysis showed that multi-tier meta-learning model could reduce the misclassification error rate of the optimized models by 34.26%.

Any statement or phrase that disparages a group of people because of their gender identity, religion, ethnicity, national origin, race, sexual orientation, or is referred to as a racial slur. Hate, mistrust, and intolerance are often propagated via hate speech. It may also be used to harm or frighten others. People may feel alienated, anxious, and exposed as a result. Hate crimes may also result from it. Furthermore, hate speech may undermine intergroup trust. It is crucial to identify hate speech since doing so may assist to stop these negative impacts. Social media has recently developed into a haven for hate speech. Social media hate speech may be detrimental to society. Free speech, racial slur, and laws not for it have all been striving issues. Any speech, behaviour, writing, or display that encourages violence or other unpleasant deeds against a cohort of people or an organisation based on that person's subscription in the group, or that defames or affects that person or personal based on that membership, is considered racial slur under the laws of most countries. The laws may designate a category based on particular identities. Many countries do not consider racial slur to be a legal word. Additionally, the constitution permits the majority of what is seen as "hate speech" in many countries, including the US. In different countries, a sufferer of racial slurs may seek justice through civil lawsuit, convict lawsuit, or both. As communications are delivered and received virtually instantly, social media networks (SMNs) are the quickest form of communication. The emergence of social media platforms has irreparably altered how people interact in our society, and one result of these changes is an increase in unacceptable behaviours like the use of nasty and angry language online. It might be challenging to express harsh or disrespectful ideas to someone right in the face. People believe it is safe to abuse people or publish harmful content online. Hate speech may be harmful to an individual or a community. For improper material on the Web to be changed or blocked, it must be detected. Massive amounts of text data need human processing and classification, which takes time and effort. But since there is so much data released each day, automated approaches are crucial for recognising this kind of material.

The development of automated hate speech detection research has not yet detailed the actor who is the source of hatred, even though the forms of hate speech intervention for perpetrators and supporters are different. Previous research on this topic has paid much attention to the action component in the form of sentimental words. However, it has yet to pay attention to the actor component that can differentiate legal hate speech from illegal hate speech and transforms hateful or offensive speech into free speech, thus dealing with misclassification, as reported in a previous study. This research proposes a framework for the automated detection of hate speech that provides an actor and action component to solve the problem of such errors and meets the need for comprehensive interventions. This study shows how to apply the framework in a rule-based approach by considering the actor component in predicting hate speech and differentiating it from others. The prediction process is called actor-oriented automated hate speech detection.

It is said that politicians’ hate speech or hate speech in political election tend to cause more serious impact on society. They are more influential to society and there is often an increased tension in political election. In this sense, some insist that strict regulation is needed to address politicians’ hate speech or hate speech in political election. However, we have to pay attention to the fact that on the one hand hate speech regulation is need for politicians, but on the other hand freedom of speech for politicians and free speech in political elections is extremely important. This article tries to sort out this dilemma between regulation and non-regulation for for politician and free speech in political elections. Firstly, incitement to hatred is also applied to polticians but most of them could skillfully evade legal regulation and I am afraid prosecuting politicians leads to political oppression by selectively prosecuting some of the political enemies. Another option is to deal with hate speech by the National Election Commission. This institution plays an important role in tackiling hate speech by informing politicians of the harm of hate speech.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution heralding the emergence and dominance of social media has always been viewed as a turning point in free speech and communication. Indeed, the social media ordinarily represents the freedom of all people to speech and information. But then, there is also the side of the social media that has been often ignored; that it serves as platform for all and sundry to express themselves with little, if any regulation or legal consequences. This as a result has led to global explosion of hate speech and fake news. Hate speech normally lead to tension and holds in it, the potential for national or even international crisis of untold proportions. It also has the likelihood to scare people away from expressing themselves for fear of hate-filled responses and becoming a source of fake news. Using doctrinal as well as comparative methodologies, this paper appraises the trend between states of passing laws or proposing laws to regulate hate speech and fake news; it also appraises the contents of such laws from different countries with the aim of identifying how they may be used to suppress free speech under the guise of regulating hate speech and fake news. It argues that the alarming trend of hate speech and fake news presented an opportunity for leaders across the globe to curb free speech. The paper concludes that the advancement in ICT helped in a great deal to advance free speech; it may as well, because of the spread of hate speech and fake news, lead to a reverse of that success story.

Freedom of speech and expression is one of the most fundamental rights and freedoms and is essential in any attempt to build a democratic, social and political order. It is enshrined into most of the world’s constitutions and in other international instruments. Speech is an expression of one self and should not be curtailed unless in very clear circumstances which should be properly provided for in law and not defy reason. Normal human beings ought to be allowed to speak ,sing, write or perform other acts of art facilitating expression and to prevent a person from expressing a view or a belief or even an emotion is to deny him/herself basic dignity.As much as it is a sacred right closely guarded by the most high of laws, it is overt that freedom of expression through speech is not absolute. It has to be regulated for public order purposes. The Kenyan constitution for example provides for situations as to when an individual has give up his/her freedom of expression. While underscoring the fact that freedom of speech and expression is not absolute and citizens are not protected in everything they choose to say, Mr. Justice Holmes in the united states supreme court decision in Schenck v. United States stated that the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in the theatre and causing panic. He went on to state that it would not protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have the effects of force and the question in each case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that congress has a right to prevent.Free speech is one aspect of the freedom of expression and this paper aims at studying it and seeking to see whether it is possible to strike a balance between free speech and public order. Of most important will be hate speech which can be said with confidence to stem from abuse of the freedom of expression.Hate speech is defined as that type of speech which is used to deliberately offend an individual, racial, ethnic or religious group seeking to dehumanize the individual or group or express anger, hatred, violence or contempt against them. It incites society to violence and creates tensions between people with some looking at others with suspicion and contempt based on what has been told to them regarding the target group. Kenya has been a victim of violence prompted through hate speech time and again but she has no specific law governing it. The different pieces of legislation can be said to be barely effective and not deterrent in nature and therefore this problem has continued to manifest itself time and again and mostly at times of high political tides. It has therefore been argued by some people that Kenya needs a specific law prohibiting hate speech if the vice is to be contained.It is these arguments for and against a hate speech law in Kenya that need to be studied critically with one bearing in mind that the freedom of expression and free speech is a fundamental right and freedom which is enshrined in the constitution and other international instruments that Kenya is party to.The issue of hate speech has not been knotty in Kenya alone and other countries have similarly had to grapple with it in diverse ways that have suited the circumstances peculiar to their countries.8 In examining whether legislation against hate speech is the best way for Kenya, it will therefore be important to also consider the circumstances of the other countries and how they have attempted to deal with the issue.

Hate mongers have found it strategically useful to present themselves as defenders of free speech. The shift from advocate of hate to defender of free speech fits well with the hate monger's self-understanding as a victim of state oppression and a defender of Western values against multiculturalism. More often, though, the opposition to hate speech regulation has a principled basis. There are many committed libertarians who regard hate speech as odious but are nevertheless prepared to defend the right of others to engage in it. Their opposition to the restriction of hate speech rests on a commitment to individual liberty sand a concern about the reach of state power. While I think the civil position is mistaken, it is not without merit. What is perplexing though is the extraordinary energy that these advocates of free speech put into the fight against hate speech regulation. They seem convinced that the integrity of the free speech edifice depends on holding the line here. Yet they seem indifferent to the more significant ways in which freedom of expression is being eroded in Western democracies. Whether by design or not, the obsessive opposition to hate speech regulation diverts our attention away from more fundamental free speech issues concerning the character and structure of public disclosure, and more particularly the domination of public disclosure by commercial messages and the advertising form. But, of course, these are not issues that can be addressed by the courts, except in indirect ways, and that may partly explain the lack of attention they receive.In recent years the critics of hate speech regulation in Canada have focused on human rights codes restrictions. Some critics are opposed not to hate speech regulation per se but only to this form of restriction. Their concern is that the human rights process is poorly suited to the regulation of hate speech. I count myself among this group. Other critics are opposed to any form of hate speech restriction and human rights code regulation is simply the battleground on which they have chosen to conduct their fight. But there is another dimension to the attack on human rights code regulation of hate speech. Much of the recent criticism of such regulation seems designed to undermine the entire human rights system. In their criticism of this regulation, they spend more time talking about the corruption and incompetence of human rights institutions than about the value of free speech. The logic of their (unfounded) claims of corruption is that these institutions have no legitimate role and should be abolished. Their claims are rooted in a more general libertarian view that state power is inherently oppressive and corrupt.In this chapter, I will say something about the current state of hate speech regulation in Canada, before looking more closely at the attack on human rights laws and institutions, and the resonance these attacks have had in the mainstream media.