Despite being considered morally objective by most people,
hate speech is protected under the first amendment as an important part of our
freedom of speech within the United States. The fundamental argument that protects hate
speech is the impossibility of defining what actually constitutes hate speech:
while clearly defined cases can be prosecuted under libel, there is a concern
that allowing ambiguous cases to be subject would result in more harm coming
out of denying the sharing of an unpopular minority opinion rather than good.
The web in particular is a hard place to control, since despite being easily
accessible it efficiently protects the anonymity of most users. While context
usually offers a good indication for which particular instances of hate speech
can actively be considered harmful, as in directly the cause of violent or unlawful
actions, the seriousness of the threat is difficult to determine. It is easy, in
theory, to wish for some universal control against hate speech, however it is
important to remember the negative implications of such a law. A lot of people would be outraged and just rebel against it. Because of this, I don't think that there can really be much done to reduce hate speech.
Hi Tiziann,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that hate speech, unfortunately still protected through the 1st amendment. This is obviously a very tough balancing act, as you have to allow people to express themselves, yet we cannot allow them to clearly state false statements that personally damage someone’s character or reputation. The problem that I have with protecting hate speech is that you never know what statements or public announcements can incite or create. For instance, there are rumors the civil unrest in Libya was caused by a movie that was created by a gentleman in southern California that pretended to be Jewish, and slammed the Muslim culture and population. The constant progression of online forums and social media networks create additional problems. There is not really a away to facilitate restrictions online, yet comments are monitored that make threats of violence. Given the current climate around the world, and how fast information is received, there may need to be a new bill that applies specifically online forums.