Hate Speech is Not Free Speech. Platforms and Governments Need to Take Note

Reading Time: 9 minutes.

The Islamophobic terrorist who attacked people in Christchurch, New Zealand Mosques called Donald Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity.” Where could he have gotten this idea? We could spend hours going into Trump’s racist past. From attacking the Central Park 5 in full-page ads, even after they were found innocent, to his company denying housing to black people. His vile comments about Mexicans, or when he stated that a group of alt-right, Neo-Nazi white supremacists (who killed one woman in a terrorist attack) had some “very nice people,” make it clear, he’s at the very least, a white nationalist’s greatest ally. But it might be better to look at how he and his followers created that impression—whether true or not—today.

On Twitter and Facebook, Donald Trump said, running up to the election, that he wanted to “ban all Muslims” from entering the country. It was hate speech, cut and dry. Hate crimes across the U.S. rose as a result of this Presidential hate speech. However, because of Trump’s position in American politics, and because of their weak enforcement of hate speech, both Facebook and Twitter allowed him to stay on their platforms. They made hate speech socially acceptable.

Hate speech spreads online. It finds people, often emotionally vulnerable people, and gives someone to blame for their hardship. Or, it gives them something they can’t find in their everyday lives, someone to feel better than. Given the effect of hate speech, why would anyone decent defend it?

The Christchurch Call

“A free, open and secure internet is a powerful tool to promote connectivity, enhance social inclusiveness and foster economic growth.”

– From the opening line of the Christchurch Call

Donald Trump is standing up for hate. The Christchurch Call is a non-binding pledge to address hate speech online. The right-wing terrorist who killed 51 people in New Zealand mosques during his shooting spree learned his hate online. He also livestreamed it on Facebook in an attempt to spread his hate. He even credited Donald Trump for legitimizing that hate. Surely Donald Trump and other Republicans would want to distance themselves from white nationalism, right?

Nope!

Sure, you can recall the times when Trump has called himself a nationalist. Or you can recall all of his other racist incidents where he failed to distance himself from hatred. But last month, he wanted to remind you of his dedication to spreading hate online by refusing to sign the non-binding Christchurch Call.

“All action on this issue must be consistent with principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression.”

– From the Christchurch Call

Trump, despite that clear goal of the Christchurch Call to protect free speech, still chose not to support it. Before we get into Trump’s hypocritical statements, let’s first take a look at what the Christchurch Call actually says.

Bulletpoints of the Christchurch Call

• Counter the drivers of terrorism and violent extremism
• Ensure effective enforcement of applicable laws that prohibit the production or dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content.
• Encourage media outlets to apply ethical standards when depicting terrorist events online.
• Support frameworks, such as industry standards
• Consider appropriate action to prevent the use of online services to disseminate terrorist and violent extremist content online

These are simple acts that anyone can agree seek to stomp out terrorism without infringing free speech. The full Christchurch Call goes into more detail about how to achieve these goals, but you get the gist.

Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Senegal, Spain, and Sweden have all signed the Christchurch Call. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have as well.

Of course, the United States is not on that list.

The Hypocrisy of the White House Response to Christchurch Call

“We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press.”

“Further, we maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech, and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging.”

– White House response to the Christchurch Call, emphasis added

Of course, when it comes to Islamic extremists like ISIS, the White House’s response is, understandably, military action. When the terrorists are supporting him, however, his response is “productive speech,” and “alternative narratives?” “Alternative narratives” is, quite clearly, a nod to the alt-right, the far right movement that actually spreads hate speech and violence, but does so with pro-Trump commentary.

The idea that non-hateful speech can prevent hate speech isn’t a new one, but it’s flawed. Imagine a crazed man sits in the middle of your town square. Let’s say you live in Texas. The man has his AR-15 strapped to his back and his Glock 17 at his waist. Perfectly legal in Texas. He’s shouting that we should kill <minority group>. Now, let’s say you’re a member of that minority group, or you are a supporter of equality for all people. Would you stand up to his threats of violence? Probably not. You’d probably run for your life.

So when Twitter has people spreading hate speech and harassing or doxxing anyone who challenges them, obviously no one will challenge them. Hate speech prevents productive speech. It censors free expression. And that brings us to our most important point.

Why Hate Speech Prevents Free Speech

When people talk about “absolute freedom,” they usually mean they want freedom for something they want to do. They always have restrictions in mind. Reddit’s The_Donald, the pro-fascist, pro-Trump subreddit, will ban you if you say anything critical of Trump or authoritarians. Even 4chan, rife with “free speech” like, violence, hate speech, porn, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and more, has rules. Many rules, as you can see below.

Natalie Wynn, better known as Contrapoints, has an excellent video of this with references to a fantastic It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode. However, I’ve got to warn you, she can sometimes be a little… lewd… for some viewers. Still, it’s one of the greatest philosophical breakdowns of the alt-right’s version of “free speech,” how it’s not really “free.” I recommend you check it out, just remember she makes some lewd gestures at the end.

Everyone Wants Rules, Even 4chan

Basically, the far-right’s version of free speech claims they are in favor of “all speech,” and that includes hate speech. I don’t believe it includes child pornography, but, I’m sure some alt-righters support it.

That illustrates the first point I brought up, they don’t want “free speech,” they want their speech. They want the restrictions they’re comfortable with. Everyone supports “free speech,” but from the right to the left, and everyone in between, they likely believe some speech should be off limits. For example, shouting “Fire,” in a crowded theater, planning a terrorist attack on Twitter, or sharing child pornography should never be acceptable speech.

So we’ve covered the grounds that no one is really in favor of “full free speech.” The far-right, and, unfortunately, many well-meaning yet gullible centrists, are just defending hate speech. The far right wants to say terrible things about Muslims, gay people, trans people, and women, while centrists buy in to their claims of the potential for a slippery slope. They say, “If we ban this speech, what’s next?” This is, of course, a logical fallacy, especially since we’ve already established that there are forms of speech we can all agree should be banned and those forms of speech are already banned.

Hate Speech Isn’t Speech, It’s Violence

 

This is, I think, the most important part of this debate.

We agree that shouting fire in a theater is bad, right? The reason it’s bad is because it intentionally creates pandemonium and injuries. In the simplest terms, in inflicts violence.

And, of course, we can agree that planning a terrorist attack on Twitter should also be banned, because it’s literally planning violence.

Hate speech leads to violence. It is carefully crafted to dehumanize an individual or group. Once a person spreading hate speech has done this, they can bring others into their cause. They recruit through dehumanizing hate speech. The goal then, is to spread that hate.

That hate does not live in a bubble in a person’s mind. Being exposed to hate speech increases hate crimes. Study after study have shown this, and the U.N. agrees: hate speech is the precursor to hate crimes and genocide. That’s why the U.N. holds Facebook responsible for the Rohingya genocide happening right now in Myanmar. Hate speech is the act of planning violence. It’s the same as planning any other terrorist attack.

Dylann Roof pointed to hate speech he read online as cause for his mass shooting. The Christchurch shooter also learned his hate online and attempted to spread it online through his live video of his murders. The would-be Pizzagate shooter learned his hateful views online. Hate speech isn’t accidentally involved in all of these crimes, it’s the precursor. It’s the solitary marker that indicates a future violent hate crime.

When you dehumanize a group, and you make a person angry at that group, they will be quicker to show violence towards that group. They will be more comfortable with violence. Then, the next time they see a gay person or a Muslim on the street, they’ll attack. Or, worse, they’ll plan a large-scale attack.

Hate speech spreads violence because that’s what it is for. The goal of hate speech is to spread violence.

Hate Speech Censors Free Speech

Knowing that hate speech leads to violence, would you feel safe being the target of hate speech in a crowd? Would you feel safe if a person with a megaphone (MAGAphone?), surrounded by their followers, pointed at you while spewing hate speech about you? While saying all people like you should be killed? Or lose your basic human rights because you are less than human?

Likely not.

How likely are you to call attention to yourself in a crowd of those people then? You wouldn’t. Because you know calling attention to yourself as the subject of that hate speech would invite violence against your person. They have used hate speech to instill fear in you and silence you. That’s terrorism.

The same thing happens online.

When you see someone like Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder spreading hate speech online, enjoyed and retweeted by their ravenous fans, you likely won’t counter their hate with your own speech, your own perspective. You won’t stand up and say, “No, you’re wrong, I am human, and I am not worth less than you.” Instead, you’ll stay quiet. You’ll ignore it. You’ll block the most hateful people in the group so you don’t have to see them anymore.

But you know they’re still out there, and there’s too many to block.

So, instead, you stay quiet.

You have been censored.

That is censorship. It’s not how you expected it to happen. It’s not even the complete definition of the word. However, it’s someone in a position of power because they command an army, silencing you with their hate speech.

This is what hate speech does. It silences other voices. It silences diversity of opinion. People fear for death threats, doxxing, swatting, hacking, revenge porn, and other online crimes.

The Right Wants to Silence You

We’re back to the original argument. The right knows that hate speech spreads violence. They either like that or they’re okay with it. When it comes to hate speech, the right likes that it silences the people they don’t like. They like the fact that hate speech is terror-driven guerilla censorship. They’re not in favor of free speech. They don’t want diverse ideas. The right doesn’t want to hear from women, or Muslims, or black people, Mexicans, people of color, LGBTQ people, or young liberals. They just want their own hateful echo chamber to spread their violence and hate.

They want censorship, they just don’t want to be the group that’s censored.

We Have to Choose What Speech is Allowed

No, wait, we don’t. We don’t have a choice to make here. We’ve already made it. We’ve already decided that speech that incites violence is immoral. Now we know that hate speech is a tool made to incite violence and silence diverse voices. Based on that last part alone, we should favor the voices of the many, the diversity within us all, over the authoritarianism and violence of hate speech.

We’ve already decided that hate speech, because it incurs violence, shouldn’t be allowed. Now we also know it shouldn’t be allowed because it censors a large group of diverse opinions, squashing free discussion. Now we have to enforce those rules.

The whole point of free speech is to get diverse opinions. If hate speech prevents that, it’s not free speech. Hate speech, therefore, is violence that censors free speech. It might look like speech, but it’s not.

Free Speech Applies to Government

This is a small but necessary point to make. Libertarians, leftists, pretty much everyone can agree, a private business has the right to control what they have on their platform, up to some level. If it causes harm or spreads violence, most of us agree that this isn’t okay.

Each platform has their own decisions to make. We may not like them and we may have to leave or protest their decisions. Because Facebook, Twitter, and Google are so large, they have become, in effect, governments. We have to protest their decisions. However, they are not government. They can control what speech they have on their platforms, even if we don’t have a choice in using them.

Legally speaking, as of this writing, they do not have to guarantee free speech for any group. They can ban hateful people in the same way Reddit’s far-right and hate speech subreddits like The Donald and Gender Critical can ban feminists and trans people. The government does not have the right to interfere with this, and these platforms are free to police their own users.

However, hate speech is violence. It censors free speech.  It should not only be banned from our platforms, but our government should consider it an act of violence, not free speech. In other words, I believe that calling for the killing of Muslims, Mexicans, trans women, or women who won’t sleep with you should be treated as a precursor to a violent act and should be punishable. It’s premeditation. Hate speech should be a crime. If shouting fire in a theater is a crime, then other forms of speech that cause violence should equally be considered a criminal offense.

End Hate Speech; Free Minds

Donald Trump doesn’t want to block hate speech because he is a creator of hate speech. When he said we need to “ban all Muslims,” that was hate speech. His supporters like hate speech, and they like the hate he spreads. Because of that, he does not want to ban it. Politically, hate speech spreads the fear and violence he needs for reelection.

But we can’t allow hate speech to spread on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This hate speech silences, it leads to horrific violence, and it even inspires genocide. Simply banning Facebook has been shown to reduce hate speech online and has a clear correlation with a drop in hate crimes. These platforms are broken.

We must ban hate speech to protect people and free speech. If we allow hate speech on our platforms, we invite violence and silence diverse opinions. We destroy free speech with hate speech. So when Trump defends “free speech,” while deciding that the United States will not take a stand against far right terrorism, he’s intentionally silencing diverse opinions.

Now, a president halting free discussion? That is a violation of our constitutional rights.

The United States should support the Christchurch Call. YouTube should ban Steven Crowder and other spreaders of hate and harassment. Twitter should ban their alt-right users. Facebook should ban their white supremacist users. These companies need to step up because, right now, they’re silencing people and spreading violence. No matter what slippery slope fallacy the right uses to defend hate speech, the violence that is hate speech is not okay.

UPDATE: What is Hate Speech?

After having people ask what hate speech is or who gets to define it, I offer these definitions and methods for discovering whether or not something is hate speech.

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 Sources/References/Further Reading:

• Christchurch Call
• John Eligon, The New York Times
• Jasmine Garsd, NPR
• Jonathan Greenblatt, HuffPost
• Rachel Hatzipanagos, The Washington Post
• NAACP
• Matt Novak, Gizmodo
• Tony Romm and Drew Harwell, The Washington Post
• Adam Satariano, The New York Times
• Emily Stewart, Recode