Tag: hate speech

Ireland Considers Enacting A Bill Criminalizing The Possession Of Hateful Material

We recently discussed a troubling conviction in Great Britain of a man for his “toxic ideology.” Now Ireland appears ready to replicate that case a thousand fold. The proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 would criminalize the possession of material deemed hateful.

It is a full frontal assault on speech and associational rights. The law would allow for sweeping authoritarian measures in defining opposing viewpoints hateful. Ireland appears to be picking up the cudgel of speech criminalization from Britain, an abusive power once used against the Irish.

The law is a free speech nightmare.  Even before addressing the crime of possession of harmful material, the law would “provide for an offence of condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.” The crime of condoning, denying or grossly trivailising” criminal conduct would make most autocrats blush. The lack of any meaningful definition invites arbitrary enforcement. The law expressly states the intent to combat “forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.”

What is so striking about the law is how utterly unapologetic it is in the use of criminal law to curtail not just free speech but free thought. It allows for the prosecution of citizens for “preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.” That could sweep deeply into not just political but literary expression.

The interest of the Irish in assuming such authoritarian measures is chilling given their own history under British rule, including violent crackdowns on nonviolent protests like “Bloody Sunday.”  Free speech is now in a free fall in Great Britain and Ireland appears eager to follow suit.

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College students turn more liberal, OK speech death penalty

Calls for diversity on campuses and in Main Street businesses and banning hate speech, even that protected by the First Amendment , are no longer issues to fight over for college students.

Now, it’s a reason for the electric chair .

In a remarkable shift showing how students, many lining up for President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness plan, have turned left since the 2020 election, a new Yale survey suggests that America’s best and brightest are giving up on key constitutional freedoms and even embracing socialism.

In the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale University national student survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates and provided to Secrets, big majorities want companies to require employees to declare support for workplace diversity just to get a job.

And when it comes to speech, nearly half believe the death penalty is OK to shoot down hate speech.

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‘No One Wants These Laws’: Ireland to Jail ‘Hate Speech’ Offenders for Up to Five Years

Those who use so-called “hate speech” will soon be jailed for up to five years under new legislation published on Thursday.

Any individual found guilty of using “hate speech” in Ireland will soon find themselves facing up to five years in jail. The country’s Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, has been at the centre of the country’s push towards implementing effective “hate speech” legislation, with her department announcing on Thursday that the first draft of the new laws would soon enter the country’s parliament.

Under the rules as proposed, those found guilty of “any intentional or reckless communication or behaviour that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic” would face up to five years in jail.

What’s more, any individual convicted of such an offence would be branded a “hate criminal”, a label which the minister says is designed to “follow an offender in court, in garda vetting, and so on”.

“[H]ate speech is not about free speech,” McEntee declared in a statement published by her department.

“Hate speech is designed to shut people down, to shut them up, to make them afraid to say who they are and to exclude and isolate them,” she continued. “There is nothing free about that, and there is, frankly, no place for it in our society.”

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Student government VP resigns because First Amendment doesn’t ban ‘hate speech’

The vice president of the University of Illinois Student Government, or ISG, has tendered her resignation because the school will not “take a stand and prohibit hate speech.”

Vindhya Kalipi, a junior studying political science and statistics, made that point in a student government Instagram post put up on October 10.

Kalipi was not pleased about the appearance of Matt Walsh on his “What is a Woman?” tour at which he said challenging transgender ideology is “the hill he is ‘willing to die on’” and that gender transitioning is “castrating” children.

In its statement, the ISG said Walsh’s remarks were “hateful,” “wrong” and “induce[d] pain for many people.”

It also noted that given her beliefs, Kalipi (pictured) “talked to administrators and looked through existing laws and regulations” to ultimately discover there is no First Amendment exception for “hate speech.”

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PayPal is still threatening to fine users $2,500 for promoting “intolerance that is discriminatory”

While PayPal has walked back its threat to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation,” the payments company is still reserving the right to fine users the same amount for other alleged transgressions.

In its current “Acceptable Use Policy,” which has been active for a year, PayPal states that: “Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”

And PayPal’s list of “prohibited activities,” which can trigger this $2,500 fine, include any activities that relate to transactions involving “intolerance that is discriminatory,” “the promotion of hate,” and “items that are considered obscene.”

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Germany has charged or punished over 1,000 people for “online speech-related crimes” since 2018

An in-depth report from The New York Times has revealed the scale of Germany’s prosecution of “online speech-related crimes” and provided a behind-the-scenes look at the units who are tasked with surveilling social media to build cases against German citizens for what they post online.

The Times said that after reviewing German state records, it found that there were more than 8,500 cases related to alleged online speech-related crimes and more than 1,000 people have been charged or punished since 2018. However, no national figures exist on the total number of people charged with online speech-related crimes, and experts that spoke with The New York Times said the true figure is probably much higher.

The Times’ report also provides details on the copious amounts of social media surveillance that are being conducted by a task force in the German city, Göttingen. This task force was created in 2020 and reportedly has hallways, bookshelves, and desks filled with red evidence files. These files contain printouts of German citizens’ Facebook comments, tweets, and Telegram posts. Investigators that work on the task force search through social media feeds, public records, and government data to gather evidence of purported online speech-related crimes.

This task force is in charge of cases across Lower Saxony, a state in northern Germany. Authorities in Lower Saxony reportedly raid homes multiple times per month and in some cases, a local television crew records and broadcasts the raids.

Citizens who are raided but refuse to give up their phones have them seized and sent to a lab. This lab uses software made by the digital intelligence company Cellebrite to unlock the seized phones.

This task force alone investigated 566 “internet speech-related crimes” last year and expects to investigate double that number in 2022. The unit also fines or punishes around 28% of those who are investigated.

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Governor Newsom hopes new social media law will help censorship of “hate speech” and “disinformation”

A bill has been signed into law in California, designed to obligate social media companies to submit enforcement reports twice a year to the state attorney general, and publicly post policies on “hate speech,” disinformation, harassment, and extremism.

After signing the law – AB 587 – Governor Gavin Newsom announced that this is a unique social media “transparency and accountability measure” that is meant to protect Californians from hate and discrimination.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The reports will require tech companies to explain how and if they define and remove content from a number of categories, such as hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference.

The reports are also expected to go into automated moderation, what happens to flagged content, and how many times it has been viewed.

Newsom seems to believe that social media is being weaponized to spread hate, disinformation, harassment, and lies that threaten communities, and vowed that California will not “stand by” as this is happening.

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HATE HOAX: Claims of racial slurs yelled at college volleyball star debunked

Last week, Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson, a black woman, claimed she was called a racial slur from the bleachers of an opposing team, BYU, during an August 26 game. As days pass, evidence is mounting that her claim is a fabrication.

On Monday, BYU alum and podcast Backseat Directors host André Hutchens, compiled a timeline of the events, writing, “What I’d like to do is map out these events and put together a timeline of the story, and then compare the allegations of what happened vs what actually happened based on available evidence. My only reason for doing this is to hopefully arrive at the TRUTH”

The controversy started with Richardson’s godmother, Lesa Pamplin, posting the allegation on social media. Pamplin, whose Twitter is now private, is a current political candidate running for Judge for Tarrant County Criminal Court in Fort Worth, Texas. Hutchens posted a screen cap of her original allegation which read, “My Goddaughter is the only black starter for Duke’s volleyball team. While playing yesterday, she was called a n*gger every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench.”

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GLAAD CEO calls for “government intervention” to stop “hate speech” online

Sarah Kate Ellis, the chief executive of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD, suggested that there is a need for government intervention in the prevention of online “hate speech” against the LGBTQ+ community.

In an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” Ellis was asked who and what should be cracking down on hate speech against LGBTQ+ people on online platforms.

“We do need government intervention here and we need the right policies,” Ellis responded.

“This has been going on for over a decade and congress has been really ineffective to say the best,” she added.

Ellis argued that online hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community is to blame for the increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level.

During the interview, Ellis cited a report by her organization that found that 84% of LGBTQ+ individuals aged 18 and above feel there are “not enough” protections in the online world against harassment and discrimination. The report singled out Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as not having the essential protections needed to protect the LGBTQ+ community.

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UN is working with tech, media companies, and states to address “misinformation” and “hate speech”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is introducing a new element into the concept of the world organization’s peacekeeping activities: countering “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

And tech and media companies are being enlisted to help in weeding out information that the UN decides to consider as harmful.

Given that, like the saying goes, truth is typically the first casualty of any war – and this goes for any and all sides involved – it’s difficult to envisage how the UN might even start going about the task of “countering” misinformation and hate speech while maintaining its neutral and credible position in peacekeeping.

When he addressed a Security Council debate on peacekeeping operations, dedicated specifically to the “key role” of strategic communications, Guterres did not offer useful insight into that problem, but he did put strong emphasis on UN’s Global Communications Strategy, describing strategic communication variously as critical and central for successful peacekeeping.

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