Media are less conscious or perhaps more confused about their responsibilities in covering newsmakers who advocate intolerance. News organisations that understand this duty close comments for stories that generate more vitriol than they can manage. But event organisers, for example, are expected to ensure safety, comfort and convenience by limiting numbers to what staff can handle. Most media organisations claim that thorough housekeeping of their internet platforms requires more time than they can afford. Rather than viewing this as censorship, such practices can be seen as helpful to open discussion, ensuring, for instance, that women can speak up without enduring a barrage of misogynistic abuse intended to intimidate and silence them. Many news organisations respond to this problem through post-moderation, deleting or relegating posts flagged as hate speech. The invasion of the trolls – internet users who publish offensive comments and pick fights on social media and other platforms: they often indulge in hate speech. There are a number of worrisome trends that deserve closer scrutiny and deliberation. Ethical standards pertaining to hate speech remain a work in progress. Similarly, journalists need to develop their ethical capacities to respond to the real risk of serious harm being promoted. Many principles that journalists live by, such as protecting confidentiality, are not imposed by law, and indeed, may be in conflict with the law, but are nonetheless voluntarily adopted as a matter of ethics.
#HATE SPEECH PROFESSIONAL#
Yet, legal limits should not determine the boundaries of professional conduct. As a defensive reaction, they retreat behind their legal right to freedom of expression. To label something otherwise inoffensive as “hate speech” and use it as an excuse for silencing criticism of dominant values and institutions has understandably bred cynicism among many journalists. The third may be felt as hatred by its elite targets, and is often what officials, military and police are thinking of when they cite hate speech as a justification for clamping down on media. The second raises ethical issues, but generally should not be subject to legal restriction, since freedom of speech must include the right to challenge deeply held beliefs. The first is the only category that is properly labeled “hate speech” it is what human rights standards say warrants legal intervention.
#HATE SPEECH FREE#
Even free speech advocates agree that hate speech requires special handling, especially when levelled against minorities too weak to counter it in the marketplace of ideas. Hate speech is any expression that vilifies an identifiable group – a race, religious community, or sexual minority, for example – and thus prompts harm to members. Then there are the media outlets that purvey intolerance, serving as ideological spokesmen and cheerleaders for forces of hate, from xenophobes to religious extremists. Less talked about is how journalists’ own professional procedures – including how news is defined – may amplify the voices of hate propagandists. Socially conscious journalists have been rightly alarmed at how rapidly hate-filled messages seep into, and often overwhelm, comment on the internet. Hate speech presents a major challenge to today’s journalism.
The sister and parents of Jo Cox address a small crowd in the marketplace in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on the first anniversary of the MP's murder.
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