"I don’t discriminate but……": Legitimation Strategies of Covert Online Hate Speech against Homosexuality in China

Abstract

Internet provides an enormous space for free speech, especially for hate speech. Recent years have witnessed the increasing discriminating speech against homosexuality, which sounds righteous with the strategies of talk in China because the major opinion in online space is homophobia, which is not benefit for the equal rights and living circumstances for homosexuality. Therefore, it's necessary to probe into how these covert hate speeches are legitimized and how they create a more profound homophobic atmosphere. In this study, comments, which are hate speech to homosexuality, under 5 videos on Bilibili are collected, classified with the assistance of corpus. Then, the results are analyzed under the legitimation strategies, proposed by Van Leeuvan. Finally, it showed that three strategies are used and the incitement of covert hate speech are more powerful than overt hate speech. The study could provide a discursive angle for the problems of civil rights and equal social status of gay community.