The Effects of Civil Hate Speech Laws: Lessons from Australia

Abstract

This article examines the effects of hate speech laws in Australia. Triangulating data from primary and secondary sources, we examine five hypothesized effects: whether the laws provide a remedy to targets of hate speech, encourage more respectful speech, have an educative or symbolic effect, have a chilling effect, or create “martyrs.” We find the laws provide a limited remedy in the complaints mechanisms, provide a framework for direct community advocacy, and that knowledge of the laws exists in public discourse. However, the complaints mechanism imposes a significant enforcement burden on targeted communities, who still regularly experience hate speech. We find a reduction in the expression of prejudice in mediated outlets, but not on the street. We find no evidence of a chilling effect and we find the risk of free speech martyrs to be marginal. We draw out the implications of these findings for other countries.

Legal vs. non-legal responses to hateful expression

“…The authors concluded that after the laws were enacted, minority communities in Australia continued to experience 'high levels of verbal abuse' and in some cases even an increase in such abuse. 20 As one final example, I will cite a UNESCO research project that tracked hate speech in Kenya leading up to its 2013 elections. Kenya had adopted a hate speech law in 2008 in an effort to stem the type of rampant inter-group Legal vs. non-legal responses 39 violence that had occurred during the 2007 to 2008 post-election period.…”

Parallels with the hate speech debate: the pros and cons of criminalising harmful securitising requests

“…Researchers have found that civil hate speech protections have a positive effect on 'mediated outlets' because the staff is trained to be sensitive to hate speech legislation. 79 Indeed, the effects of what Gelber and McNamara call 'the "laws" educative role' 80 is such that it is reasonable to suggest that had unduly offensive securitising requests been controlled by legislation (that is, criminalised), it is a serious possibility that the massacre at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in which 12 staff were killed by 2 Islamist gunmen might have been avoided. At a minimum, it is likely that the magazine would have abstained from publishing the images and the accompanying editorial.…”

Sukupuoli ja väkivalta: Lukemisen etiikkaa ja politiikkaa

“…Toiseksi se leimaa kohderyhmän liittämällä siihen yleisesti epätoivotuiksi ymmärrettyjä piirteitä, ja kolmanneksi vihapuheen kohderyhmän läsnäolo mielletään epätoivotuksi, jolloin siihen on lupa suhtautua vihamielisesti. (Parekh 2012;Gelber & McNamara 2015. ) Katherine Gelber (2011) määrittelee vihapuheen "puheeksi tai ilmaisuksi, joka voi mahdollistaa tai lietsoa vihaa tai epäluuloa jotakin ihmistä tai ihmisryhmää kohtaan".…”