Has civil discourse been affected by hate speech?
The notion of speaking one’s mind has been one of the core principles of liberal democracies and one of the major factors of their progress. However, freedom of expression also opens the door for individuals to speak in a prejudicial manner, often using profane vocabulary against minorities. We will analyze whether hate speech has impacted civil discourse or not.
Evaluating empirical data that exemplifies cases of hate speech that have affected civil discourse is somewhat difficult to do (Patel, K. 2018). This is because most scenarios where some forms of expression are labeled as “threatening” are not being methodologically evaluated. To put it differently, when someone is discriminating, usually no one around is concerned with evaluating it scientifically.
Some of the limitations of this study include the fact that hate speech is not strictly defined. That is, the definition of what hate speech is can vary country from country. This is why we have decided to use Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of hate speech:
“public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation (the fact of being gay, etc.)”
We couldn’t conclude wether hate speech had a “chilling effect” on public discourse. That is, there was no link between hate speech laws and discouragement of people from engaging in public discourse due to fear of being prosecuted or stigmatized by society (Gelber, K., & McNamara, L. 2015). Furthermore, there is no evidence that hate speech legislation creates a “silencing effect” (Gelber, K., & McNamara, L.). Moreover, changing the way we articulate our viewpoints to express in a more assertive manner does not reflect isolation of discourse. (Gelber, K., & McNamara, L.). Finally, vulnerable communities ‘overwhelmingly support’ laws that protect them against hate crimes. (Gelber, K., & McNamara, L.)
We found evidence that more individuals who are “targeted minorities” are reporting more cases of hate crimes. We saw a 15% increase in reports of hate crimes from 2016 to 2017 (OSCE, 2018). The main cause of this phenomena has been linked with the fact that more legislation has been created to protect vulnerable communities against these crimes. In addition, more police departments are reporting these incidents (FBI, 2017).
So, to evaluate if public discourse has been influenced by hate speech, we decided to analyze if hate speech crimes have been reported to authorities. Through those statistics, we will weigh if civil discourse has been affected or not. It is important to note that we are strictly evaluating hate speech. Namely, we will analyze verbal threats only.
To examine the reports, we have chosen two major countries that have a strong background on all or either of these categories: freedom of expression, hate crimes and legislation that regulates speech. The countries selected were Germany and The United States.
In Germany, strong legislation has been redacted to prevent ethnic genocide since before the second world war (Goldberg, A. 2015). These laws vary from prosecuting hate speech to physical assault. Data is recorded by Germany’s police at the state, federal levels and the Federal Statistics Office. Data is collected because the countries policies against hate crime require it in order to successfully prevent and address any politically-lead crimes. Besides recording the reports given to the police offices, Germany does an anual survey of victimization. (OSCE, 2018)
From 2013 to 2017, more than 20,000 cases of hate crime were reported. In 2016, the reported crimes were 3598, and for 2017 the number jumped to staggering 7913 reported crimes. In other words, the reported assaults based on prejudice increased 119%. Of the 7913 reported crimes, 1860 had as their bias motivation racism and xenophobia. 354 reported cases were crimes related to threats. In other words, 5% of hate crimes were crimes related to hate speech (OSCE, 2018). Hate crime varied of intensity, as some only reported being verbally threatened and others said to be victims of an escalation of events, though the incidents were initially verbal. One Turkish man reported that he was physically assaulted and recipient of racist insults. (FAIR international — Federation against Injustice and Racism e. V., 2017)
The United States is the leading example of countries that have freedom of expression as its cornerstone value. The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
In the United States, from 2013 to 2017, more than 35,000 cases of hate crime were reported. In 2016, the reported crimes were 7321, and for 2017 the number increased to 8437. In other words, the reported assaults based on prejudice increased 15%. Of the 8437 reported crimes, 4832 had as their bias motivation racism and xenophobia. 2156 reported cases were crimes related to threatening behavior. Strictly speaking, 26% of hate crimes were crimes related to hate speech. (OSCE).
The main question that rises from these statistics is, why are reports of hate crimes increasing each year? Well, the first impulse would be to conclude that more people are participating in assaulting others. However, the increase in reports is due to more police departments are deciding to report these incidents (FBI, 2017). Even though some civil rights activist state that the US numbers are under-reported, it is fair to conclude that more attention has been given to hate-related crimes and more people are coming forward to report them, implying that individuals feel more empowered.
This is a huge lesson: it basically translates to the individual feeling protected by the government and not only that, it also implies that the government has in its agenda to raise awareness of how words could escalate to violence, so it creates a framework for people to engage in meaningful discourse without putting someone in harms way.
It is fair to say that the question did not find an accurate answer. Yet, it has opened a myriad of possibilities to continue the research as it fostered more curiosity on the intricacies of this topic. Many questions surged: who is in charge of defining hate speech? Why is it that the term hate speech is so elastic? Why is the first amendment not robust enough to be commonly accepted? How has hate speech migrated towards digital media? Where is the distinction between threats that might lead to violence and the expression of views that one might find offensive but are entirely protected by legislation? It is also fair to state that this topic will be continiously researched and we hope this essay leads some to have their take on the issue at hand.
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