Use of Hate Speech by Violent Extremists
Purpose
- Understanding Hate Speech
- UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech
Learning Objectives
- Learn how Violent Extremists use hate speech in propagating their ideologies
- Understand the UN Strategy and Plan on Hate Speech
Use of Hate Speech by Violent Extremists
Tutor: Khadijah Gumbi
Hate speech is a fascinating social phenomenon. I wonder how governments can come up with a sustainable counter-strategy. How can we for example conceptualize early education curricula to prevent any form of extremism?
I think hate speech should be tackled right at the family level. Condoning any form of abusive language between children, parents and neighbours will create a long way of reducing harm in society.
How can we categorize ones speech as hate speech is there a specific word or term they will use ,like a key word?
Hate speech relies on using categories, in depersonalizing an individual human being in favour of a group that is then held up for hate or censure. The underlying idea is to deny an audience, the speaker’s “in”-group, of the opportunity to evaluate other individuals as independent and distinct human beings. There must be the intent to degrade others, and the language must be understood as such by one’s own group.
You can look at it more ln context rather than wording. That is why flagging out hate speech and countering radical language is a daunting task.
This is true, Clifford. And context is always very tricky, as it is very crucial. Hence a need to be involved in communities at the organic level.
During election time, there is a lot of hate speech especially delivered using mother tongue. The UN I guess is commited to curbing it but am not sure they can follow up in a country with 47 tribes.
Thanks for this. Here in Nigeria efforts to counter or stop hate speech is marred by the distrust between the people and the government. The people see any effort from the government to fight hate speech as politically motivated.
Very informative. Hate speech is apparently used more by political leaders and people at positions of power with a big influence such as radio presenters. If such people can be put in check then we may have reduced hate speech.
You are raising a very important issue, Salim, of the complicity of people who should know better. How do we address this?
This is something I agree with.
A frequent defense by propagators of hate speech is that they are simply exercising their freedom of speech. The USA for example does not have any hate speech laws because that would violate its citizens’ constitutional right to freedom of speech. Despotic governments can also weaponize hate speech by tagging all criticism levelled against them as hate speech and punishing dissidents over a difference of opinion. With these in mind, might it not be more strategic to overlook hate speech such that it loses its shock value, and instead, go after hate crimes?
Thank you for this.
From the grassroots, Hate Speech is instilled or promoted by the parents or societies governing the upbringing of individuals with such ideologies or perceptions. In Nigeria, the leaders use it to gain political grounds when campaigning. This leaders run our governments so it’s going to be a difficult task tackling Hate Speech because those leaders makes the policies use to govern the people.
This is indeed a troubling situation. How do we address this, Musa? How can regular people who just want peace take control of the key sociological systems in Nigeria and other countries in the Sahel, systems such as Education, for example, and the Media, which prove so influential in promoting the growth of hate or denying that virus a place to grow? What can we do, what must we do?
I believe we can achieve that using digital platforms and other media outlets to reason with the youths to vote in leaders with good moral backgrounds who have the potentials and shared ideology of infusing policies that counters VE in the agendas governing their people. The youths are the majorities in most African nations and that gives them the political power to achieve their goals as long as they put their differences aside regardless of cultural, religious or territorial diversity in order to achieve a common goal.
ethical revolution and moral reorientation are the key drivers to fighting against hate speech
Absolutely right, Bashir. However, how can we revolutionize and reorientate from a decadent and sterile present? How can this sort of paradigm shift happen is the question Africa’s youth must ponder and answer.
How do we counter hate speeches in religious settings?
It can be very hard because of the immense power of suasion that religious leaders have. Perhaps we can re-frame the question: how can we aid citizens, especially young people, to have the intellectual and other arguments and sensibilities to oppose hate speech, if possible, or to ignore the calls to it so that such bad leaders become isolated?
Families act as agents of culture and this is where hate speech gets to be normalised. It becomes a major problem when politicians running for political office say negative things about their competitors as they seek to rally their followers around a common identity. Yet they get away with it because even the laws that seek to address hate speech are weak and lack the capacity to bring the offenders to book. In my opinion, nations should seek to help nurture communities understanding of other cultures as a way of appreciating others and embracing diversity.
There is a very thin line between freedom of speech and fake news. I believe that the best way to debunk fake news is to openly analyse the content without the analysis itself coming out as a counter hate speech.
This is true. Perhaps a way to do this is to build trust amongst the people most vulnerable to hate speech and fake news? How can we use technology and other tools to create platforms whose analysis is ethical and can be trusted by even people in remote areas who might be digitally unsophisticated, Clifford? What sort of new partnerships must we imagine to being?>
Hate speech can be associated with so many things such as; religion, tribe, race. As human beings, we should respect ourselves irrespective of our difference. What makes us as individual is our differences and what makes us one is humanity. We should respect our differences as individual. Derogatory remarks could lead to many things. Religion is an incediary topic that can generate hate speech if not properly handled.
In this digital era, where virtually anyone can put up information on the internet, young people and everyone should be mindful of what we consume online. When we do, it should be with a healthy dose of skepticism pending a fact check. There are various tools of fact checking available. If you must like and subscribe, do not share until absolutely sure.
This is a very practical checklist for addressing violent extremism, hate speech, and much else. We must think of ways to make the average African consumer of information more sophisticated and discerning. That is what our platform is about and we hope to bring our best and brightest, such as you, to bear on this task
Abi oooo…
I just mediated in an issue today that involved the usual ‘forwarded’ or ‘forwarded as received’. The interesting thing is that in countering the raised point, all I had to do was click Google the information and the fallacy was so apparent it hurt. Sad part is the calibre of people who share it are often ‘strong’ people in society. Goes to show the wahala.
Indeed, Sueddie. These things “get” even the more sophisticated segments of society, either because of inherent bias or subtlety. We need to mainstream fact checking, perhaps.
The improvement of how parents talk to their children will bring a big difference in how these children will express themselves in the world, how they’ll reply to others or get a stranger’s attention, or even how they will carry themselves around in the ever-changing world of today.
Some characteristics are simply acquired from how both parents treat each other, and despite the fact that the parents think the child/children aren’t watching/listening, they actually are learning so much more than those parents think.
This is why parents, too, should be careful what they speak to their children, what they say about people and how they say it as well; Such ideologies that feed the growth of hate speech or even discrimination contribute a great deal to adding more negative ideologies to previously pure mindsets which would have been great contributors to the society around them.
In this digital Era one of the major contributors of hate speech is the media for example if a politician makes a hate speech they’ll publicize it in the name of condemning it not knowing they’re giving it publicity which in turn will make other people’s mind to be swayed by it as they listen to it day in and day out . If they could find another way if condemning it without publicizing it it will be great