0:02 what hate speech is is a verbal act of
0:04 discrimination and if we understood it
0:06 more as a verbal act of discrimination
0:08 rather than an expression of dislike
0:10 towards somebody it would be easier for
0:12 people to differentiate between things
0:15 that hurt someone's feelings or insult
0:17 them or offend them on one hand and
0:19 things that harm them in a
0:23 discriminatory sense on the other hey
0:26 everyone I am super excited to bring you
0:27 this edition of through conversations
0:30 podcast featuring the impressive
0:33 professor Katherine Geller professor
0:34 Geller is setup the school of political
0:37 science in International Studies and
0:39 professor of politics in public policy
0:41 at the University of Queensland
0:44 Australia her expertise is in freedom of
0:47 speech and speech regulation her most
0:49 recent book is called free speech in the
0:51 digital age where she analyzes from a
0:53 range of disciplinary perspectives how
0:55 the new technologies in global reach of
0:57 the Internet are changing the theory and
1:00 practice of free speech this
1:02 conversation was much needed as we
1:04 talked about an issue that has been
1:06 increasingly influential in our society
1:09 hate speech we talked about how
1:10 difficult it is to define hate speech
1:13 and how can we identify if something
1:14 really is hate speech
1:16 what have we interpreted as freedom of
1:19 speech hate speech and its repercussions
1:21 of civil discourse what is the chilling
1:23 effect social media and its effect on
1:27 civil discourse and much more regarding
1:29 the chilling effect I have to point out
1:31 something that I have been thinking
1:34 about a lot professor Gellar has found
1:36 evidence that this does not happen I
1:38 decided not to define what a chilling
1:40 effect right now because I want you to
1:41 listen to the conversation and get the
1:44 idea by yourself however how can we
1:46 quantify the true preferences of people
1:49 if they are hiding it from the public in
1:51 other words if the chilling effect is
1:53 truly happening I still don't see how
1:56 can we find evidence that supports it in
1:58 this conversation I try to understand in
2:00 a deep manner what Professor Gallagher
2:01 has found regarding hate speech and
2:04 speech regulation and I find it truly
2:06 amazing and important for us to
2:09 understand what hate speech really is so
2:12 we can have the tools to identify it but
2:14 also acknowledge what is not
2:17 hate speech one thing for sure is that
2:19 something that offends one but does not
2:21 restrain any of one's rights
2:23 subordinates one and ranks one as
2:26 inferior is not hate speech this
2:28 conversation will really help you to see
2:30 clearly that there has been a disconnect
2:33 in the way we communicate with ourselves
2:36 specifically regarding difficult topics
2:39 when someone hurts one's feelings it
2:41 does not necessarily mean one is being a
2:44 victim of hate speech it has been come
2:46 increasingly evident that we have
2:48 associated hate speech with feeling
2:51 offended after this episode we will take
2:53 a break for the holidays and will return
2:56 on mid-january with more I want to thank
2:59 everyone who has supported this podcast
3:02 by reviewing it subscribing to it or
3:04 sharing it with a friend it truly means
3:07 a lot I hope this conversation gives you
3:11 as much as it gave me to reflect with you
3:11 you
3:15 Kathryn Galbraith tell everyone who you
3:17 are in how did you become so interested
3:26 in freedom of speech at the University
3:29 of Queensland I've been interested in
3:31 free speech really all of my adult life
3:35 I spent my first few years after leaving
3:37 school very much as a political activist
3:41 and with and just always had an abiding
3:44 concern with censorship and so when I
3:48 wanted to pursue further study I decided
3:49 that this would be a really interesting
3:53 area to tackle and it was also an area
3:55 that there were relatively few academics
3:57 in Australia working on and so I thought
3:58 I could make an important contribution
4:01 and so I moved from censorship and
4:05 feminist concerns into hate speech as a
4:09 kind of logical progression okay and how
4:13 has censorship migrated towards hate
4:15 speech nowadays everyone keeps talking
4:18 about what is hate speech but it seems
4:23 like it's a very elastic term here in
4:26 Mexico it feels like I'm probably
4:29 insulting someone or
4:31 maybe insulting is also an ambiguous
4:34 term both an Australian Mexico or United
4:37 States so who is in charge of defining
4:40 hate speech nowadays well that's a
4:42 really good question and it's very
4:44 complicated so it depends what you mean
4:46 if you're talking about a particular law
4:48 then of course it's up to the
4:52 administrators and the courts etc in
4:54 that particular jurisdiction to
4:58 interpret that law and not all countries
5:00 have criminal laws and not all countries
5:02 rely predominantly on their criminal
5:04 laws and when I talk about courts I'm
5:07 talking about countries that have and
5:08 that use criminal law and where these
5:11 cases end up in courts but in Australia
5:14 for example we have a system with some
5:16 criminal law but also with comprehensive
5:18 civil laws and what that means is that
5:21 most people the vast majority of people
5:22 who come into contact with hate speech
5:25 laws do so through a civil system which
5:27 means that it's an individual can lodge
5:29 a complaint with the human rights or
5:32 anti-discrimination Commission and that
5:34 organisation will investigate the
5:36 complaint and attempt to mediate an
5:38 outcome between the person who made the
5:39 complaint and the person they're
5:41 complaining against so the
5:43 interpretation of the law is really up
5:45 to the jurisdiction and up to the
5:47 particular or authority that's tasked
5:50 with interpreting it when it comes to
5:52 public debate we do have an enormous
5:55 amount of confusion and different people
5:58 use the word hate speech to mean a huge
6:00 array of different things and that's
6:03 concerning it's partly concerning
6:07 because it means that people don't
6:09 really understand the phenomenon and
6:11 some people claim to have been subjected
6:13 to hate speech when they haven't been
6:17 and people throw accusations of hate
6:19 speech around without being careful
6:20 about whether they talk about hate
6:23 speech or not and one of the biggest
6:25 sources of that confusion is actually
6:28 the term hate speech yes actually not a
6:31 fan of the term hate speech at all the
6:33 fact that it uses the word hatred
6:37 implies that the core constituent
6:39 element of hate speech is expressing
6:41 hatred towards somebody
6:42 and that's actually wrong that's wrong
6:44 from the perspective of human
6:46 international human rights law and it's
6:48 wrong from the perspective of many
6:50 domestic jurisdictions hate speech laws
6:53 what hate speech is is a verbal act of
6:55 discrimination and if we understood it
6:57 more as a verbal act of discrimination
6:59 rather than an expression of dislike
7:01 towards somebody it would be easier for
7:03 people to differentiate between things
7:05 that hurt someone's feelings or insult
7:08 them or offend them on one hand and
7:10 things that harm them in a
7:14 discriminatory sense on the other well
7:16 there's I have like so many questions
7:20 just I'm so first the first question
7:23 that came into my mind was so the way
7:26 right now and also what I've read about
7:29 lessons from Australia was that the only
7:32 true way to quantify hate speech has
7:35 been through legislation and reports of
7:40 those said crimes so how can we quantify
7:44 as scientists say I'm doing a public
7:47 discourse of doing dialogue how can we
7:51 quantify when is it actually hate speech
7:53 and when is it actually just freedom of
7:56 expression so say I'm having a
7:59 conversation with someone how can we
8:05 measure the dialogue there so I think
8:07 that there in my work talks about there
8:08 being a number of elements to that the
8:10 first one is that for it to be hate
8:15 speech at me is happy so a government
8:17 has no role in regulan people's private
8:20 conversations as much as people might
8:22 say horrible things in private if it's
8:23 in private it's in private people are
8:25 entitled to express their views in
8:27 private but public discourse performs
8:30 more than just the function of people
8:32 expressing their views public discourse
8:33 plays a very important function in
8:35 democracy and governments always
8:39 regulate elements of public discourse so
8:40 they regulate threats for example they
8:42 say you can't make threats because
8:44 that's just going too far they regulate
8:46 therefore manage information they
8:48 regulate things that are regarding to
8:51 harm public discourse so the question is
8:53 how can we quantify how speech in a way
8:54 that we're on
8:56 capturing those bits of speech that harm
8:59 public discourse exactly that one it
9:02 needs to be public step two it needs to
9:06 be directed at an at a target that is
9:10 systemic discrimination in the context
9:11 in which the hate speech occurs so minorities
9:12 minorities
9:16 Braemore yeah yeah so for example in
9:17 countries like Australia you
9:19 occasionally have white people claiming
9:21 they've been subjected to hate speech
9:23 and I just completely disagree with that
9:25 argument because white people in a
9:28 country like Australia do not suffer
9:30 system at its convention so they may
9:33 feel offended or hurt by something that
9:35 somebody says but it's not an act of
9:37 discrimination in the way that it would
9:39 be if a targeted a minority that's
9:40 already facing systemic discrimination
9:43 in that context so that's the second
9:45 point needs to be a targeted at somebody
9:47 who's subject to systemic discrimination okay
9:48 okay
9:50 the third point is that this course
9:53 needs to be such that it does what
9:56 railing can calls ranking targets is
9:58 inferior subordinating them and
10:00 depriving them of powers hmm
10:03 that's how hate speech through
10:06 discursive ly through the actual words
10:09 is table of harming rather than just
10:11 feeling someone's feelings it ranks them
10:15 as inferior it subordinates them and it
10:18 deprives them of powers so if all of
10:19 those elements are present then it's
10:27 hate speech okay and what is what do you
10:29 call the killing effect how does that
10:31 happen and if it does happen
10:34 what's the student effect okay so the
10:36 chilling effect is an argument in free
10:39 speech theory that says if you the
10:42 danger of having laws that overreach
10:45 into freedom of speech is that they will
10:49 stop people from discussing topics that
10:52 they need to discuss openly and unit not
10:55 so the chilling effect is an argument
10:58 usually mounted by people with a more
11:00 with a broad view that lots of free
11:02 speech should be protected potentially
11:04 even hate speech should be protected
11:07 hence the libertarian views on
11:11 speech who say yes we realize at least
11:13 the sensible ones say yes we realize
11:15 that some of this speech actually can
11:17 potentially harm but we think harms of
11:20 regulation are greater so we can't
11:22 regulate free speech we have to leave it
11:25 to the public sphere to decide to allow
11:27 people to decide what to believe and
11:29 what not to believe and if we intervene
11:32 by saying some speech isn't acceptable
11:34 people will go oh I know I'm too scared
11:37 to say what I think and if people are
11:39 too scared to say what places that what
11:41 they think about important topics then
11:45 our democracy is yes the week for it so
11:46 the chilling effect is an argument that
11:49 people are chilled or deterred from
11:51 speaking openly about their views and
11:55 have we seen that during the public
11:57 discourse has it truly happened or is it
12:00 just an argument hmm that it's not based
12:03 on evidence okay it's a great question
12:05 so methodological II it's really hard to
12:07 establish a chilling effect isn't it
12:09 because you're try that something has
12:12 that laws have stopped things from
12:13 happening that otherwise would have
12:15 happened so it's very difficult to
12:18 establish there is it depends on the
12:20 jurisdiction and it depends on the
12:21 nature of the chilling effects so there
12:24 is a really great report in the United
12:29 States United States the chilling effect
12:32 national security laws illegal material
12:36 support laws in the United States on
12:38 people of faith ability to make
12:41 financial contributions to their church
12:44 or to their mosque and in particular in
12:46 relation to Muslim communities in the
12:49 wake of 9/11 because they're giving of
12:51 donation to a mosque could in some
12:53 circumstances have been interpreted as
12:55 providing material support to terrorism
12:58 and so there was there was a very there
13:01 was a really great report called chillin
13:04 faith which documented a chilling effect
13:06 on those communities from national
13:09 security laws so in some cases you can
13:11 say it you can go to a community and say
13:16 you used to do this do it anymore why on
13:20 the other hand abroad there's no
13:23 now um what the what we don't have any
13:27 evidence of is abroad chilling effect
13:38 from the country in fact we have plenty
13:42 of evidence politicians and media
13:45 commentators feel just as free as they
13:47 ever have if not more free in this
13:50 current global political context to say
13:52 what they want to say about policy even
13:53 when they're saying things that some
13:55 people might consider hate speech for
13:57 example about asylum seekers or refugees
14:01 or or about the crisis in Syria or of
14:04 those kinds of things so it seems to me
14:08 that those who are already potentially
14:10 at risk of being targeted by hate speech
14:16 are themselves when governments
14:19 overreach into free speech in the name
14:22 of other things such as national
14:26 security but the community as a whole
14:28 there's no sense there's no evidence
14:30 that I know of that in Western liberal
14:32 democracies mainstream political
14:34 commentators find it impossible to talk
14:39 about particular political topics that's
14:42 very interesting and the the main
14:43 problem that comes into our mind just
14:45 hypothetically is as I said before
14:49 quantifying while well you've already
14:50 mentioned the distinction between
14:52 private discourse in public discourse
14:56 and I've having the confusion between
14:58 like let's say in a college campus I'm
15:01 talking with someone who's part of a
15:04 minority bring we're in the public
15:07 sphere we're in the let's say in the
15:09 outside the classroom
15:13 so yeah the the maybe there is like it's
15:16 very difficult to quantify those times
15:18 where what if I'm criticizing the
15:21 religion or what if I'm just studying
15:24 well that's another question why if
15:26 criticizing the religion of my
15:30 minorities considers hate speech or like
15:33 is it just freedom of speech
15:36 so yeah that's that's another another
15:39 issue that comes into my mind yeah okay
15:42 so egg it's so I think one helpful way
15:45 through this dilemma is to think about
15:47 what is the speech doing in that
15:49 conversation so there are ways of
15:52 expressing disagreement with a religion
15:56 that don't vilify the adherents of that
15:57 religion and there are ways of
15:59 expressing the same criticism of
16:01 religion in a way that doesn't that does
16:05 so it's not it's not the topic issue
16:07 it's not whether you're criticizing
16:09 religion or not that determines whether
16:12 you're engaged in hate speech on whether
16:18 you're engaged how are you doing that
16:20 what kind of speech are you using to
16:24 criticize the religion are you ranking
16:27 them as inferior mmm or donating them
16:30 and stereotyping them are you saying
16:32 that because they belong to a particular
16:33 religion they should be deprived of
16:35 powers such as the right to vote or
16:38 freedom of movement hmm are you doing
16:40 that are you are you are you ranking
16:42 them is inferior by saying that they are
16:45 inherently inferior because they adhere
16:47 to a particular religion or are you
16:49 saying actually I have a political
16:51 question about you know the use of X Y Z
16:54 in this religion because it seems to me
16:55 that perhaps you know that in trenches
16:58 discrimination you could say if you said
17:00 it that way then it's not hate speech so
17:03 it's not the topic of the conversation
17:07 that determines which it's how you talk
17:10 it's the way really what hate speech
17:12 laws are asking people to do is to think
17:16 before they speak are they ranking
17:18 people as inferior subordinating them
17:20 and depriving them as powers or are they
17:25 not and if they're not thank you really
17:29 interesting and so what's the
17:32 distinction between having a meaningful
17:37 dialogues with someone that doesn't take
17:40 those three criteria into account those
17:43 three scenarios don't happen but doesn't
17:46 migrate towards what it's being labeled
17:47 or just
17:52 it's not being positively connotated the
17:55 idea of political correctness so do you
17:57 think can we have a dialogue with
18:00 someone that doesn't include those three
18:03 criterias but also doesn't migrate
18:06 towards I don't want to try to use the
18:07 concept shielding effect in a
18:10 conversation but just having like a
18:12 political correctness type do you think
18:13 political correctness is a bad thing or
18:15 a good thing for starters do you think
18:18 are we do we improve freedom of speech
18:24 with this or do we don't yeah so I think
18:26 the idea of political correctness is an
18:30 invention by the by the right by the
18:33 political right who disagree with hate
18:40 speech laws and dizzy its term political
18:44 correctness as a way of disparaging the
18:47 idea that we should exercise
18:49 responsibility when we exercise the
18:51 right to freedom of speech so freedom of
18:54 speech is a human right of fundamental
18:56 core human rights that like any human
18:58 right carries with it commensurate
19:01 responsibility and the more powerful
19:03 your speech is so public figures
19:07 politicians media commentators or more
19:10 powerful your speeches the more
19:12 responsibility you have to do no harm
19:16 with that speech any more than you would
19:18 do harm with any other aspect of your
19:23 public conduct so so political
19:25 correctness in my view is an invention
19:28 it's a term used by people who don't
19:30 agree that they have a responsibility
19:33 not to harm with their speech and who
19:35 want to harm their speech and so they
19:38 throw out this accusation of political
19:42 correctness as a way of trying to shout
19:46 down the position of people like me who
19:48 say hang on I'm not saying you can't
19:52 talk about asylum seekers or religion or
19:55 same-sex marriage I'm asking you to do
19:57 that in a way that doesn't harm people
20:00 and they don't like that possibly moaner
20:02 I just try to articulate your ideas in a
20:05 responsible manner so yes yes that's
20:09 what essentially the whole issue of hate
20:11 speech is precisely about that asking
20:13 people to exercise their freedom of
20:16 speech in a responsible manner in a way
20:19 that it doesn't harm others that's yeah
20:22 I agree with that and I've never I
20:25 didn't think of the way you mentioned
20:27 the way you see political correctness
20:30 I've just taken it from granted by the
20:34 people who who say that it exists oh
20:40 that's a good point of view and so one
20:45 question that comes into my mind is how
20:49 can legislation truly have an effect
20:51 let's say in the United States with the
20:54 First Amendment in the way we
20:56 communicate how is that the new
20:58 legislation can be created so it doesn't
21:02 interfere with the First Amendment but
21:03 it also creates a framework where
21:06 everyone can discuss their ideas in a
21:09 way that it's you know fruitful for
21:11 everyone yes so in the United States you
21:14 really can't mean it hate speech laws of
21:16 any kind because of the First Amendment
21:19 and there have been attempts at state
21:23 level ended at city level city ordinance
21:25 level to implement some laws in the
21:27 United States to restrict some of the
21:30 most egregious examples of hate speech
21:32 such as cross burning for example and
21:35 they fall foul of the First Amendment so
21:38 you can't really do it legislatively but
21:40 legislation of course is only one
21:43 element of the strategy and even in
21:45 countries that do have legislation we
21:51 need to do much much more laws and the
21:53 vast majority of the problem is about
21:55 what we've exactly what we've been
21:57 talking about encouraging people to
21:59 exercise their right to freedom of
22:01 speech responsibly in a manner that
22:03 doesn't harm others and there are all
22:05 kinds of ways of promoting that you can
22:07 promote it through anti-discrimination
22:08 campaigns if you have a Human Rights
22:10 Authority or a Human Rights Commission
22:12 in your country they can
22:14 talk about that you can get communities
22:16 on board you can provide target
22:19 communities with resources and support
22:23 so that they can create whatever they
22:25 want to create videos or pamphlets or
22:29 community events of non-discrimination
22:32 you can do it through government speech
22:35 so governments of course have their own
22:37 political points of view and governments
22:40 speak that political points of point of
22:42 view all the time so you can have
22:43 leadership from government and
22:46 leadership from politicians it's a lip
22:49 stain anyway hurt people that's the way
22:51 that you can get that kind of leadership
22:53 so there are lots and lots of ways and
22:56 then but one of the advantages of having
23:00 a law is that if the law works well even
23:01 some of the time not necessarily all of
23:02 the time
23:05 communities target communities can use
23:09 that as a basis for advocacy so they can
23:13 go to they can do public events and they
23:15 can go to people who are seeking to
23:17 holla and say look you know this
23:19 actually there's a there's a line in the
23:21 sand here we have actually got a law
23:23 that says you shouldn't do this and I'm
23:24 not going to invoke the law but I want
23:26 you to know I want to educate you about
23:28 the fact that this is unacceptable
23:31 conduct now I'm not I'm not Pollyanna I
23:34 don't think that you know we will we
23:37 will necessarily completely eradicate
23:39 hate speech but I do think that that
23:41 kind of education and leadership can
23:44 play a role in shifting the boundaries
23:46 and in convincing some people to think
23:54 about and do you think in for example
23:56 the United States and college campuses
24:01 we've seen many colleges adopting these
24:04 ideas of trigger warnings or safe spaces
24:06 do you think that's another way of
24:08 trying to create a space where everyone
24:12 can dialogue meaningfully or what
24:15 weather is thoughts about this so yes I
24:17 think that is an attempt to try and
24:18 create a space where people can have
24:21 meaningful dialogue and I think that
24:22 there are a couple of reasons why this
24:26 has become so such a big issue in United
24:28 States the first reason is that because
24:31 I had the first amendment I have kind of
24:34 all or nothing - you can't have any laws
24:36 regulating hate speech and so people
24:39 that are enculturated with the idea that
24:42 anything goes and in a university which
24:44 is a non-action and learning environment
24:47 that needs to be safe for students some
24:48 people and of course we have globally
24:50 now this phenomenon that people
24:52 recognize that hate speech is problem
24:54 but in the United States you can't
24:56 regulating instance so campuses have
24:58 somehow become the epicenter of this
25:02 clash between free speech on the one
25:04 hand and acting responsibly on the other
25:09 and so I think that that the whole
25:11 what's going on there is is on the one
25:16 hand a genuine attempt problems on the
25:19 other hand because the concept of hate
25:21 speech is so poorly understood
25:23 it is especially poorly understood in
25:25 the United States because they've had no
25:28 Tim who worked it out through
25:30 legislation or through public policy and
25:34 so it's all gotten it got Animesh the
25:37 idea of students safety the idea of hate
25:40 speech the idea of triggering bad
25:46 memories in students and all got mixed
25:48 up as though it's all part of the same
25:51 thing and so to find a way out of this
25:53 kind of messiness in the United States I
25:55 would advocate that people start
25:57 differentiating between the different
25:59 issues that are at stake so when it
26:03 comes to students being warned about
26:06 content that might trigger memories of a
26:09 business people definitely more the
26:11 university needs possible here the
26:14 providing appropriate medical support to
26:16 students who are suffering from the
26:17 aftermath of trauma
26:20 that's really really more about that
26:23 than it is about free speech becomes the
26:25 home-plate sure they look like clear and
26:28 understanding is narrowing category of
26:31 heights pages on to fund it and you can
26:32 try and put that in your code of conduct
26:35 well of course probably universities to
26:38 this amendment when private university
26:39 needs even
26:54 yeah
26:57 adding to that confusion probably is the
27:01 notion that we don't actually understand
27:06 or haven't been taught my probably my
27:09 generation or generations maybe all
27:11 they're even older generations that
27:14 what's the actual idea of freedom of
27:17 speech because we've we've been in
27:19 intertwine with the idea of hate speech
27:20 and trying to define it but have we
27:22 actually defined freedom of speech what
27:25 do you think yes so that's also a very
27:27 good point I think that there is a lot
27:29 of people learn about freedom of speech
27:34 from American television shots and most
27:36 American television shows have a pretty
27:40 shallow understanding of free speech
27:42 where people say I've got a right to say
27:43 that and there's very little dialogue
27:46 and it's very little really in-depth
27:49 exploration of because even in the
27:50 United States of course free speech is
27:52 not absolute there are plenty of limits
27:55 on free speech in the United States just
27:57 as there are in other countries just not
27:59 limits on that on high-speed so yes I
28:01 think it would be I guess I would go
28:04 back to my previous point about free
28:06 speech being a right that carries with
28:09 it responsibilities human all human
28:10 rights carry with some commensurate
28:12 responsibilities to others with whom we
28:14 have to interact in order for our
28:16 democracies to work and they carry
28:19 responsibilities to the democratic to
28:21 the democratic framework in which we
28:23 operate as well as to other rights
28:25 holders so I think it would be really
28:27 helpful for people to return tonight
28:30 definitely and as you said freedom of
28:31 speech has been the cornerstone of
28:34 pretty much every democracy that has
28:37 been established and I just recently
28:39 created my Quora website which is a
28:41 website where you ask or answer
28:46 questions and I asked the idea of do you
28:49 think that
28:51 freedom of speech has increased or has
28:53 it been more constrained as of lately
28:56 and the obvious answer to this has to
28:58 say it has to be it has increased s--
29:00 united state was created with the Bill
29:03 of Rights the Bill of Rights explicitly
29:04 states that there's freedom of speech
29:07 the independence also says that in the
29:09 American Kingdom you have the Bill of
29:11 Rights as well also example is another
29:13 example is the French Revolution so
29:15 forth so the obvious answer to this has
29:19 to say for everyone at Quora yes it has
29:21 increased exponentially but I'm
29:24 impressed because all of the answers
29:26 that I have gotten have been
29:29 counterintuitive they have sent no it
29:31 has decreased and it has decreased
29:34 exponentially so for me this this was a
29:37 very profound learning and really
29:40 interesting because we have on paper
29:43 throughout all democracies the notion of
29:45 freedom of speech however regular people
29:49 people who work people who are average
29:53 joe's or people who anyone don't feel
29:55 that freedom of speech is intrinsically
29:58 in their in their values in the way they
30:01 talk so why do you think there is there
30:03 is this asymmetry between the freedom of
30:06 speech being paper and people having
30:09 intrinsically the feeling of being able
30:11 to talk that's a really great question
30:14 certainly if you take a historical view
30:18 you're absolutely right at no time in
30:21 history if you have more human beings on
30:23 the planet lived in societies in which
30:25 they can basically say whatever they
30:29 want then now they're there their
30:32 example after example after example in
30:34 history of people being imprisoned or
30:36 murdered and of course this happens in
30:43 some countries in the world portrait or
30:48 executed what they say and there's less
30:50 of that not none of it there's less of
30:55 that today so I'm very interested in
31:00 your website questions partly it's the
31:02 self selection okay so the kinds of
31:02 people who
31:04 spawned two website questions about
31:06 freedom of speech maybe the kinds of
31:08 people who are paying attention to this
31:13 maybe the kinds of people who have a
31:14 particular view that they want to say
31:16 things that they're being prevented from
31:17 saying so you've always got to be
31:21 careful with a self-selected group of
31:23 respondents as opposed to a broad
31:26 representative survey um why do they
31:29 think like that I think that right now
31:33 in global politics we suffering from
31:36 this really interesting contradiction on
31:39 the one hand more politicians are
31:41 talking about free speech than ever
31:43 certainly in Australia that's the case
31:45 they're saying free speech is important
31:46 on the other hand they're restricting it
31:49 more than very strict in it a lot so
31:51 under the guise of national security for
31:53 example under the guise of border
31:56 control governments are paying verbal
32:00 attention to free speech and then and
32:04 when they pay verbal attention I pay
32:06 attention selectively some people think
32:19 or criticize but at the same time behind
32:20 all of that
32:22 they'll behind a smokescreen of national
32:24 security they'll be implementing more
32:26 restrictive so I think I think it's a
32:28 product again of the very big confusion
32:30 that we have over the nature of
32:32 clinicals of free speech and perhaps
32:35 it's almost certainly exacerbated by the
32:38 internet and by online community so
32:40 online communication absolutely boomed
32:42 the vast majority of free speech that
32:47 takes place online some much of that the
32:49 online environment there's no doubt the
32:51 online environment facilitates harmful
32:54 speech in ways that are broader more
32:57 harmful more impactful than they used to
32:59 be you just have to look at that Katie
33:02 heel revenge pornography case in the
33:05 United States Congress woman who had to
33:08 resign because her her abusive ex she
33:11 claims he was abusive uploaded intimate
33:14 photos of her without her consent onto
33:22 this kind of revenge porn is just
33:25 unconscionably bad behavior some of the
33:26 hate speech that happens online is
33:31 unconscionably bad behavior so even if
33:32 you were just to look at the internet
33:34 the fact is that we have more ways of
33:36 expressing ourselves and we've ever had
33:38 historically as well so we have the
33:41 Internet we have social media ordinary
33:42 people have ways of expressing
33:44 themselves that they've never had people
33:47 but at the same time we're getting such
33:49 problems with that mechanism of
33:51 communication that people are kind of
33:54 having very emotional over reactions to
33:57 things that they experience yeah what
34:01 you say is very profound because
34:04 everyone has the right right now I can
34:06 access my Twitter account or my Facebook
34:07 account or anything and I can say
34:10 whatever I can say but one thing that
34:14 it's very very important to acknowledge
34:16 is that there is this sense of anonymity
34:19 you know so that definitely has to
34:23 increase like my propensity of saying
34:25 something harmful because I cannot see
34:26 the other person who's in the other side
34:29 of the screen and neither can he or she
34:32 that's very that's very important so I
34:35 wanna there's two questions and you can
34:38 choose whichever you want to answer so
34:40 the first one would be who is in charge
34:43 of defining hate speech in digital media
34:45 and how has it migrated towards there
34:49 and the second one is how has freedom of
34:52 speech because you mentioned about
34:54 what's happening in Australia but every
34:57 politician saying that premium of speech
35:00 is key to the country's well-being but
35:01 at the same time the current legislation
35:04 to constrain it so I'm thinking about
35:07 journalists here in Mexico there's a lot
35:08 of problems with that
35:12 lately a lot of murders and we've talked
35:14 about freedom of expression all along so
35:17 what do you think about journalists in
35:20 this current environment if you choose
35:22 to answer that and if you just went
35:24 through the digital media question or
35:28 both so the question of journalists is
35:29 vitally in
35:32 and they're facing two problems
35:35 journalists one is a growing propensity
35:37 for people to treat journalists as
35:39 political actors rather than as
35:42 reporters and Lots in them being
35:44 physically in harm's way
35:46 all over the world all over the globe
35:49 they're in the worst case scenarios
35:51 they're being murdered but they're also
35:59 being imprisoned so their lives on that
36:01 level are facing a very difficult
36:05 position they're also facing a difficult
36:07 position because the rise of social
36:09 media has put at risk the business the
36:12 core business model which on which
36:15 investigative journalism reliance
36:18 journalism relies on permanent paid
36:20 journalists we can spend weeks and weeks
36:24 if not months running down a story and
36:27 making their sources giving complete
36:29 confidentiality to their sources and
36:32 that has been until recently a core
36:34 element of democratic accountability and
36:37 both of those things are at risk so
36:38 journalists are in a very difficult
36:41 position including in Australia and so
36:46 there is actually a new new campaign in
36:48 Australia for journalistic freedom and
36:49 there's a new campaign for a media
36:51 freedom act because we don't have a bill
36:53 of rights in Australia so we don't have
36:55 explicit protection of journalists and
36:57 in recent months there have been some
37:00 police raid on raids on journalists who
37:02 published information that the
37:05 authorities believed was subject to
37:07 national security confidentiality and so
37:09 there being police raids Australian
37:11 Federal Police raids on journalists
37:13 trying to uncover their sources so this
37:15 puts at risk the confidentiality of
37:17 their sources and it puts at risk their
37:19 ability to do their job without facing
37:21 criminal charges and so there's a big
37:24 campaign in Australia to introduce a
37:27 media freedom act and all the media the
37:29 private media the public media the
37:31 preach and the online and all of the
37:35 media organisation collaborating the
37:38 alliance of dental it's freedom if you
37:40 google the Australian alliance the
37:41 journalists freedom you would get
37:43 information on that so
37:46 journalists are facing a very difficult
37:49 time and in my view they play an
37:52 absolutely essential role in freedom of
37:54 speech and absolutely a simple role in
37:56 democratic accountability and it should
37:59 be a very very significant concern to
38:03 anybody that investigative public
38:08 interest you know it's significantly and
38:10 everywhere in the globe including in
38:14 what are supposedly strong Western
38:19 liberal democracies that first question
38:20 about digital media well that's really
38:22 complicated right so that digital media
38:25 platforms at this point in time the
38:27 digital media platforms themselves are
38:29 responsible for mediating content so
38:33 Facebook Twitter their own content
38:35 standards they have their own community
38:38 standards and it's very complex policy
38:40 documents which they'd send off people
38:43 who work in all centers or in you know
38:51 in essentially in Kabira there's plenty
38:54 of evidence that those workers being a
38:56 finding that work very difficult they're
38:58 being colonized by having to go through
39:01 horrible content constantly to decide
39:02 whether it should be released or not
39:05 there's also some evidence that even
39:07 though the social media companies are
39:08 now accepting that they have a
39:11 responsibility to do some regulation of
39:13 some of the harms they're not very good
39:17 at it yet so in fact I'm doing current
39:19 research project with some other
39:22 colleagues and with Facebook trying to
39:25 imply to help improve that regulatory
39:27 environment so the problem at the moment
39:30 is that much to the harmful speech
39:32 happens online and yet these private
39:34 companies who don't have a lot of
39:37 knowledge or experience or they just
39:40 don't think that they they want to help
39:42 but they don't really know how to do it
39:44 very well and that's an ongoing
39:47 conversation too many of those media
39:49 companies that are open to getting
39:51 information from researchers getting
39:54 evidence from researchers working with
39:57 researchers to develop better policy
40:01 that's an ongoing losing project well
40:04 well two things first with the
40:07 journalists I definitely agree with what
40:09 you said that their basic business model
40:13 is crumbling and well pretty much
40:15 everyone who has a blog in the internet
40:18 can we now consider journalists don't
40:21 don't really like and that's also very
40:25 very problematic because journalists are
40:28 truly as we said essential to democracy
40:30 in certain essential to the spread of
40:34 information and one question regarding
40:36 Australia and how how has Australia
40:38 historically treated for example
40:40 whistleblowers if there has happened
40:42 there has been any case of
40:48 whistleblowers yes so so tripping on
40:50 whistleblowers we do have whistleblower
40:53 protection legislation in Australia so
40:54 there is a recognition that
40:56 whistleblowers should be protected but
41:00 in practice when whistleblowers release
41:03 information that the particularly
41:05 national security-related information
41:07 they can still be subjected to very
41:09 serious criminal charges and there's a
41:12 case going on to expire right now of a
41:14 person called witness Kay who is a
41:17 person who whistled he was a
41:18 whistleblower and he released
41:20 information in the public sphere at
41:21 Australia's relationship
41:29 it's and here you think under the under
41:31 the Act of under the argument of
41:32 national security right under the
41:37 argument security yes yes so there is
41:38 some there's some recognition that
41:40 missile world should be protected but in
41:42 practice a lot of problems with Intel
41:47 and I understand the exact figures but I
41:55 am dropping internationally on the
41:57 question of bloggers so it depends on
41:59 where and when you're defining a
42:02 journalist right so in my view the key
42:07 distinction between anybody with access
42:10 to the Internet and a journalist is that
42:15 wouldn't require to exercise it
42:18 switching and judgment on the material
42:20 that they receive so what they don't do
42:23 is receive material from source and then
42:25 printed word for word without
42:27 considering what's in the public
42:30 interest and what can be kept
42:32 confidential right so good journal it's
42:35 good investigative journalists know that
42:38 even democratic governments have to keep
42:39 something secret and confidential right
42:42 we all know that yeah where you draw the
42:44 line on what is kept secret and
42:45 confidential and what is released to the
42:47 public is a matter of considerable
42:49 judgment you have to take into account
42:54 democratic accountability and you have
42:57 to take into account risks of harm to
43:02 identified individuals in and would
43:04 probably can probably cancel think their
43:07 parents know about that and they pay
43:09 attention to that before they decide
43:12 what they're going to publish whereas
43:15 the average Joe who has a blog doesn't
43:18 or other people who release information
43:21 public sphere don't yeah I know it might
43:23 be a bit controversial to say that and I
43:25 still think it's difficult in a piece of
43:27 legislation time who's a journalist and
43:29 who's not and in fact recently in the
43:31 United States the packing ham judgment
43:33 recognized that you know the Internet is
43:35 the new public square and everybody's
43:37 you know able to express themselves on
43:39 the internet but I still think there's a
43:41 difference between a public interest
43:43 investigative journalists exercising
43:46 good judgment and being careful with
43:49 what they release versus any person who
43:51 releases anything that comes across
43:56 their desk yeah switching gears a bit
43:59 what externalities are you seeing right
44:04 now and do you foresee with the creation
44:06 of new legislation that protects
44:08 minorities what are you seeing right now
44:14 I'm sorry I don't really understand the
44:15 question what do you mean by
44:18 externalities in their context so let's
44:21 say that there is new legislation that
44:25 protects minorities against hate speech
44:29 right now as a topic and you see like
44:32 what would be the perfect scenario in
44:34 which this legislation actually goes
44:37 into practice and I is there like a
44:39 distinction between what would you like
44:41 to see what your are you seeing what
44:44 would whether what is your vision of
44:49 happening okay so my guess is a
44:52 multi-pronged approach I do believe that
44:57 you need criminal laws that that either
44:59 fine or potentially imprison people for
45:01 the worst examples of hate speech for
45:03 the most egregious instances of hate
45:07 speech I do agree with for example what
45:08 we bill example because you mentioned
45:11 that hate speech could be punishable by
45:13 prison time yeah
45:15 yes um most of the countries in the
45:16 world that have criminal hate speech
45:18 laws do punish hate speech either with
45:21 fines or with prison time so that's a
45:24 very normal procedure in Germany for
45:27 example it's not unusual for members of
45:29 the far right we use it's a crime in
45:33 Germany to use the insignia of the Nazi
45:37 era and so they're people who either use
45:41 the salute or the insignia of the right
45:43 are imprisoned and that happens
45:46 relatively routinely in some other
45:49 countries typically the people who end
45:50 up being in prison for hate speech
45:54 Holocaust deniers who engage in violent
45:58 antonsen denial that the Holocaust had
46:02 happened and it tightly correlated with
46:05 that accusation that cases accusation
46:08 piracies make that story up so they're
46:09 the kind of examples of the most
46:13 egregious forms of hate speech that tend
46:15 to result in imprisonment and I'm fine
46:17 with that or people who people who
46:22 engage in in such bad a level of hate
46:24 speech against any target that that it's
46:26 Britten's them that have physically
46:27 threatens them or that it involves
46:30 violence so I'm fine with those with
46:33 criminal laws at the most egregious end
46:37 but for the rest of it I support a
46:41 combination of a having drawing line in
46:43 the sense of having a civil law of some
46:46 kind but then also a parallel strategy
46:50 of providing material educational and
46:53 institutional support to target
46:57 communities and to the allies of mount
46:59 education campaigns and to raise
47:01 awareness about the harms of hate speech
47:03 so it's not fair always to expect the
47:06 target communities themselves to do this
47:09 work they're already the subject of hate
47:11 speech on an ongoing basis in a
47:14 cumulative way and they may want to be
47:15 involved in of course they if they
47:17 should be supported to be involved but
47:20 it's also up to other people not from
47:22 the target communities to do this work
47:27 otherwise so I support a speaking back
47:30 type policy where the where the
47:32 community and the governments would
47:35 provide institutional material and
47:39 educational support to community
47:54 responsibilities okay and after all of
47:58 this what do you see what's the perfect
48:01 scenario let's say both in Australia and
48:04 hopefully if you can get Stratton
48:05 translated into United States with the
48:07 First Amendment what's the perfect
48:11 vision of all of this debate between
48:13 freedom of speech and hate speech
48:16 I guess the perfect vision is that
48:19 people come to understand that even
48:20 though they have a right to say
48:22 something that doesn't mean they should
48:25 and that people should think of others
48:28 and people should really begin to
48:30 understand that words can do things
48:33 words are not just an expression of
48:36 opinion words do things in the world and
48:38 that's as we should
48:40 NEADS we should also do good words
48:43 people should ensure that the way that
48:47 they choose to use their words helps us
48:55 as I become division to work and let's
48:57 face what we've got some pretty metric
48:58 common goals that we need to get right
49:02 if the human species is to survive we're
49:05 gonna have climate change right we're
49:07 gonna have to get you know quality right
49:09 we're gonna have to get these things
49:10 right and the only way we'll get them
49:12 right is by working together not by
49:19 dividing so people would people would
49:21 come to understand that their words do
49:24 things in the world and they would start
49:29 to wanted yeah and adding to that also
49:33 thinking before speaking also thinking
49:37 before tweeting because everyone tweets
49:39 what they think and that's that's pretty
49:43 that impresses me and I another question
49:45 and that could be a subject for one
49:47 whole other session would be why does it
49:49 feel like climate change is ideological
49:51 instead of scientifically so that's
49:58 that's very interesting so I think this
50:02 has been great where can we find work in
50:08 the audience find your work so there is
50:11 an there's an outlet in Australia called
50:13 the conversation which meet the global
50:15 out that called the conversation there's
50:18 an Australian arm of it so con it's
50:21 called the conversation and it's a like
50:24 a blog public blog and I have written
50:26 several articles on that so they're
50:30 publicly available okay I've also
50:33 written several books I've written a
50:35 book called free speech after 9/11 and
50:37 I've written a book called speech in
50:40 Athens how to get free speech right and
50:44 I've published with Susan Brison called
50:46 free speech in the digital age
50:51 people could buy my book probably a lot
50:52 of journal articles
50:55 but they're in the types of university
50:57 journals that are only accessible
50:59 through libraries they're not extremely
51:02 accessible to the public so for the
51:03 general public be is if things to access
51:06 and my books and my articles in the
51:10 conversation and other blogs great oh I
51:13 love that and in the Bo and yeah so
51:15 thank you so much for doing this it has
51:17 been profoundly interesting and
51:21 insightful and I hope we can continue
51:24 the conversation and foreseeable future
51:26 and I wish you the best and we'll keep
51:27 in contact and also I'll let you know
51:30 when will this podcast will be up in the
51:35 air and thank you so much okay fine bye
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