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