Introduction
“If I see you, I will kill you.”, although it is hard to imagine, someone received such hate speech on the Internet simply because he is gay. With the rapid popularity of digital platforms and social media, we cannot deny the positive effects they bring to us, where we can express our opinions, share knowledge, and expand our communications. In the beginning, the Internet was created as a world with free speech, but the challenge that came with it is that digital platforms and social media bred a large number of online hate speech. Hate speech refers to a kind of speech that “expresses, encourages, stirs up, or incites hatred against a group of individuals distinguished by a particular feature or set of features such as race, ethnicity gender; religion, nationality, and sexual orientation” (Parekh, 2012, p. 40). For example, if you are a minority or a member of the LGBT, you may be the victim of hate speech by having these features. Online hate speech has exacerbated discrimination and harassment against such groups of individuals, as information on the Internet will be disseminated on a large scale and efficiently.
Freedom of speech is important, and if online hate speech is controlled and governed, the individual’s freedom of speech will be threatened. But there is no doubt that it is necessary to govern online hate speech, because online hate speech has a profound negative impact on the Internet, individuals, and society, causing harm to individuals and posing a threat to social stability. Therefore, balancing the conflict between the governance of online hate speech and the protection of freedom of speech is something that needs to be dealt with in today’s society. In addition, how to moderate and govern online hate speech is also a key issue to consider. For example, the development of relevant policies and adjustments to the algorithms of digital platforms can be used to moderate and govern online hate speech.
As we just mentioned, online hate speech has a negative impact on individuals and society. This blog takes Arab Rami suffering from online hate speech as the main case, introduces the current phenomenon of LGBT suffering from online hate speech, analyzes the harm caused by online hate speech to the LGBT community, and finally discusses the possible governance of online hate speech.
LGBT suffering from online hate speech
LGBT online hate speech refers to online communication or expression that advocates, promotes, or incites hatred, discrimination, or violence against any individuals or groups based on their sexual orientation or gender identity (What Is Online Anti-LGBT+ Hate Speech and Hate Crime?, 2021). Although the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBT should be recognized and accepted, the LGBT community has always been the target of online hate speech, which brings deep trouble and harm to the LGBT community.
Here are two examples of LGBT members suffering from online hate speech. The first example is from the news released by Schapiro and Barkawi (2020), about LGBT activists calling on Facebook to speed up its response to Arab LGBT online hate speech. In 2020, a video of Arab Rami standing in front of the rainbow flag (the flag representing homosexuality) was posted on Facebook. After that, Rami continued to receive online hate speech against homosexuality, forcing him to close his Facebook account. In Arabia, there are many others who have had similar experiences with Rami. According to the data presented by Schapiro and Barkawi (2020), among 450 Arab LGBT Facebook users, 90% of them have suffered online hate speech on Facebook, which is a large proportion.
The second example is, on January 9, 2022, Adelaide United defender Josh Cavallo spoke out via Instagram, saying that he was subjected to online hate speech against homosexuality, after posting about his coming out on social media two months ago. He blogged on Instagram: “To @instagram I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that I’ve received.”, he went on to say: “It’s a sad reality that your platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.” (Cavallo, 2022). Through Instagram, Josh Cavallo called on people to stop posting LGBT hate speech, and put forward his opinion that Instagram’s governance of LGBT online hate speech is lack of effective.
The harm of online hate speech to the LGBT community
Before proposing possible governance of online hate speech in the LGBT community, I will analyze the harm of online hate speech to the LGBT community, especially the psychological harm to its members, to demonstrate the importance of governance of online hate speech.
In the case of 450 Arab LGBT Facebook users mentioned earlier, more than half said they felt desperate or depressed, and nearly a quarter had thoughts of self-harm because of online hate speech (Schapiro & Barkawi, 2020). The data shows that online hate speech has significant psychological harm on Arab LGBT Facebook users, so why were they affected so badly? To borrow Brown’s words, hate speech will cause a variety of harm to victims, such as offending dignity, creating emotional distress, as well as affecting their personal development (2017). Moreover, hate speech has both short-term and long-term impacts on the victim’s mental health (Brown, 2017). For short-term impacts, it may cause emotional distress to the victims, and for long-term effects, it may cause victims to develop mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Hate speech is even worse on digital platforms and social media, because they not only provide people with the opportunity to express online hate speech, but also create “echo chambers”, where like-minded opinions are repeated and challenging views are rejected (Patrick Lee Plaisance, 2021). As a result, digital platforms and social media may fuel the growth of hate speech, deepening the stereotype of the victims and causing more harm to them. And these are the reasons why Arab LGBT Facebook users have had such a severe impact and psychological harm.
There are many more examples of online hate speech harming LGBT members. For example, Nyman and Provozin (2019) conducted research on the impact of online hate speech on LGBT members in Moldova and Ukraine. Moldovan and Ukrainian respondents indicated that they had received hate speech on social media, and the online hate speech had many negative effects on them, especially psychological effects such as depression, insomnia, panic, and even make them have the idea of isolating themselves in order to reduce the generation of hate speech (Nyman & Provozin, 2019). Like Rami, some respondents were forced to close their social media accounts because they were harassed by too much online hate speech. The experiences of LGBT members in Moldova and Ukraine also demonstrate the inadequacy of social media governance of online hate speech.
Governance of online hate speech
The cases we mentioned all demonstrate the need to govern online hate speech, because online hate speech has caused harm to individuals, and the negative impact of online hate speech on society will become more serious over time. Many LGBT activists are calling on social media to strengthen the governance of online hate speech. For example, Arab LGBT activists called on Facebook to speed up the governance of LGBT online hate speech. They made a list of online hate speech and sent it to Facebook, but only one-third of the content that incited violence against LGBT was deleted, while the remaining two-thirds were not deleted because Facebook’s freedom of speech policy allowed such offensive language to exist (Schapiro & Barkawi, 2020). This question reignites thinking about how to balance the conflict between the governance of online hate speech and the protection of free speech. While people should be protected by freedom of speech, freedom of speech does not include speech and expression that incite violence, hatred, or discrimination, and freedom of speech should not be based on disrespect for others and the pain of others.
One of the main reasons for the difficulty in balancing the conflict is that there are no clear definitions and boundaries for online hate speech that must be governed. Although social media is working to eliminate online hate speech and has developed some governance policies. For example, Facebook’s community guidelines prohibit “violent or dehumanizing speech, inferiority complex speech, or calls for exclusion or segregation” against LGBT (Schapiro & Barkawi, 2020). However, Facebook allows hate speech to exist in the form of humor or irony, while such policies protect users’ freedom of speech, some critics believe that such humorous and ironic speech will still discriminate against and cause harm to the victims (Matamoros-Fernández, 2017). As a result, in order to bring clarity to the boundaries of online hate speech governance, digital platforms and social media should actively communicate with individuals or groups suffering from online hate speech, and make careful judgments about controversial online hate speech content, to determine if the community guidelines governing online hate speech need to be updated.
Moreover, in order to govern online hate speech more effectively, digital platforms and social media should reasonably adjust their algorithms and codes, such as setting codes to control the release of anonymous speech. Compared with users posting comments under their real names, posting comments anonymously may allow users to post hate speech more recklessly. Research shows that the posting of anonymous speech on social media is positively correlated with the posting of hate speech, especially for sexual orientation hate speech, many of them are anonymously posted (Ștefăniță & Buf, 2021). Therefore, it may be effective to govern anonymous online hate speech by setting the code of the platform. For example, in China, when users sign up for accounts on digital platforms and social media, they need to enter their citizen ID numbers and verify that they are the users themselves. Only users who have passed real-name authentication can use the platforms, which restricts the reckless and irresponsible posting of online hate speech.
At last, I would like to make the point that digital platforms and social media are “double-edged swords”. They can bring online hate speech to individuals or groups, but they can also bring protection to them. Hate speech against minorities like LGBT is not uncommon in today’s society. For example, in some countries and regions, people’s understanding and acceptance of LGBT is not enough, where LGBT members will suffer more discrimination and oppression. If people can make good use of digital platforms and social media, such as using the algorithm of big data pushing, popularize relevant information and encourage understanding and acceptance of them, it will greatly help those individuals and groups who are suffering from hate speech. Therefore, how to make good use of the “double-edged swords” requires the joint efforts of the platforms and everyone.
Conclusion
Through the discussion of the current cases of LGBT online hate speech and the harm they bring, we find that the phenomenon of posting online hate speech to LGBT is still common, and it may bring serious psychological harm to them. Therefore, we concluded that the Internet governance of online hate speech is necessary. However, in order to balance its conflict with freedom of speech, we should clarify the boundaries of online hate speech governance and prompt platforms to update governance policies in real-time. In addition, the platforms should reasonably set up codes to reduce the release of online hate speech, and make good use of codes to protect the victims.
References
Brown, A. (2017). Hate speech law : a philosophical examination. Routledge.
Cavallo, J. (2022, January 9). Login • Instagram. Www.instagram.com. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYfjsLOpI1F/?utm_medium=copy_link
Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2017). Platformed racism: the mediation and circulation of an Australian race-based controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Information, Communication & Society, 20(6), 930–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2017.1293130
Nyman, H., & Provozin, A. (2019). The Harmful Effects of Online and Offline Anti LGBTI Hate Speech.
Parekh, B. (2012). Is there a case for banning hate speech? In M. Herz and P. Molnar (eds), The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses (pp. 37-56). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Patrick Lee Plaisance. (2021). Media ethics: key principles for responsible practice. Cognella.
Schapiro, A.-A., & Barkawi, B. (2020, August 12). “I’ll kill you”: LGBT+ activists call on Facebook to move faster on Arabic hate speech. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-lgbt-facebook-idUSKCN2582M4
Ștefăniță, O., & Buf, D.-M. (2021). Hate Speech in Social Media and Its Effects on the LGBT Community: A Review of the Current Research. Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, 23(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.21018/rjcpr.2021.1.322
What is online anti-LGBT+ hate speech and hate crime? (2021, June 10). Galop. https://galop.org.uk/resource/what-is-online-anti-lgbt-hate-speech-and-hate-crime/