What is hate speech and online harm
Hate speech refers to hateful comments made online or daily life against a person or group, such as disparaging, discriminatory or threatening comments. The purpose of such speech is to incite all people hatred against a particular person or group of people through one person’s hate speech. Such inflammatory statements can be found everywhere, such as on social media platforms, media reports, daily life and online forums.
https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157297
The online harm is similar to the hate speech, internet harm is harm done to an individual or group of people via the Internet or a digital platform. Such harm may include verbal attacks, intimidation, defamation, insults, and invasion of personal privacy. Compared the hate speech, online harm occurs more on the Internet.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X21002505
In addition to verbal violence, Internet violence also shows behavioral violence. In the network, people often ignore the existence of legal responsibility, and publish the private information of the parties on the Internet without prior consent of the parties, resulting in the infringement of the legal rights of the parties. Some cyber incidents have also extended to real life, disrupting the normal life of the parties and their relatives and friends through actions and speech, resulting in damage to their personal rights.
How does hate speech come about? The composition of network groups is complex and the age distribution of users is wide. When such a group exists in the microblog community and has more or less the right to speak and the opportunity to express themselves, they will transplant their dissatisfaction with the real society to the network: they will keep joking, from noisy to quiet, and verbally attack each other in a so-called just way. Even from online to offline.
Furthermore, some people may send threatening or insulting messages to the promulgator through anonymous messages, this is also a kind of network injury. And such behavior is not only difficult to hold accountable, but also may cause permanent damage and psychological trauma to the promulgator, and even lead to suicide.
In addition to verbal violence, Internet violence also shows behavioral violence.
In the network, people often ignore the existence of legal responsibility, and
publish the private information of the parties on the Internet without prior
consent of the parties, resulting in the infringement of the legal rights of the
parties. Some cyber incidents have also extended to real life, disrupting the
normal life of the parties and their relatives and friends through actions and
speech, resulting in damage to their personal rights.
How does hate speech come about? The composition of network groups is
complex and the age distribution of users is wide. When such a group exists in
the microblog community and has more or less the right to speak and the
opportunity to express themselves, they will transplant their dissatisfaction with
the real society to the network: they will keep joking, from noisy to quiet, and
verbally attack each other in a so-called just way. Even from online to offline.
Furthermore, some people may send threatening or insulting messages to the
promulgator through anonymous messages, this is also a kind of network injury.
And such behavior is not only difficult to hold accountable, but also may cause
permanent damage and psychological trauma to the promulgator, and even
lead to suicide.
2.Impact of hate speech
Posting hate speech not only causes harm to others, but also to the
promulgator themselves. It also led to the deterioration of the network
environment and the social relationship of real life.
(1). For others
Hate speech is often directed against specific groups or individuals and may
be based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and other factors. Such
remarks will exacerbate social antagonism and division, leading to increased
hostility and conflict between different groups.
Once hate speech is posted against certain individual, it can be seen by
everyone, including those closest to the victim, which may further lead to the
discriminate and isolation of the victim as a result of the speech.
Furthermore overheated remarks can cause serious psychological trauma to
others, which may lead to tragedy.
There is another possibility that for a certain group or organization, it will lead
to hostility, conflict and even separation between groups.
(2). For themselves
The victim or the group will certainly fight back, through the ” cyber manhunt
“attacker, even anonymous will be found out the true identity, any information
of the attacker will be found by the other side and made public. Therefore,
when attacking others, he Will be fought back absolutely. The attacker may be
isolated and discriminated against, affecting his life and work. Furthermore,
most countries have also enacted relevant laws and regulations, and the
network is developed. Once a tragedy occurs, the perpetrators will be found
and punished by law, so we must follow the network rules when we surf the
Internet.
3.For example
In recent years, news websites have reported many cases of people
committing suicide because of online violence. For example, “Zheng Linghua:
the 23-year-old girl who dyed her hair left, the dilemma of Internet violence is
still difficult to solve”.
The incident began when Zheng Linghua, 23, shared a photo on her Little
Red Book account of herself celebrating her admission to a graduate school
with her ailing grandfather, but because the girl in the photo had pink hair,
online violence ensued.https://www.todayonline.com/world/pink-hair-china-cyberbullying-2121401
The 23-year-old girl shared the photo on social platform Little Red Book,
looking excited with her dyed pink hair. She announced that she had been
admitted to the music major at East China Normal University.
But unexpectedly, within days, her photos were being reposted with false and
insulting captions, and some even called her a nightclub girl.
The online violence made the 23-year-old girl, who had just received the
graduate admission notice, finally choose to commit suicide.
Because the network has the rapidity of transmission, the Zheng Linghua
incident was spread quickly. Zheng Linghua received the admission letter at
4:30 PM on July 13, 2022, and uploaded the photo on the social networking
site at 5:30 PM. In just a few hours, her picture receives more than 60,000
likes and comments. And at 4:52 p.m. on July 14, a certified blogger with
more than 300,000 fans stole her photo and released a “my master’s
admission notice” dynamic. At the beginning, Zheng Linghua actively fought
the Internet violence, suffered from depression in the end, requiring
medication. But the Internet violence has not stopped, it continues. “Zheng
Linghua” 3 words did not blur Mosaic processing, the tweet was read nearly
three million times in two days. As can be seen from the above news, the
communication effect has not been effectively controlled. Contrarily it makes
public opinion spread faster and faster.
Moreover, the network not only has the rapidity of transmission, but also has
the virtuality. There are countless cases of cyber violence that have ended in
tragedy. The Internet itself is a place to share your life and your opinions
freely, and it is also a holy place to release pressure when you encounter in
life but having no one to talk to. But a lot of people casual comment without
understanding the whole story. It is irresponsible.
In the virtual network world, everyone enjoys an equal status and has the
same opportunity to be respected, which makes the network the freest place
for people’s souls. The virtual nature of the network makes a lot of things that
can’t be done in real life, or difficult to say, can be done on the network as if
no one is present, and can be said unscrupulously. In this virtual environment,
because of the more virtual protection, people tend to have a sense of “it is
very safe here”, and because there are fewer punishment mechanisms from
the real world, people will comment more outrageously on the Internet.
Behind the network violence is the spread of false or one-sided information,
which affects the audience to make irrational behavior under unreasonable
circumstances. Therefore, no matter how the attacked reply, it is not enough
to ease the development of cyber violence. Even the initiator of the event also stands up and asks people to cancel the attack, to no avail, which cannot be cleaned up.
So I think that while realizing freedom of speech, we should also abide the
rules of the Internet. About the causes of network violence will be further
explored below.
4. The causes of network violence
I think there are many reasons leading to network violence. The first is the
network platforms do not supervise themselves enough. The others include
the characteristics of the network itself, the quality of the Internet users and
the lack of relevant network education.
(1). Platform supervision
Online violence is a serious social problem, but platforms do not seem to have
taken necessary measures to monitor and prevent violations of online rules.
First, the platform has not developed and clearly declared community
guidelines on what is not allowed. Resulting in many net names to publish bad
remarks at will.
Second, the platform did not strengthen the review of the content posted by
users and did not timely discover and delete the content that violated the
community guidelines, resulting in the spread of a lot of bad content.
(2). Network characteristics and netizens’ quality
The network has the characteristics of openness, anonymity, virtuality, instant
interaction and high freedom. The anonymity and virtuality will allow the
network speaker to hide his real identity and mistake, so he can make
improper remarks at will without being responsible.
In addition, the net friend’s quality-oriented education is not high enough, they
will turn the pressure encountered in life into hurtful words and vent their bad
emotions in real life on the Internet, but they do not realize that their emotions
will also hurt others.
(3). Lack of online education
Schools and parents did not play a leading role. We only know that there is
freedom of speech, but we do not know how to use our freedom of speech
properly.
On the one hand, if parents and schools do not properly teach their children
how to use the Internet and social media properly, including how to identify
and respond to online violence, then it may cause children to imitate some
bad behaviors on the Internet, thus hurting others. The lack of education in
this area may lead to a lack of awareness of cyberbullying among students, or
even a perception that it is a normal behavior. On the other hand, because
students lack the necessary education, the victims don’t know how to deal
with cyber violence and don’t know how to ask for help. This is one of the
reasons that led to the tragedy.
5. governance pattern
In order to find an effective governance model, the first thing we need to
know is in what kind of network environment cyber violence takes place. what
are the characteristics of the abuser? Although there have been legal and
technical “two-pronged” cyberviolence governance methods in recent years,
there are still loopholes, and such events can still occur very frequently. There
are still deficiencies in user experience and media literacy. The control of
cyber violence needs to be further strengthened. The governance of cyber
violence can be further strengthened in the following aspects:
https://www.thefire.org/news/hate-speech-protected-first-amendment
(1). Government
For the distinction between “bad information” and normal Internet information,
there is no clear legal provisions, and it is very difficult to clearly define
Internet violence. The key to governance is to seize several typical Internet
atrocities and focus on governance. For example, relevant legal provisions
can be issued for typical Internet violence, and the perpetrators can be
severely punished.
https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/tackling-online-abuse-petitions-report/index.html#
(2). Platform
Internet platforms can also add more anti-violence function. Settings for online
violence, TikTok platform has done a good job. The TikTok platform has taken
relevant measures against violence based on different scenes. For example,
in the comment scene, TikTok has successively launched functions such as
comment permission management, keyword filtering and selection,
atmosphere guidance, one-click forensics and solid certification. In the private
message scene, TikTok has launched functions such as social object
authorization and non-pun friends can only send a private message. In
addition, TikTok also added online violence news port, combined with “TikTok
Xiao An”, the online “one-click riot” function, users can turn off comments,
filter out inappropriate comments, and make someone can’t search your
account. In addition, TikTok has set up a psychological care team to provide
psychological assistance to users experiencing emotional distress.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X21002505
(3). Media
As the media, they should have a correct guide to the public. Don’t do
anything meaningless but just for attract attention and stigmatize the victim.The media can inform the audience the truth through objective reporting, they
must avoid one-sided reports to guide public emotions, and also call on
citizens to treat every truth in a rational way after understanding overall.
Moreover, special news reports can also be used to explain the harm caused
by network violence to the audience and advocate the whole society to resist
network violence.
4). School
Schools should conduct lessons on Internet literacy to make students aware
of the impact of online violence and guide them to use civilized language on
the Internet and improve their network literacy. And teach students how to
properly deal with cyber violence and how to ask for help in time.
(5). Individual
In addition to the above mentioned, people should also learn how to protect
their own interests. when confronted with network violence. They should
protect themselves by using the platform’s measures and legal weapons. At
the first time. Don’t make false facts be continued.
In conclusion, hate speech and cyberbullying are not allowed. We need to use
our online privileges properly. The premise of freedom of speech is not to
harm the legitimate rights of others. we must respect the rights of others, must
not violate the privacy of others, and must not maliciously attack others.https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa5gxn/the-internet-doesnt-need-civility-it-needs-ethics
Reference
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Damian Tambini, ed. Regulating Big Tech: Policy Responses to Digital
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2.Schoenebeck, S., Lampe, C., & Triệu, P. (2023). Online Harassment: Assessing Harms and Remedies. Social media + Society, 9(1).
https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157297
3. https://www.todayonline.com/world/pink-hair-china-cyberbullying-2121401
4.House of Commons Committees. (2022, February 1) How can the Government finally tackle online abuse?
https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/tackling-online-abuse-petitions-report/index.html#
5.Laub Z. (2019, June 7). Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X21002505
7. Milner, R. M., & Phillips, W. (2018, November 20). The Internet Doesn’t Need Civility, It Needs Ethics. Retrieved from https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa5gxn/the-internet-doesnt-need-civility-it-needs-ethics
8. Hudson D (2022, February 8). Is hate speech protected by the First Amendment?
https://www.thefire.org/news/hate-speech-protected-first-amendment
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