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Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron.
Photo: Yoan Valat/AFPTurner/UNSW
Gagging hate speech
Will the Christchurch Call work
to curb online hate speech and
its destructive influence?
Fiona Martin interviewed by Wade Zaglas
I
n May this year, 18 countries and five tech companies signed
the historic Christchurch Call to Action, the first global pledge to
fight online hate speech, violence and terrorism.
Spearheaded by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
and French President Emmanuel Macron, the Call follows the
March 15 terror attacks on Christchurch’s Muslim community in
which 51 people were shot dead.
The Call has been supported by tech behemoths such as
Facebook and Google, with both pledging to “expressly prohibit
the distribution of terrorist and violent extremist content”. Before
the Call, Facebook introduced a 30-day Facebook Live ban for
individuals who upload violent material, a move Prime Minister
Ardern called “a good first step”.
It has long been acknowledged that the internet has become
a hotbed for hate speech, violence and the mobilisation of terror
attacks, and that regulation and surveillance play critical roles in
curbing such content.
Controversially, the Trump administration did not sign the
agreement, citing concerns for “freedom of expression and freedom
of the press”. It did, however, lend support to the aims of the plan.
“We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist
content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression
and freedom of the press,” a White House statement read.
“We encourage technology companies to enforce their terms
of service and community standards that forbid the use of their
platforms for terrorist purposes.
“We maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is
productive speech, and thus we emphasise the importance of
promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by
which we can defeat terrorist messaging.”
Following that decision, Dr Fiona Martin, an expert in the
regulation of online media, delivered a scathing assessment of the
US government’s position.
18
“It’s disappointing to see the US government fail to sign the
Christchurch Call, precisely because it knows freedom of speech is
not absolute. It knows speech requires regulation to protect citizens
from dangerous and criminal speech that would harm them and
disrupt public order,” she said.
“So, in saying it supports the agreement, but won’t sign it, it’s
fence-sitting to please political extremists in its constituency.
“Trump’s government wants to rely on productive speech or
counter-speech as the solution to terrorist speech. This approach
doesn’t work and wouldn’t have stopped the Christchurch attack
live stream or its frightening aftermath.
“Only carefully developed constraints on who can access
live streaming will stop future incidents like this – and the US
government’s failure to be at the table to discuss those policy
approaches shows it doesn’t take the fight against violence and
terror seriously.”
Campus Review spoke with Martin about the agreement, the
US’s decision not to sign the pledge and the challenges ahead.
CR: The US didn’t sign the Christchurch agreement, citing freedom
of expression and of the press. Is this a legitimate excuse? Is hate
speech easily separated from free speech?
FM: There are always going to be arguments about this point
because of the diversity of political and religious views across the
world. But the Trump government saying it supports the principles
without signing up to the agreement is, I think, contradictory.
It is quite clear how to define hate speech, if we have a set of
guidelines that can help us define that harmful speech. The lawyer,
Susan Benesch, who's the director of the Dangerous Speech
Project at Harvard, argues that you can identify when hate speech
is dangerous in a number of ways.
First, you have to have an influential speaker, or a speaker with
an influential means of dissemination – a platform like social
media, for example. Second, this person speaks to a willing or
impressionable audience that has fears or griefs that can be
mobilised. And third, the speaker delivers a call to violence.
These three things can set up fairly clearly how you define what
hate speech is, as opposed to free speech about, for example,
dangerous issues.
Benesch also argues that there needs to be a consideration of the
context for the speech, and that is really important to understanding
whether hateful or violent speech is actually dangerous.
I was reading an article in The Diplomat recently, and they
were talking about India, where the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party’s social media unit has been inciting violence against
Muslims on WhatsApp. There are really clear examples of where
they're strategically calling out to Hindus to hate Muslims, to act
against Muslims.
They are also calling out people to disparage or distrust women
journalists, who they like to call ‘presstitutes’.
There are really clear examples like that, where we can see social
media speech and supposed free speech on social media actually
being strategically mobilised to incite hate or violence or distrust
against others.
Are you concerned the agreement is voluntary and non-binding?
No, not at all. These types of arrangements are better starting
off as voluntary agreements, because they give regulators and
companies space to work on ways to cooperate.