Stop Playing Defense on Hate Crimes | TIME

2016/12/01 Leave a comment

Some good insights by researchers Elizabeth Levy Paluck and Michael Chwe but hard to square the core recommendation that those ‘elite influencers’ within ethnic or other groups admonish hate or disrespectful speech when so much of the tone comes from the President-elect:

How do we stop this violence? Looking in from the outside and reporting events after they occur is not enough. We must understand the perpetrators’ motivations.

We often think that perpetrators simply mimic the hateful speech and actions of others. In doing so, we discount the effects that community or peer pressure can bring to bear. In fact, research shows that potential perpetrators of hate crimes and bullying are actually quite conscious of the degree to which their community supports or condemns their actions. 

For example, research has found that when a person hears others tell racist or sexist jokes, his or her tolerance for gender or racial discrimination increases. At an extreme level, it can encourage genocide: David Yanagizawa-Drott has shown that inflammatory messages played on a hate radio station, aimed at motivating Hutus to murder their Tutsi neighbors in Rwanda, had a greater effect when people in surrounding neighborhoods were also exposed to the same radio messages. In other words, hate radio alone did not increase individual hatred or violence; rather hate radio coupled with widespread exposure resulted in greater community support for violence.

Potential perpetrators do not simply “imitate” Trump but rather are encouraged to act by the fact that he garnered so many votes and supporters. They infer that they have a better chance of escaping social and legal sanction than before.

To stop hateful actions, potential perpetrators must be convinced that those in their community are opposed to this behavior. Who can best communicate this opposition? 

Kevin Munger recently found that white males who racially harass others on Twitter reduced their use of slurs when another white male with a large number of followers admonished them with a tweet (black males, and white males with few followers, were not as successful). In schools, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Hana Shepherd and Peter Aronow showed that students who receive the lion’s share of attention in student social networks have an outsized influence over school social norms: when they stand up against bullying and student-on-student harassment, student conflict drops by up to 30%. 

These studies suggest that some people are better than others at delegitimizing hatred and violence. These “elite influencers” are more likely to come from a community considered important by a potential perpetrator—whether their racial community or their friendship group. Also, these influencers are more likely to be higher status—connected to many people within those networks.

But whether or not you are an elite influencer in your own community, evidence shows that the old-fashioned strength-in-numbers approach also works. Large numbers of people who assert values of inclusiveness and tolerance in a big, public way can change minds and behavior. Large media events or assemblies that create “common knowledge” of these values, that show each member of the community that every other member shares these values, are the most successful.

For example, a public service announcement during the Super Bowl that encourages people to report domestic violence is more successful in deterring domestic violence than an ad in a magazine; a potential perpetrator infers that the millions watching the Super Bowl find domestic violence unacceptable and are more likely to stand against and report offenders. 

A recent study also showed that people who watched a political speech in the company of a crowd (in this case, a speech by U.S. House Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act), are more persuaded by the speech. Listening together, as opposed to watching alone or watching a video viewed by others at different times, is more effective because when communities synchronize their attention, people process the message in a deeper and more serious manner. 

The alternative, in which communities do not collectively bear witness to and support anti-hate speech, is a scenario in which potential perpetrators will feel more and more emboldened.

Schools, universities and localities cannot just play defense and wait for their members to be victimized. Potential perpetrators must clearly understand that everyone around them, regardless of their political views, believes that hate is unacceptable. Elite influencers in every community can help to broadcast this message. Standing with them, there is strength in numbers, and as individuals and communities, we need to come together to speak as loudly and publicly as possible.

 Source: Stop Playing Defense on Hate Crimes | TIME

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Facebook Runs Up Against German Hate Speech Laws – The New York Times

2016/11/30 1 Comment

About time – social media companies also need to be accountable (as do users):

In Germany, more than almost anywhere else in the West, lawmakers, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, are demanding that Facebook go further to police what is said on the social network — a platform that now has 1.8 billion users worldwide. The country’s lawmakers also want other American tech giants to meet similar standards.

The often-heated dispute has raised concerns over maintaining freedom of speech while protecting vulnerable minorities in a country where the legacy of World War II and decades under Communism still resonate.

It is occurring amid mounting criticism of Facebook in the United States after fake news reports were shared widely on the site before the presidential election. Facebook also has been accused of allowing similar false reports to spread during elections elsewhere.

Mr. Zuckerberg has denied that such reports swayed American voters. But lawmakers in the United States, Germany and beyond are pressing Facebook to clamp down on hate speech, fake news and other misinformation shared online, or face new laws, fines or other legal actions.

“Facebook has a certain responsibility to uphold the laws,” said Heiko Maas, the German justice minister. In October, Mr. Maas suggested the company could be held criminally liable for users’ illegal hate speech postings if it does not swiftly remove them.

Facebook rejects claims that it has not responded to the rise in hate speech in Germany and elsewhere, saying it continually updates its community standards to weed out inappropriate posts and comments.

“We’ve done more than any other service at trying to get on top of hate speech on our platform,” Mr. Allen said.

Tussles with German lawmakers are nothing new for Facebook.

It has routinely run afoul of the country’s strict privacy rules. In September, a local regulator blocked WhatsApp, the internet messaging service owned by Facebook, from sharing data from users in Germany with its parent company. The country’s officials also have questioned whether Facebook’s control of users’ digital information could breach antitrust rules, accusations the company denies.

Facebook’s problems with hate speech posts in Germany began in summer 2015 as more than one million refugees began to enter the country.

Their arrival, according to company executives and lawmakers, incited an online backlash from Germans opposed to the swell of people from Syria, Afghanistan and other war-torn countries. The number of hateful posts on Facebook increased sharply.

As such content spread quickly online, senior German politicians appealed directly to Facebook to comply with the country’s laws. Even Ms. Merkel confronted Mr. Zuckerberg in New York in September 2015 about the issue.

In response, Facebook updated its global community standards, which also apply in the United States, to give greater protection to minority groups, primarily to calm German concerns.

Facebook also agreed to work with the government, local charities and other companies to fight online hate speech, and recently started a billboard and television campaign in Germany to answer local fears over how it deals with hate speech and privacy.

Facebook hired a tech company based in Berlin to monitor and delete illegal content, including hate speech, from Germany and elsewhere, working with Facebook’s monitoring staff in Dublin.

“They have gotten better and quicker at handling hate speech,” said Martin Drechsler, managing director of FSM, a nonprofit group that has worked with Facebook on the issue.

Despite these steps, German officials are demanding further action.

Ms. Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term in general elections next year, warned lawmakers last week that hate speech and fake news sites were influencing public opinion, raising the possibility of new regulations.

And Mr. Maas, the justice minister, has repeatedly warned that he will propose legislation if Facebook cannot remove at least 70 percent of online hate speech within 24 hours by early next year. It now removes less than 50 percent, according to a study published in September by a group that monitors hate speech, a proportion that is still significantly higher than those for Twitter and YouTube, the report found.

For Chan-Jo Jun, a lawyer in Würzburg, an hour’s drive from Frankfurt, new laws governing Facebook cannot come soon enough.

Mr. Jun recently filed a complaint with Munich authorities, seeking prosecution of Mr. Zuckerberg and other senior Facebook executives on charges they failed to sufficiently tackle the widespread wave of hate speech in Germany. The company denies the accusations.

While his complaint may be dismissed, Mr. Jun says the roughly 450 hate speech cases that he has collected, more than half of them aimed at refugees, show that Facebook is not complying with German law. Despite its global size, he insists, the company cannot skirt its local responsibilities.

“I know Facebook wants to be seen as a global giant,” Mr. Jun said. “But there’s no way around it. They have to comply with German law.”

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Anti-Defamation League Creates Post To Combat Online Anti-Semitism – Forward.com

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Makes sense, with hopefully some broader lessons for combatting hate speech of all kinds on the Internet:

The Anti-Defamation League has created a position dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry on the internet.

The hiring of Brittan Heller, a lawyer who has prosecuted cyber crime at the U.S. Department of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, follows the ADL’s formation of a task force earlier this year to combat online harassment of Jewish journalists.

Heller will be the group’s first director of technology and society, the ADL announced Monday.

From her base in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, Heller will work to reduce hateful rhetoric on the internet in collaboration with technology companies and law enforcement.

Heller, a graduate of Yale Law School, has herself been a victim of cyber harassment. In 2009, she and a fellow Yale alumna settled a high-profile lawsuit against a group of online commenters who posted sexually explicit comments about them on an internet forum.

“As the use of social media and technology to marginalize Jews and other communities increases, Brittan’s new role is at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry,” ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt said of Heller’s position in a statement.

The ADL had created the task force to deal with anti-Semitic and racist harassment of journalists on social media platforms.

This election season has seen a number of high-profile cases of Jewish journalists being harassed by supporters of Donald Trump, notably in May, when reporter Julia Ioffe was flooded with anti-Semitic death threats after she wrote a critical profile of the Republican nominee’s wife, Melania.

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Quebecers can thank comics for the demise of ‘hate speech’ measures: Macpherson

2016/05/28 Leave a comment

Don Macpherson on the reasons for the demise of the hate speech provisions of Bill 59:

To begin with, the hate-speech provisions were unnecessary. “Hate propaganda” is already an offence under the federal Criminal Code.

Nevertheless, legislating for the sake of legislating, Bill 59 would have created a new offence of hate speech. And it would have turned the Quebec human-rights commission, which is supposed to protect fundamental freedoms, into a “speech police.”

Anyone it charged with hate speech would have been liable, if found guilty by the province’s human-rights tribunal, to a fine of up to $10,000 for a first offence.

But while a conviction under the Criminal Code requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, Bill 59 contained no such standard.

And while much has been said about how Bill 59 could have had a chilling effect on criticism of religions in Quebec, what has received less attention is that it could have had a similar effect on political debate.

For unlike the Criminal Code, Bill 59 would have specifically defended political groups against so-called hate speech.

This would have been a boon to the Quebec nationalists who have complained that any but the mildest criticism of them and their movement, especially by English-language commentators, amounts to “francophobia.”

Bill 59 would have armed them with a weapon with which to harass their critics by constantly filing new complaints, the way Bill 101 hobbyists do for petty violations of obscure rules on the language of restaurant menus.

Not much public attention was paid to Bill 59, however, until the comics’ protest on a televised comedy awards show two weeks ago.

The protesters didn’t mention Bill 59. And while they pretended to be court jesters using humour to speak truth to power, their actual, somewhat less noble cause was their own freedom to continue to cruelly mock a physically deformed adolescent.

But the protest did make freedom of expression suddenly fashionable in Quebec.

Amid the uproar over the protest, a timely oped article in Quebec newspapers on the more serious issue of Bill 59 led to a re-discovery of it by editorialists and columnists. An editorial in Le Devoir expressed fear that “religious and minority groups” could use the legislation to “muzzle” journalists as well as comics.

A consensus against the bill quickly emerged, isolating the Liberal government. The PQ, citing the “censorship” of the comics, called for the bill’s withdrawal.

Unwilling to use closure to cut off debate and force the adoption of what had suddenly become an unpopular bill, the justice minister withdrew the provisions on hate speech, in a tacit admission that they were unnecessary in the first place.

The PQ claimed a victory. But it really belonged to the comics.

Source: Quebecers can thank comics for the demise of ‘hate speech’ measures | Montreal Gazette

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Discours haineux: Québec abandonne l’élément principal de son projet de loi

2016/05/27 Leave a comment

Appropriate response to concerns, especially given need for this specific provision unclear given existing Criminal and Civil code legislation:

Dans l’espoir d’obtenir l’adoption de son projet de loi sur le discours haineux, le gouvernement Couillard accepte de mettre de côté son élément le plus controversé, perçu comme une menace à la liberté d’expression.

La ministre de la Justice, Stéphanie Vallée, va donc décapiter son projet de loi 59 en laissant tomber les dispositions sur le « discours haineux » qui avaient soulevé des critiques dans les médias et dans l’opposition.

« On lit tous les journaux ici. On sait que, malgré la bonne volonté, malgré les efforts de vulgarisation, l’information qui s’est faite, il n’y a pas d’appétit pour l’encadrement du discours haineux au Québec », a convenu Mme Vallée au terme de la période de questions, mercredi.

Le projet de loi progresse à pas de tortue depuis près d’un an. Il était bloqué en commission parlementaire depuis des semaines et semblait destiné à mourir au feuilleton.

La députée péquiste Agnès Maltais est revenue à la charge pour réclamer que le gouvernement renonce à ces dispositions sur les propos haineux, l’élément central du projet de loi.

« Est-ce que je vais m’entêter ? Non, je ne vais pas m’entêter, a indiqué Mme Vallée. C’est un projet de loi qui apportait des modifications à la Charte des droits et libertés et il n’est pas question de passer ça sous bâillon.»

Les adversaires du projet de loi soulignaient que cette définition supplémentaire des propos haineux était une menace à la liberté d’expression. Surtout, ce nouveau cadre était inutile: les propos haineux sont déjà balisés par le Code criminel, quand ils visent une personne ou un groupe, et par le Code civil s’ils visent une personne identifiable.

Mme Vallée refuse d’y voir un échec de son gouvernement. Elle conservera les dispositions du projet de loi qui touchent le mariage forcé.

La ministre a dit souhaiter désormais obtenir une adoption rapide du projet de loi maintenant que l’élément le plus contentieux est mis de côté.

Source: Discours haineux: Québec abandonne l’élément principal de son projet de loi | Denis Lessard | Politique québécoise

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Front commun contre les propos francophobes

2016/03/14 Leave a comment

More on the nature of on-line comments. My preference, rather than suppression, is requiring actual names and related authentication, as is done in letters to the editor:

Brodie Fenlon, le directeur des médias numériques pour le réseau CBC, a assuré au groupe par écrit vendredi que les commentaires identifiés seront supprimés. « Nous regrettons que ces commentaires se soient retrouvés sur notre site. Il s’agit d’une situation malencontreuse, mais inévitable lorsque l’on doit traiter un tel volume de commentaires. […] Dorénavant, nous nous assurerons que nos lignes directrices sont appliquées avec encore plus de rigueur et de jugement. » La politique de commentaires de CBC mentionne que les discours haineux, les attaques personnelles, les insultes ou encore les déclarations diffamatoires sont interdits.

En entrevue avec Le Devoir, l’instigateur de la lettre, Michel Doucet, n’est pas rassuré par cette réponse, tant s’en faut. Il exige que la CBC fasse preuve de vigilance en amont plutôt que de simplement retirer les commentaires litigieux après coup.

« Ils retirent les commentaires juste quand on les signale. Mais on ne va pas passer notre journée à surveiller le site de CBC ! C’est à CBC elle-même de veiller à la qualité du contenu », tonne-t-il. Selon l’avocat, il est inacceptable qu’une société d’État« permet[te] qu’on utilise son site de commentaires pour fomenter la division, l’incompréhension et l’intolérance vis-à-vis d’une communauté minoritaire ».

M. Doucet soutient que le phénomène existe « depuis que CBC a ouvert son site aux commentaires » et procède d’une tendance lourde. Chaque fois qu’il est question de sujets liés aux francophones au Nouveau-Brunswick, ces commentaires fusent. « L’autre jour, la ville de Dieppe a annoncé qu’elle aurait un anneau de glace et il y a eu des commentaires ! Un des commentaires qui revient souvent, c’est que les francophones ont tous les bénéfices alors que ce sont les anglophones qui payent tous les impôts. […] On mettrait une photo d’un beau petit chat portant un nom francophone que ces commentaires ressurgiraient », raille-t-il. Lui-même, un militant très en vue des droits linguistiques des francophones, est présenté dans certains commentaires comme un « individu radicalisé ».

Le sujet fait l’objet de conversations dans la communauté francophone néo-brunswickoise depuis très longtemps, raconte-t-il. Aussi, quand il a décidé de prendre la plume dimanche dernier, il a récolté ses 120 signatures prestigieuses en moins de 72 heures. C’est d’ailleurs un sénateur conservateur, Percy Mockler, outré et enflammé, qui a mis Le Devoir au parfum de la situation.

Les signataires demandent à ce que CBC ne permette plus les commentaires provenant de personnes anonymes, comme le font déjà plusieurs sites de médias. M. Fenlon rétorque dans sa lettre que cet anonymat est utile, quoiqu’il fasse l’objet d’un « examen ». « En autorisant l’utilisation de pseudonymes, on permet cependant à toutes les voix de participer au débat, y compris les victimes de crimes et les dénonciateurs d’abus, deux groupes qui, selon nous, ont de bonnes raisons de se cacher derrière l’anonymat. »

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Facebook’s Sandberg: Counter Hate Speech With Positivity | Re/code

2016/01/23 Leave a comment

Not sure how realistic and effective a strategy this can be. While better always to be respectful in person and on-line, not sure the degree to which this can be effective with some of the more extreme language and views being expressed.

Presumably, given all the information Facebook collects, there must be some data, rather than anecdotes, on the effectiveness of this approach.

But it is telling that Facebook is not willing to make changes to its NewsFeed algorithm, effectively outsourcing the issue.

My way of handling the few comments on my blog that border on hate speech is either to ignore them or throw back a few questions to the writer, aimed to provoke reflection. Sometimes people engage, sometimes not:

How should you fight back against people spewing hate speech in your Facebook News Feed? Kill ’em with kindness, of course!

That’s according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who spoke on a panel Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Sandberg talked about how Facebook tries to combat hate speech on its platform, and part of the strategy is encouraging counter-speech, the usually uplifting messages that provide the opposite viewpoints to degrading or negative language online.

Sandberg told a specific story about users in Germany who “Liked” a neo-Nazi Facebook page and then flooded it with positive messages. She called the effort a “Like attack.”

“The best antidote to bad speech is good speech. The best antidote to hate is tolerance,” she said. “Amplifying … counter-speech to the speech that’s perpetrating hate is, we think, by far the best answer.”

The strategy feels pretty “Kumbaya,” but that’s how Facebook has approached the issue of hate speech on its service, specifically when it comes to religious extremism and terrorism. Facebook will take down hate speech when it is flagged by a user, but it doesn’t go looking for it. That means the company is leaning on its user base to create positive content to fight against extremist material.

It’s making some effort to prod users in the right direction. Facebook is partnering with the U.S. government to encourage college students to launch anti-terrorism campaigns, for example. It is also partnering with the German government to better locate and remove hateful content. In both cases, Facebook is making financial contributions to the cause.

But the company is not using what is perhaps its most valuable asset in this matter: Its News Feed algorithm. Facebook claims that it doesn’t elevate this counter-speech in News Feed; it is instead offering a neutral playing field and hoping that positive speech wins out.

Facebook’s role in all of this has been top of mind for U.S. government officials, especially since a mass shooting took place in San Bernardino, Calif., back in December. Sandberg was part of a meeting between top government officials and Silicon Valley bigwigs earlier this month to discuss this very issue. Sandberg hasn’t spoken publicly about those meetings, so Wednesday’s panel was the first we’ve heard from her on this issue.

If you want to watch the entire panel you can do so here. Sandberg’s comments on counter-speech start right around the 18:00 minute mark.

Source: Facebook’s Sandberg: Counter Hate Speech With Positivity | Re/code

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South Africa’s ruling party calls for tougher anti-racism law

2016/01/07 Leave a comment

Sad to see these types of remarks in this day and age, irrespective of whether one thinks new anti-hate speech legislation needed or not:

After a national uproar over racist comments on social media, South Africa’s ruling party is calling for a new law to prohibit the “glorification of apartheid,” based on German laws that criminalize the denial of the Holocaust.

The latest outrage over racism is a sign of the rising tensions in South Africa, once lauded as a “rainbow nation” and a moral beacon for the world after apartheid ended in 1994.

In today’s South Africa, with its stagnating economy and growing frustration among unemployed youth, there is mounting anger over racial remarks by the affluent white minority. Many white people, for their part, are openly resentful of their diminished status.

The latest furor erupted on social media when a realtor, Penny Sparrow, complained that black people with “no education” were leaving garbage on public beaches. “From now I shall address the blacks of South Africa as monkeys,” she said in a Facebook post.

Ms. Sparrow was denounced by thousands of outraged South Africans after her post emerged on Sunday. On the same day, a prominent South African banker, Chris Hart, went on Twitter to accuse the black majority of having “a sense of entitlement” and “hatred toward minorities.” He, too, was widely criticized, and within a day he was suspended from his job at Standard Bank, which said his tweet was “incorrect” and had “racist undertones that do not reflect our values.”

There are already laws against hate speech in South Africa, and there is even a court, the Equality Court, to deal with cases of racial discrimination. But the ruling party, the African National Congress, says this is not enough.

“We can no longer as a nation tolerate such dehumanizing violations, where the black majority are treated as subhumans and are referred to as monkeys, baboons and other derogatory racist epithets in the land of their birth,” said a statement on Tuesday by the ANC’s parliamentary office.

“As the nation is justifiably seething with anger and disappointment at yet another blatant act of racial bigotry, we know too well that there is little that can be done in terms of our legislative provisions to sufficiently punish the perpetrators.”

The political party to which Ms. Sparrow belonged, the opposition Democratic Alliance, went to the police on Monday to file criminal charges of “crimen injuria” against her. This is a provision in South African common law that prohibits a serious attack on the dignity of another person.

But the ANC wants a tougher law, modelled on the European laws that prohibit the denial of the Holocaust. Any action against Ms. Sparrow and Mr. Hart is likely to be “whitewashed” under the existing system, it said. “The current legislative provisions are not sufficient to punish and dissuade racists,” it said.

“As the majority party in Parliament, we will soon investigate creating a specific law or amending the existing legislation to ensure that acts of racism and promotion of apartheid are criminalized and punishable by imprisonment.”

Anyone who “glorifies” the apartheid system “essentially promotes and celebrates acts of criminality committed against black people,” the ANC added. “Such a person represents a serious danger to our society and our national reconciliation efforts, and must be dealt with through our criminal justice system.”

Source: South Africa’s ruling party calls for tougher anti-racism law – The Globe and Mail

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If Donald Trump were campaigning in Canada, could he be charged for hate speech?

2015/12/11 Leave a comment

Good comparative analysis:

On Monday Donald Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on.” Despite universal outrage, the billionaire presidential candidate has only doubled down on his vow, the latest in a string of anti-minority comments ranging from the offensive to the downright absurd. Even respectable commentators have started calling him a fascist.

These comments are in bad taste at best and hateful at worst, why are there no legal repercussions for Trump making them? 

The short answer is because it’s the United States. The U.S. has extremely strong protections for free speech, which is only considered hateful if it will incite direct and immediate violence. Trump pontificating at a podium or in an interview doesn’t qualify. Until he starts an angry mob, he’s free to say whatever he likes.

So for argument’s sake, what if this were happening in Canada? Would anything be different?

Trump’s most recent comments might offend you, but they likely still couldn’t be prosecuted under Canadian law. Though hate speech laws in Canada are broader than they are south of the border, speech needs to meet some very specific requirements to be considered hateful here, too.

Section 319 (1) of the Criminal Code states that hate speech “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” and where the comments are made in a public place.

This would pose two problems for charges under hate speech law.

“[T]he immediacy of the breach of the peace would make it extremely difficult to convict someone for saying what Trump said,” said Faisal Kutty, a Toronto lawyer and human rights activist.

Trump also isn’t making any outright claims despite the subtext of his statements, said Richard Moon, a law professor at the University of Windsor.

“That’s the main problem with trying to fit his current statement under the hate speech law: it doesn’t have any real hateful content in the sense of making a claim about the nature of character of Muslims,” said Moon. “Of course, why should they be excluded other than, presumably, on the belief that they are somehow dangerous? But he leaves that slightly open.”

But I’ve seen and heard people call his comments hate speech. What does that mean?

That’s due to the technicality of law. While his comments might be considered hateful, the burden of proof under the law is higher. The comments must meet specific criteria to be prosecuted, and his comments likely don’t meet these standards.

What about some of his other comments? He’s said a lot more extreme things in the past.

Some of his previous remarks could more easily be prosecuted, like his remarks about Mexican immigrants during his announcement speech on June 16: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

“That is the very stuff of hate speech, and a claim like that made in Canada might well constitute hate speech contrary to the Criminal Code,” Moon said.

So why are Canadian and American hate speech laws so different?

It’s probably due to a lot of factors, but part of it traces back to the founding of the country. America is old, and so are some of the laws, said David Matas, a Winnipeg-based lawyer and author of Bloody Words: Hate and Free Speech.

“In the United States you’ve got a bill of rights which is very old.  It comes from the 18thcentury. Everywhere else, the concept of rights is post-Holocaust, post-Declaration of Human Rights. Being ahead of the gun at the time has left them far behind when it comes to the 21st century.”

Source: If Donald Trump were campaigning in Canada, could he be charged for hate speech?

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , , ,

ICYMI: Lutte au terrorisme: Québec doit agir et rassurer les gens, dit Gérard Bouchard

2015/02/13 Leave a comment

Gérard Bouchard on radicalization and security, and advocating for stronger anti-hate speech laws:

«Je pense que c’est important qu’il agisse maintenant, ne serait-ce que pour rassurer la population. La population est inquiète et elle a de bonnes raisons de l’être», a commenté l’historien et sociologue de l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

M. Bouchard était de passage à Québec avec l’autre coprésident de la Commission, Charles Taylor, pour formuler des recommandations à la commission parlementaire qui se penche sur la future politique à adopter en matière d’immigration.

Il a convenu que l’équilibre à trouver entre l’adoption de mesures musclées de prévention d’actes terroristes et le respect des droits individuels, tels que définis dans la charte québécoise des droits et libertés, s’annonçait pour être un exercice complexe et difficile pour le gouvernement.

«Quelles sont les mesures qu’on va mettre en oeuvre, qui respectent le droit, qui sont conformes à notre charte, et qui, en même temps, vont être suffisantes pour repousser la menace terroriste? Ce ne sera pas facile», a-t-il conclu.

Parmi les instruments envisagés, il se montre ouvert à l’idée d’amender la charte pour préciser l’interdiction de tenir des propos haineux au Québec.

«Le discours contre la haine pourrait être plus explicite, à son avis. On pourrait être plus affirmatif, en termes juridiques.»

Lutte au terrorisme: Québec doit agir et rassurer les gens, dit Gérard Bouchard | Jocelyne Richer | National.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with ,

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