Dangerous Speech is Not Free Speech or Even Hate Speech



What is Dangerous Speech?


Peter Durand

Dangerous Speech is any form of expression (speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group. Susan Benesch coined this term (and founded the Dangerous Speech Project) after observing that fear-inducing, divisive rhetoric rises steadily before outbreaks of mass violence and that it is often uncannily similar, even in different countries, cultures, and historical periods. We call these rhetorical similarities ‘hallmarks’ of Dangerous Speech. One of them is dehumanization, or referring to people as insects, despised animals, bacteria, or cancer. This can make violence seem acceptable: if people seem like cockroaches or microbes, it’s okay to get rid of them.

Another hallmark is to tell people that they face a mortal threat from a disfavored or minority group, which makes violence seem not just acceptable, but necessary. This hallmark has been dubbed ‘accusation in a mirror’ because it asserts that violence would come from the opposite side – from those who are actually the would-be victims of violence. How can one know which speech is dangerous? One must make an educated, systematic guess. Dangerous Speech cannot be identified solely by the hallmarks or by any aspect of its content, since its capacity to inspire violence depends so much on its context – on who spreads it, how, to whom, and in what social and historical context.

We have developed a test for dangerousness based on the message itself and four related elements: Speaker, Audience, Context, and Medium. These are known as the Dangerous Speech guidelines and their elements are described in a bit more detail below.

Message

Dangerous Speech often contains ‘hallmarks’ such as dehumanization or ‘accusation in a mirror.’ Another example of a hallmark is to portray the target group as violating the purity of the in-group, making violence a necessary method of preserving one’s identity. Some Dangerous Speech never makes direct reference to the target group. Instead, it describes members of the in-group either as traitors for being to sympathetic to the other group or as good virtuous in-group members, for example because they express their hatred of the other group.

Speaker

Some speakers are more influential than others, and they are therefore more capable of compelling a group to violence. Influence may stem from their status as political, religious, or cultural leaders, or they may gain influence from their natural charisma. The speaker can be anonymous, and in some cases that can make the speaker more influential.

Audience

When an audience is already ‘primed’ for violence, they will be more easily swayed by Dangerous Speech. A primed audience might be one that is already fearful of other groups, one that has longstanding and unresolved trauma, or one that lacks ties to other social groups – especially the target group. When Dangerous Speech is delivered to an audience that is not susceptible, it is unlikely to lead to violence.

Context

The context consists of the social, historical, and political environment in which speech reaches its audience. Aspects of the context that are conducive to Dangerous Speech include longstanding competition over resources, previous episodes of violence, difficult living conditions, an ongoing war, etc.

Medium

The medium, or means of dissemination, can make speech more dangerous if it possesses its own influence. For example, a medium that is the audience’s only or primary source of information is likely to have significant influence over that audience. Mediums with influence may be a popular newspaper, a particular language, or a type of communication technology – for example, radio, television, or the Internet.

Countering Dangerous Speech

Violence may be prevented by interfering with Dangerous Speech in any of several ways: inhibiting the speech, limiting its dissemination, undermining the credibility of the speaker, or ‘inoculating’ the audience against the speech so that they are less easily influenced by it. Such efforts must not infringe upon freedom of speech since that is a fundamental right – and when people are prevented from expressing their grievances, they are less likely to resolve them peacefully and more likely to resort to violence.

Understanding Dangerous Speech
+What is Dangerous Speech?


–Why not use the familiar term ‘hate speech’ instead of Dangerous Speech?

The term ‘hate speech’ is vague, broad, and in practice, everyone defines it differently. This confusion tends to lead to expansive understandings of hate speech which, in practice, can jeopardize freedom of speech. Indeed, laws against hate speech or hateful speech are often misused to punish and silence journalists, dissenters, and minorities, recently in countries as varied as Hungary, India, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and Bahrain. We focus instead on Dangerous Speech since it is a narrower, more specific category, and we define it by its link to something that almost everyone can agree on (unlike the definition of hate speech): violence against a group of people is a grave harm that should be prevented. Also Dangerous Speech can be quite different from hate speech: sometimes it doesn’t even express hate, and instead promotes fear.

Definitions of hate speech differ, both in law and in colloquial use, and some aspects of the term remain undefined. For instance, what is hatred? How strong or how durable must emotion be to count as hatred? Another unresolved question is this: does the ‘hate’ in hate speech mean that the person speaking feels hate, or wants to convince someone else to hate, or wants to make someone feel hated in response to the speech?

Generally, ‘hate speech’ refers to a message that vilifies a person or group of people, because they belong to a group or share an identity of some kind. Legal definitions of hate speech refer to various kinds of groups, defined by religion, race, or ethnicity; others add or omit disability, sexual orientation, gender, or even philosophy of life (Norwegian Penal Code, section 135a). Under all of those definitions, then, “I hate you” is not hate speech. In practice, the boundaries of hate speech are drawn by prevailing social norms and individual and collective interpretation, so that each person has an idea about what hate speech is, but one person’s notion of hate speech rarely matches another’s. Focusing instead on the narrower category of Dangerous Speech makes it easier to achieve consensus, and to respond effectively.

For some examples of debate on what constitutes ‘hate speech’ see this article on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons and text, and this New York Times report on students who felt that “Vote Trump 2016,” when written in chalk on their campus’ steps, was hate speech. And here is a thoughtful discussion on hate speech by the British writer Kenan Malik, who argues that hate speech should be morally condemned but not criminalized.



This is from the Dangerouse Speech Project-Understanding Dangerous Speech
+What is Dangerous Speech?


–Why not use the familiar term ‘hate speech’ instead of Dangerous Speech?

The term ‘hate speech’ is vague, broad, and in practice, everyone defines it differently. This confusion tends to lead to expansive understandings of hate speech which, in practice, can jeopardize freedom of speech. Indeed, laws against hate speech or hateful speech are often misused to punish and silence journalists, dissenters, and minorities, recently in countries as varied as Hungary, India, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and Bahrain. We focus instead on Dangerous Speech since it is a narrower, more specific category, and we define it by its link to something that almost everyone can agree on (unlike the definition ofhate speech): violence against a group of people is a grave harm that should be prevented. Also Dangerous Speech can be quite different from hate speech: sometimes it doesn’t even express hate, and instead promotes fear.

Definitions of hate speech differ, both in law and in colloquial use, and some aspects of the term remain undefined. For instance, what is hatred? How strong or how durable must emotion be to count as hatred? Another unresolved question is this: does the ‘hate’ in hate speech mean that the person speaking feels hate, or wants to convince someone else to hate, or wants to make someone feel hated in response to the speech?

Generally, ‘hate speech’ refers to a message that vilifies a person or group of people, because they belong to a group or share an identity of some kind. Legal definitions of hate speech refer to various kinds of groups, defined by religion, race, or ethnicity; others add or omit disability, sexual orientation, gender, or even philosophy of life (Norwegian Penal Code, section 135a). Under all of those definitions, then, “I hate you” is not hate speech. In practice, the boundaries of hate speech are drawn by prevailing social norms and individual and collective interpretation, so that each person has an idea about what hate speech is, but one person’s notion of hate speech rarely matches another’s. Focusing instead on the narrower category of Dangerous Speech makes it easier to achieve consensus, and to respond effectively.

For some examples of debate on what constitutes ‘hate speech’ see this article on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons and text, and this New York Times report on students who felt that “Vote Trump 2016,” when written in chalk on their campus’ steps, was hate speech. And here is a thoughtful discussion on hate speech by the British writer Kenan Malik, who argues that hate speech should be morally condemned but not criminalized.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2017 02:11AM by riverhousebill.

That's crazy. And complex. You guys are farther gone than I thought.

You want to control everything we think, say and do.

What's next - our facial expressions. Will it be against the law to stick your tongue out at someone. How about if someone nearby smells bad and you hold your nose. How about pointing at someone else? Our body movements. How about our laughter? Can we only laugh at certain times or certain instances - like when I laughed at Charlie Rose - that is to be examined, analyzed, criticized, exposed, shamed and then I'm put in jail for it?

Jennifer whats your tke on hate spin? weve coverd hate speech, dangerous speech, now this hate spin.
professor Cherian George seems to have a logical view and he is not from UC Berkly




The curious power of hate propaganda in open societies
October 24, 2016 2.30pm AEDT.



Author
Cherian George
Associate Professor of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist University


This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When George Orwell contemplated trends toward tyranny in 1984, he saw a world where truths were violently obliterated to leave Big Brother’s lies unchallenged. This negation of knowledge and erasure of human experience, he mused, was:


… more terrifying than mere torture or death.

But something curious has happened in the post-totalitarian world, which even Orwell’s penetrating gaze did not foresee.

Today, demagogues don’t actually need to silence or censor their opponents. It turns out their followers are quite happy to succumb to wilful blindness, believing what they want to believe even as contradictory evidence stares them in the face.

One result of this is open societies remain surprisingly susceptible to misinformation that instigates intimidation, discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups. Untruths doled out in hate campaigns find ready buyers even in a free marketplace of ideas.

The unholy appeal of outright lies has been on stunning display in Donald Trump’s rise as the Republican candidate for the US presidency. Independent fact-checking organisation PolitiFact has found 71% of his statements to be mostly false, false or in the “pants-on-fire” category.

This phenomenon is not new. More than a decade has passed since satirist Stephen Colbert coined the word “truthiness”, referring to stuff that some people lap up because it feels right – even though it definitely isn’t.

Right-wing conservatives on every continent have long mastered the art of weaving simple, comforting ideas into a security blanket against a complex and diverse world they perceive as threatening to their values and way of life.


Who needs to think when just feeling is enough?.
This tendency toward self-delusion might be largely harmless but for the fact the untruths being circulated often vilify other communities. And the invective is not confined to idle gossip, but converted into blueprints for action: remove them; ban their places of worship; censor their viewpoints; restrict their practices; kill them.

Often this emerges as straightforward hate speech or misinformation that incites hostility, discrimination or violence against a group. Or it is expressed as righteous indignation, accusing the targeted community of behaving in a manner that causes outrage.

These twin tactics – the giving and taking of offence – meld into a potent political strategy that I call “hate spin”. Its practitioners manipulate the visceral, tribal feelings of their audience in order to mobilise supporters and defeat opponents in their quest for power.

Mobilising intolerance

Hate spin is distressingly common – and effective – despite its ultimate reliance on half-truths and even pants-on-fire lies.

In the US, a small network of misinformation experts have pushed extreme claims about Muslims from the loony fringe into the edges of mainstream discourse: American mosques are terrorist training centres; the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the US government; Barack Obama is a closet Muslim.

Although under 2% of the American population is Muslim and there is no lobby urging US courts to recognise Islamic law, several states have enacted statutes or constitutional amendments to protect against sharia. Such has been the power of Islamophobia agents to whip up paranoia about Muslims.

In India, Hindu nationalists use hate spin to consolidate the country’s religious majority into a dependable vote bank that transcends the internal divides of caste, class and language.

This group has tried to make fundamental a faith that is inherently eclectic and fluid. They have chosen to take violent offence at the killing of cows and the eating of beef, as if Hinduism ever treated such prohibitions as strictly as the Muslim injunction against pork.

The Hindu right claims Muslims – through their polygamy and a “love jihad” conspiracy to convert Hindu girls – will turn Hindus, who currently make up 80% of the population, into a minority in India. This fantastical projection has somehow seeped into the political discourse of a civilisation renowned for its mathematical prowess.
Just another piece of misinformation in a democratic marketplace of ideas.Andy Herbon/flickr.
Demographic delusions seem particularly popular among hate-spin agents.

Indonesia has hardline Islamist groups that claim to have uncovered a conspiracy to Christianise the country. This would be quite an accomplishment, considering Indonesia has some 200 million Muslims – around as many as the five largest Arab states combined. They account for almost nine in ten of the country’s population.

Constitutionally, Indonesia upholds belief in God, but not exclusively Islam. Protestantism and Catholicism have explicit status alongside Islam among Indonesia’s religions.

The central government and Supreme Court have upheld the right of Christians to build churches. Yet local hardline groups have blocked church construction in some localities for years, exploiting religious frictions to extract protection money from Christian congregations.

What’s striking about these cases of hate spin is that they are occurring in established democracies with strong traditions of press freedom and intellectual debate.

The US, India and Indonesia are nowhere near the Big Brother totalitarian regime Orwell described. Each has its own vibrant, noisy marketplace of ideas. It’s just that the market does not seem to value truth as consistently as it should.

Faced with the real harm that can be inflicted by hate propaganda, it’s no wonder that many reasonable people wonder if there should be more restrictions on speech.

Prohibitions on incitement are sometimes warranted, in line with international human rights law. But censorship is not the answer in most cases. Hate spin is more prevalent and dangerous in countries with less freedom of expression, not least because such countries usually have less regard for the equal rights of vulnerable minorities.

Instead, we should begin by recognising that a free marketplace of ideas, while necessary, is not sufficient. Truth’s victory over hate propaganda is neither automatic nor preordained. It requires a commitment to equal rights and norms of tolerance that is at least as determined as the uncompromising hate of demagogues and fascists.

Dr Cherian George, associate professor in the Department of Journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University, giving a lecture on ‘Hate Spin’ at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) on 17 January, 2017.
We are probably familiar with the debilitating effects of religious intolerance. But what if religious intolerance itself is used as a tool for political contestation? In other words, we are observing a dangerous new phenomenon that has implications for secular democracies and for freedom of speech. This phenomenon is known as ‘hate spin’ – a term introduced by Dr Cherian George in his latest book, Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and Its Threat to Democracy (The MIT Press, 2015).

What is ‘hate spin’? According to Dr Cherian, it is “manufactured vilification or indignation, used as a political strategy that exploits group identities to mobilize supporters and coerce opponents”. (p. 4) Think of the present controversy surrounding Ahok, manoeuvred by the radical Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), in the lead up to the election for the governor position of Jakarta; or the shenanigans of Malay right wing groups and individuals attempting to silence critics and reformists under the guise of upholding the dignity of Islam and the Malays from so-called threats and attacks by the ‘enemies’. What we are observing is not a natural and spontaneous response to diversity, but “performances orchestrated by political entrepreneurs in their quest for power” who “selectively tease out citizens’ genuine religious emotions and encourage expressions of the popular will, the better to mobilize them toward anti-democratic goals”. (p.1)

Here lies the calculated and deceptive nature of hate spin: it involves the strategic use of offence-giving and offence-taking. In hate spin campaigns, instigators exploit the use of existing “bad laws” such as blasphemy and other insult laws by manufacturing outrage (taking offence). This outrage will then be distributed across a network – often through social media – to further instigate or mobilise the masses, forcing demands or issuing threats (giving offence) while making the instigators immune from existing hate-speech laws because one was ‘offended’ or otherwise, holding public sentiment and the masses’ outrage as ransom.

In this new reality where hate spin is on the rise, a laissez faire approach will not work. Speaking at a lecture organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) yesterday (17 Jan), Dr Cherian emphasised on the need for society to intervene collectively in the marketplace of ideas. Laws, while needed to deal with incitement to harms of discrimination and violence (or what is properly legislated as “hate speech law”), are not always the solution. Hence, it will always be problematic to regulate offence because it is subjective. What is offensive to one person may not be so to another. In addition, there is a need to determine if offence is deliberate or not, which will be tedious to prove before a court of law. On the other hand, incitement has measurable effects, such as outbreak of violence or discrimination. Therefore, in facing hate spin, governments should not accede to voices taking offence but rather, address the real danger that comes from those using offence as a pretext to launch incitements.

Unfortunately, the latter is giving way to the former, hence further eroding civil liberties and undermining democratic space. This space will then be monopolised by radical and extremist voices and groups who have learnt the art of manufacturing offence and anticipated the emasculated will of political leaders in pursuit of self-interest and power. Dr Cherian’s analysis on hate spin is therefore timely and should inform leaders, activists and policymakers who share a commitment for liberal democratic values and a concern over rising populist extremisms along with the heightening of identity politics.

But confronting hate spin may be an uphill task. Too often, it is politicians who utilise hate spin, using religious vigilantes as proxies to propel them into power (or maintain their existing power). And far too often, it will be minorities and vulnerable groups who will bear the brunt of such political plays. (In Hate Spin, Dr Cherian uses Indonesia, India and the United States as case studies.) This is where politics is too precious to be left to politicians. Apart from constitutional safeguards and a good legal system, civil society will need to step up and play its role in keeping hate spin in check by exposing the perpetrators, educating the masses on manipulations of public sentiments and proper responses, and promoting the values needed for democracy to survive: constitutional protection for freedom and equality, and – as Dr Cherian pointed out in his book – an ‘assertive pluralism’ that (1) does not negate people’s religious identities, but insisting that people should not deny the diversity around them, and (2) does not challenge a religion’s legitimate place in the public life of a democracy, or trivialise its believers’ need for respect, yet resists strenuously the position that such legitimacy and respect should be the preserve of just one religion and denied to unpopular beliefs.

A proper response to hate spin, therefore, need not be through having laws that will further restrict freedom – particularly insult laws that will be advantageous to the extremists – but through developing a democratic and egalitarian political culture that comes with vigilance and conviction to trump over hate propagandists.

Hate is subjective.

"Hate Spin" is another new one from you guys. Leave it to your academics to take one of your favorite smear words 'hate' and one of your favorite techniques 'spin' and make up a complicated concept involving your hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

You all just love the word 'hater'. When I hear a mother saying to her kid, "Don't be a hater," I want to gag. Using the word 'hate' to foster hate and keep it alive and the word 'racist' to try to give the perception that racism is rampant in America - oops I mean The South and among Republicans.

Boo!

RHBRiverhousebill:
British writer Kenan Malik, who argues that hate speech should be morally condemned but not criminalized.

Laws, while needed to deal with incitement to harms of discrimination and violence (or what is properly legislated as “hate speech law”), are not always the solution. Hence, it will always be problematic to regulate offence because it is subjective. What is offensive to one person may not be so to another. In addition, there is a need to determine if offence is deliberate or not, which will be tedious to prove before a court of law.

Jennifer:
Will it be against the law to stick your tongue out at someone

when I laughed at Charlie Rose - that is to be examined, analyzed, criticized, exposed, shamed and then I'm put in jail for it?

Tai
Jennifer, I didn't read RHB advocating criminalization and jail time for such speech. I have only read a handful of exchanges between JR and RHB, so I am not sure what was said before. It looks to me that he is helping identify what is hate speech, dangerous speech and hate spin. RHB is just expanding everyone's vocabulary. He talked about some private web companies booting some accounts off but that is their personal decision, not a government law.

Jennifer
make up a complicated concept involving your hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

Tai
Where did RHB say he hated Christianity? He said he was an atheist and that was about it. Huge difference.

RHB feels passionately about protecting innocent people from being the victim of hate crimes, such as murder. It falls in line with his history of being an environmental activist. A forum can discuss constructive ways of doing heroic acts. Certainly on a vegetarian forum people like RHB will be more common than not, people who want to protect the innocent.

By the way Jennifer, I wasn't going to bring it up before, but I will now. As I was clicking on some of these links of Fresh and John Rose, one link led to another and I found so many National Socialist websites that were promoting Satanism and they had the most profound hatred of Jews and everything Jewish, including Judaism and Christianity (not to mention Jesus and Yahweh) and Islam because they were tied to Judaism in some ways. The hatred seethed out of these people to catastrophic levels. I was in total shock. I didn't want to even mention it, because I don't want to send people googling this stuff and absorbing even a little of this hatred. They thrive on Hitler's anti-Jewish stance. He is one of their heroes. Obviously Fresh and John Rose are not into this stuff, and I am not trying to connect them to that. But, wow, these links pop up right away when googling this stuff. I once joined my jewish neighbor's Hannukah party they opened up to the neighbors. a white "Aryan" young man in his 20s walked by and wouldn't stop shouting anti-Semitic expletives at them and threw some coins that sliced the hostess' face. He wouldn't leave. The police came and he still wouldn't leave and they had to restrain him. Now I know how someone so young could be filled with such seething hatred for other "white" people (hello, the jews are white). I never could fathom it. But with these websites, now I understand.

I have jewish friends whose families lost their whole fortunes in the holocaust. They never benefitted financially from it. Their stories are tragic. Their tragedies were never compensated. They gain zero by telling their stories. Anyway, I am done with this topic personally.

Quote Jennifer-Hate Spin" is another new one from you guys. Leave it to your academics to take one of your favorite smear words 'hate' and one of your favorite techniques 'spin' and make up a complicated concept involving your hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy
By Cherian George
MIT Press, 328pp, £22.95
ISBN 9780262035309 and 62336062 (e-book)
Published 11 November 2016

quote Jennifer-My hatred of Christianity????

Wow thats far out Jennifer, Please fill me in.\

Think about this quote by Cherian Jennifer -The Manufacture of Religious Offense!


HATE SPIN


THE BOOK


Preface



Several years ago in Malaysia, a large crowed assembled by hard-line Muslim activists disrupted a forum on religious freedom. The police arrived to restore order—by instructing the organizers of the dialogue to abandon their meeting so as not to provoke the protesters further.

When I heard about this incident in a country with a deserved reputation for tolerance of diversity, I was taken aback. I would have been less surprised if the religious conservatives had been incensed by a rock concert or some other perceived assault on family values. Instead, they were outraged at the idea of an interfaith initiative. Somehow, these members of the country’s majority faith—the state religion—had convinced themselves that their status was under threat. And somehow, the authorities decided that the proper way to resolve the dispute was to side with those loudly professing righteous indignation, and to silence purely legal speech.

Until then, my personal antenna had been tuned to more conventional types of government censorship. Working as a journalist and an academic in the illiberal environment of my native Singapore had made me all too familiar with officials’ desire to restrict political discourse and the expression of popular grievances. But here was something else. The protestors were exhibiting the dark side of people power—a public opinion convinced of its virtue, intolerant of difference, and using democratic space to smother the freedom of others.

I began to notice it happening everywhere. At a time when few challenges are more urgent and universal than learning to live with diversity, opportunists are using hate propaganda to create delusions of pure communities in need of protection from adulteration by others. Some of this takes the form of hate speech, which instigates harms against a vilified group. In other cases, hate propaganda manifests as outbursts of mass indignation against perceived offense. Protestors demand government intervention or engage in vigilante reprisals to salve wounded religious feelings.

Observers usually describe these conflicts as primordial, rooted in tribal psychology and reinforced by the messages of prophets and preachers. In this interpretation, the instincts of man, plus the word of God, are sufficient to explain these seemingly spontaneous and inevitable events. My inquiry started from a different intuition: Perhaps, many large-scale episodes of group vilification and indignation are not organic responses to human diversity, but rather sophisticated campaigns manufactured by political entrepreneurs working to further their own strategic interests. It soon became clear to me that their orchestrations of offense-giving and offense-taking make up a double-sided technique of political contention. Unable to find a term to describe this phenomenon, I decided to call it hate spin.

This book is a study of how hate spin operates and what democracies can do to deal with it. It analyzes major transnational episodes, typified by the 2005–06 controversies surrounding the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. It also investigates several domestic conflicts within the world’s three largest democracies. The Hindu right in India, the Muslim right in Indonesia, and the Christian right in the United States all contain accomplished users of hate spin, adapting their methods to suit their respective legal and social environments.

I show how hate spin agents use the freedom and tolerance provided by democracy to push an agenda that undermines democratic values. They assert themselves in the public sphere, claiming victimhood and demanding respect—even as they deny others the right to participate as equals in the life of society, or even to be treated with the basic dignity owed to fellow human beings.

Democracies must develop legal, political, media, and civic responses to hate spin. Notwithstanding the need to protect free speech, they need to prohibit incitement. This book will show how vulnerable communities are terrorized when authorities fail to live up to this obligation. But dealing with offendedness is a different matter. We’ll see that laws against blasphemy or the wounding of religious feelings are highly counterproductive. They allow exponents of hate spin to hijack the coercive powers of the state by staging performances of righteous indignation. Thus, misguided policies towards hate spin can actually doubly disadvantage vulnerable groups. On the one hand, inadequate policing of incitement leaves them exposed to hate campaigns that result in discrimination and violence. On the other, their own religious or cultural practices may be declared offensive to the dominant group, then suppressed through the selective use of insult laws.

Commentators, analysts and policymakers have been paying close attention to the unsteady dance between religion and free speech. The cost of mismanaging that relationship is plain to see—in bitter divisions over art and literature, in polarized elections that leave no room for compromise, and in dehumanizing rhetoric that culminates in mass murder. To improve our prospects for peaceful co-existence in societies that are not getting any less crowded or diverse, good intentions are not enough. We also need to grasp the underlying dynamics that shape religious intolerance. Understanding hate spin and how it works is a small step in that direction.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2017 11:32AM by riverhousebill.

Quote
Tai

Jennifer
make up a complicated concept involving your hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

Tai
Where did RHB say he hated Christianity? He said he was an atheist and that was about it. Huge difference.

Tai, my full quote was -

Quote

"Hate Spin" is another new one from you guys. Leave it to your academics to take one of your favorite smear words 'hate' and one of your favorite techniques 'spin' and make up a complicated concept involving your hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

I think anyone could realize all my "your" words I used were referring to my initial "you guys" and "your side" which if you read my other posts, means Liberals. And "the other side" means The South and Republicans. I just don't like to get too political or be two divisive because the word "Liberal" has such a negative connotation, but I just find it very interesting and like analyzing the differences between Liberals and Fiscal Conservatives/Libertarians, which is 'my side'.

I'm really just sort of teasing rhb because he's fun to debate. I never get emotional or angry when I debate 'the other side' like some people do.

rhb is a character. He sort of makes me think of Pop-Eye when I visualize his character. I bet he's cute in real life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2017 03:01PM by Jennifer.

So to clarify -

It should have been understood as -




"Hate Spin" is another new one from your Liberal guys. Leave it to your Liberal academics to take one of your Liberals' favorite smear words 'hate' and one of your Liberals' favorite techniques 'spin' and make up a complicated concept involving your Liberals' hatred of Christianity to demonize the other side.

Whereas "your" means Your Side meaning Liberal.

Didn't want to make it political because I'm really talking about the inherent nature of each side and how our brains operate differently that's interesting.

Im glad to see the Brits are not going to tolerate and reject the prejudiced rhetoric Hate Spin, hate speech, dangerous speech

"Britain First seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people. British people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far-right, which is the antithesis of the values that this country represents - decency, tolerance and respect."

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labor party tweeted, "I hope our government will condemn far-right retweets by Donald Trump. They are abhorrent, dangerous and a threat to our society."



A member of Parliament, Yvette Cooper, took to the floor to condemn Fransen's remarks, tweeting that the UK government "can't stay silent" on Mr. Trump's tweets, calling it "disgraceful and dangerous."