By “hate speech,” they do not mean threats and criminal harassment. They mean not tolerating speech they disagree with. Call it “intolerant speech.” Of course, those in control establish what will be tolerated or not.
Recent “hate speech” investigations in European countries have been spawned by homily remarks by a Spanish Cardinal who opposed “radical feminism,” a hyperbolic hashtag tweeted by a U.K. diversity coordinator, a chant for fewer Moroccan immigrants to enter the Netherlands, comments from a reality TV star implying Scottish people have Ebola, a man who put a sign in his home window saying “Islam out of Britian,” French activists calling for boycotts of Israeli products, an anti-Semitic tweet sent to a British politician, a Facebook post referring to refugees to Germany as “scum,” and various other sorts of so-called “verbal radicalism” on social media.
One might consider any or all of these comments distasteful, but Americans (recent trends on college campuses notwithstanding) tend to appreciate that for a free-speech right to truly exist, we must severely limit the types of speech—true threats, slander, etc.—that don’t deserve protection from government censorship and potential prosecution. Not so in European Union (E.U.) member countries, many of which have laws against any language that “insults,” “offends,” “degrades,” “expresses contempt,” or “incites hatred” based on certain protected traits like race, religion, or sexual orientation. As Nick Gillespie has put it, “hate speech” is like the secular equivalent of blasphemy.
On Monday, Věra Jourová, the E.U. Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, gave a speech stressing the importance of such laws and calling for even more intense policing of so-called hate speech. (Just to be clear, by “hate speech” we are not talking about things like threats or criminal harassment.) “My top priority is to ensure that the Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia is correctly translated into the national criminal codes and enforced, so that perpetrators of online hate speech are duly punished,” Jourová said.
The commissioner offered a characteristically European rationale for the imposition: only by government censorship of free expression can free expression flourish.
“In recent years, we have seen messages of extremism and intolerance spread around the globe like wildfire” and “we need to stand united against this growing phenomenon,” said Jourová. “Our commitment is to deliver change so that people do not need to live in fear, and to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected.”
“The spread of illegal hate speech online not only distresses the people it targets,” she continued, “it also affects those who speak up for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our society. If left unattended, the fear of intimidation can keep opinion makers, journalists and citizens away from social media platforms.”