خطاب الكراهية

خطاب الكراهية

Anyone spending time online has noticed the increase of hateful and abusive language. Hate speech is speech and expression that degrades a person or persons because of who they are, or who someone thinks they are.

Typical hate speech contains slurs that promote negative stereotypes and intolerance, and speech that tries to promote or justify hatred, violence, and discrimination based on, for example, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or age.

Hate speech or free speech?
It is important that a balance is kept between combatting hate speech on the one hand and upholding freedom of speech on the other. Hate speech is a threat to democratic values and development, the protection of human rights and the rule of law. It can lead to hate crime; acts of violence and conflict on a wider scale. However, restrictions on hate speech have been misused by governments, to silence protesters and dissidents.

Media and Information Literacy Education is an effective way to empower young people and fight hate speech and its impact. It contains lessons on media ethics, rights and responsibilities, the importance of free speech, and the need for non-prejudicial “counter-speech”.

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