“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” Evelyn Beatrice Hall said, a concept that perhaps crystallises the idea behind freedom of speech.

Yet, more often than not we also forget the other side of this, that the ability to speak carries with it the responsibility for the words we say. The responsibility that needs us to understand and accept the weight of what we say and that this can lead to reactions towards us that affect our lives.

Hate speech is a notorious grey area to tackle and famously difficult to define, especially when it comes to the online spectrum of debate. We have only just started to understand its concept  and how to allow for both a free and healthy debate to occur in virtual spaces.

One of the best ways to understand the meaning of hate speech at the most basic level might perhaps be as:

“The expression of hatred towards an individual or group of individuals on the basis of protected characteristics, where the term ‘protected character-istics’ denotes membership to some specific social group that could, on its own, trigger discrimination.”

When one incites violence, in any of its forms, or dehumanisation of other parts of society through means of communication, that does in fact become hate speech and the law is obligated to intervene.

Freedom of speech has become its own biggest enemy with the advent of the internet giving everyone a voice. People now expect to speak without repercussions, to attack, insult, ridicule, dehumanise and, above all else, bully into submission through the abuse of online systems.

Allowing hundreds of millions of people to reach each other, we have never been closer, never had so much knowledge only a few letters away

Allowing hundreds of millions of people to reach each other, we have never been closer, never had so much knowledge only a few letters away. Yet, never have we seen such volumes of hate generate seemingly out of nothing but for disapproving of what others say.

Hate speech has become an issue now more than ever, with smartphones in everyone’s hand allowing them to tap to a social media website; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat among many others.

What was meant to act as a catalyst to connect people is pushing people away.

Fighting and hateful comments are being thrown around as if being behind a screen does not make words less hurtful or less threatening.

Public figures, in and out of politics receive threats, online assaults, inappropriate and false stories spread to those not just in the public eye but those surrounding them. The internet spares no one, and nothing is a secret if it is online.

That is why we are working on stopping this, on educating as much as possible on how to use the internet and to remind people that when we say something, be it face to face, written or on an online forum, we must bear the responsibility of what we say.

Hence, we must be more considerate in how we act when we come to communicate with others. When we stop talking and discussing with each other, we stop connecting and we start moving apart. Moving apart will create more and more hate, more distrust that will lead to further damage to our society and deteriorate our ability to tackle common problems and finding common ground.

#Stophate is a project that aims to bring forward the importance of active citizenship in an inclusive society by bridging the gap between civil society through the use of volunteers, law enforcement and the media.

The motivation of this is that currently most newsrooms have no moderation capacity, with a number of them even having to close comments.

This is not conducive to having a healthy open dialogue between the civil society and the public. Having an open free-for-all debate may contribute to hate speech as a means to stifle dialogue and free speech through abuse.

What is not often understood is the fact that there is a lot of free speech that becomes hate speech and starts to breach the law. This is even included in the Maltese Constitution and yet the law is rarely enforced due to the situation being as it is, endless hate speech published, and the law being in a grey area that does not seem to have been yet applied to the online social forums.

Alexander Hili is SOS Malta project coordinator.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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