From Hate Speech to Hate Crimes

Hate crime is on a rise ever since awareness regarding Freedom of speech have increased. Isn’t it ironic how the same platform that gives a voice to oppressors also gives a voice to predators? When we talk about Hate crime, we all accept that hate speech is one of the main reasons for it. Hiding under the umbrella of freedom of speech, there are hatemongers and racists that utilize the useful platform of freedom of speech to gain their personal objectives and spreading hate among society. Hate speech is one of the quagmires of our society that has done more damage than the others. However, where the agreement of an interrelation between hate speech and hate crime ends, is on the question of whether a well-known celebrity’s tweets or speeches really provoke hate crimes in people? One school of thought is convinced that hate crimes have increased significantly in Trump’s presidency due to is blatant views and harsh policies on other races and ethnicities; some people have their opinion that hate speech is on a rise because of the lack of check and balance on social media.

I stand with the view that hate speech provokes hate crimes. You cannot completely control hate crimes by banning hate speech, however, hate speech is a catalyst to hate crimes and feeds the likes of hatemongers and racists. Ban on hate speech helps to maintain a balance between different ethnicities and racial sects. However, an important question that arises here is how do we separate hate speech from freedom of speech? How do we get to know when someone is crossing limits and is potentially subject to harm someone else? Who is in charge of all this and how can hate speech be prevented/stopped? There are so many questions to answer and so many steps to take to prevent hate speech.

Furthermore, hate speech becomes popular because of some celebrity or public figure persons start delivering it against different religion race or ethnicity. Due to these things the warmongers or criminals felt provoke and start doing crimes according to many psychologists people want another person to blame their false actions, sometimes. Hate crimes increase against Muslims in many countries. They start spreading hate between different religions or ethnicity and sometimes they do brainwash other people. According to the BllombergOpinoin Karsten Muller and Schwarz, in March published a paper that attesting hate crimes towards Muslims especially increased in America counties by the usage of social media especially twitter following president Donald Trump’s election. Before the election, the hate crimes in these areas didn’t have a greater rate of crimes. Although social media played a great role in violence due to free speech which turns out to be a hate speech or criticism. I always believed that social media is a great way to express yourself and thoughts and you can also express your thoughts and feelings about another person or community. But some free speech appears to be a hate speech and negative criticism, according to Leonid Bershidsky, he writes in his article that “In the German study, anti-refugee posts on the Facebook page of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party appear to be catalyst for violence.” in other words Leonid claims, anti-refugee post or campaign on social media have a prominent hand in hate crimes and I also believe that social media sites produce some controversial issues too. According to Muller and Schwarz, they estimate that without the AfD Facebook posts, 13 percent less anti-refugee crimes would have happened. Through Facebook and internert unavailability, the rate of hate crimes gradually reduced.

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