14 May 21 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116759″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]As a political obsessive, I love the Queen’s Speech in the British Parliament. It marks the beginning of the new parliamentary session. It is uniquely British with all the expected pomp and ceremony and a significant amount of pageantry. But most importantly it is a restatement of our democratic values and processes. It also sets the agenda for the year ahead and makes clear what the Government is prioritising. And unfortunately, this year there were significant concerns for those of us who care about free speech.
The Queen outlined the government’s agenda and on the face of it who could object to an Online Safety Bill or a Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill or even a Counter State Threats Bill. But, as ever, the devil is in the detail and the detail for too many of the British government’s proposals seems to have many, what I can only hope are unintended, consequences.
The draft Online Safety Bill proposes not only the establishment of a new category of unlawful speech in the UK – legal but harmful – but it also proposes outsourcing the regulation of free speech in the UK to Silicon Valley. Most concerningly there is no provision outlined which will let us know how much content has been removed – or even what has been removed. On the face of it, that might not seem that important but how would a victim know if they were vulnerable? How will police prosecute hate crime? And how we will be able to analyse how much of a threat to free speech this bill has become, if we have no idea of how much is deleted. The Government has suggested that they will fine companies for deleting too much content but there is no provision outlined which would allow them to assess the scale.
The Academic Freedom Bill will establish a ‘free speech champion’ to ensure that free speech protections are enacted on campus, but this week the Government couldn’t answer whether this would empower Holocaust deniers to speak on campus – or stop them. What’s likely to happen instead is that academic institutions will be so concerned about the fear of a fine or bad publicity that they will stop speakers attending campus full stop – the ultimate chilling effect.
These are just two examples of why Index has such significant concerns of the direction that government is taking on free speech.
To be clear, Index supports any and all efforts to protect our collective right to free speech across the globe and we expect the British government to take a global leadership role in defending Article 19. But what we’ve seen in this year’s Queen’s Speech does not give us hope – rather it seems to be a systematic assault on free expression by the British government, under the auspices of protecting free speech.
I am a former legislator; I know that you cannot, and you should not try to legislate culture or language – it will have the opposite effect. People won’t want to engage and our public spaces will become free of debate and challenge. We deserve so much better. Going forward we will seek to work with the British government to introduce additional protections for free speech, we must use our voice to protect yours.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
26 Feb 21 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116315″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Legal but harmful speech – what does it even mean and why is every government body so insistent that the best way to deal with hate is to legislate against it?
So, you may guess from my tone that I am getting a little irked. There seems to be a pattern emerging in the UK, that rather than genuinely tackling some of the thornier issues–we’re seeing calls for more laws and regulations as the quick fix. Seemingly so people can say they are doing something, anything, rather than tackle the root causes of the problems at hand.
This week was a case in point. Building on the Government’s plans to create a new designation of unacceptable language for our online conversations in the Online Safety Bill – legal but harmful – we saw yet more headlines outlining the latest initiative from a well-intentioned quasi-government body seeking legislation to regulate speech in order to protect us from extremists.
The Centre for Countering Extremism published a paper calling for a new legal framework to tackle extremism – or rather extremist language which is creating an environment conducive to building new extremist groups. In principle, this is something that is difficult to knock and I have huge admiration for many of the people involved, but this is a slippery slope.
Let me be clear. I am not suggesting (nor would I ever) that all is well in our online world. It isn’t – there are too many examples of toxic abuse. Political and ideological extremism seems to be on the march; bullying, trolling, hate speech and threats are becoming far too normalised online. I should know, after all I still seem to attract a little too much of it…
But the question is can you or even should you regulate speech. Would that even work? Is regulation going to make people be nicer to each other online – or is there something more sinister at play that we need to focus our efforts on. As Taylor Swift said “haters gonna hate”.
So surely the real challenge here is how we balance dealing with the minority who choose to incite hatred and create a toxic environment which is attacking our very value system without undermining one of our basic fundamental rights – free speech.
Reaching for the statute book as a legislator is the easy option – politicians can say they have done something – even if that something hasn’t fixed the problem. They can point at a law and say job done. But let’s be honest, you can’t legislate culture and you can’t regulate language and nor should we be trying to.
People aren’t stupid, extremists aren’t stupid, recruiters to terror groups aren’t stupid – they are abhorrent, evil and wrong – and while some may not be that bright, the most effective tend not to be stupid.
If you change the law to restrict what they can and can’t say – all they will do is moderate their language, introduce coded phrases and push extremism into spaces that can’t be monitored. Suppression of language simply will not defeat the dangerous ideology at play. But what you will have done is create an environment where certain communities feel that they can’t speak at all – a chilling effect which will both create martyrs and undermine community cohesion.
Moving the line of legality will simply result in extremists developing a new vocabulary to achieve the same outcomes as they did before. And then we enter a dangerous period of cat and mouse where restrictions become even tighter, ensnaring legitimate debate and discussion in order to catch those purveyors of hate.
Someone famous once said, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” and that mantra should be the starting point for any government on this issue. I have always said that speech should be free but not free of consequences.
The penalty for incitement should be severe – severe enough to be a deterrent but, and it’s a big but, the same level of resource, if not more, should be used to meet the continually emerging challenges of political extremism through education, engagement and community investment.
Empowering people to challenge hate speech and building a society where debate is celebrated but extremism is rightly ostracized. I know that for many that may be a naïve aspiration – but the alternative is a world where silence becomes the norm – because speech is too difficult.
Postscript. Just a note to thank Hannah who, in between doing her schoolwork yesterday, helped type my blog this week.
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22 Sep 20 | Art and the Law, Free Speech and the Law, Hate Speech, Index in the Press, News and features, Statements, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114965″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Heavy fines for social media companies who fail to act on online abuse and hate speech will have a negative effect on online expression, according to Index on Censorship CEO Ruth Smeeth.
Smeeth was taking part in a discussion on the proposed Online Harms Bill with the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a group that acts as a forum for members of the country’s Jewish community, along with shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds and Tottenham MP David Lammy (see top).
“Self-regulation has not really been effective,” said Smeeth. “[But] if we fine heavily they will be so conservative with what they allow on the platform.”
The discussion was called after rising incidence of anti-Semitism in the UK. Between January and June, 789 separate incidents of anti-Semitism were logged, up 4% on the previous year.
The proposed Online Harms Bill – still in its white paper stage – aims to force social media companies to regulate their sites in order to clamp down on abuse and harmful speech. The legislation is in line with a similar ruling in Germany introduced in 2017, where social media companies can face fines of up to €50 million.
Smeeth, herself a victim of online abuse, expressed her support for the bill as a way of tackling illegal hate speech, but suggested that alterations need to be made so that overly heavy fines do not cause social media companies to over-regulate.
“There are young people who have not been able to access counselling services having self-harmed,” she said. “They are using online forums to talk about their pain sometimes in very explicit language to support groups.”
“They would not be able to do so under this legislation.”
Clause 3.5 of the white paper draft will ensure that not just illegal hate speech can be shut down, but also what the legislation deems ‘legal but harmful’.
“The idea that we have something that is legal on the street but illegal on social media makes very little sense to me,” she said.
In 2019, Index made a submission to the white paper consultation, stating: “The focus on the catch-all term of ‘harms’ tends to oversimplify the issues. Not all harms need a legislative response.”
The law in Germany has since been criticised by Human Rights Watch and said it sets a precedent that will turn private companies into ‘overzealous censors’.
Shadow home secretary Thomas-Symonds is keen to have an independent regulator and feels the time for self-regulation has ‘long passed’.
He said: “We need a statutory duty of care and an independent regulator that has teeth. It has to have that power to levy particular penalties when social media companies are simply not doing what they should be.”
Lammy added that the key to curbing online hate speech towards minorities and anti-Semitism was the Online Harms Bill.
“You are not a civilised democracy if you do not protect minorities,” he said. “Until we have dealt with this issue nationally, we will not have fully dealt with it.”
In June, Lord Puttnam – Chair of the Lords Democracy and Digital Committee – warned that the bill may not come into effect until late 2023 or early 2024.
The full Index issued response to the white paper can be read here.
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12 Aug 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114550″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Artists, writers and activists have joined Index and other NGOs in calling on the Scottish government to redraft a proposed new bill.
Rowan Atkinson, Mary “Doll” Nesbit, actor Elaine C Smith, Peter Tatchell and former Scottish Arts Council director Dame Seona Reid have written a joint letter to argue that the wording of the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill while well meaning risks “stifling freedom of expression, and the ability to articulate or criticise religious and other beliefs”.
Organisations including the Humanist Society Scotland and Scottish PEN as well as Index signed the letter.
The letter comes as the Scottish Parliament considers the wording of the bill which the Scottish Government says “provides for the modernising, consolidating and extending of hate crime legislation in Scotland” and will “provide greater clarity, transparency and consistency”.
The signatories to the letter say they welcome the provisions to consolidate existing aggravated hate crimes and the repeal of the blasphemy law. However, they add that the bill as currently drafted “creates a stirring up offence that does not examine the intention behind the action; a crime is committed merely because someone’s words, actions, or artwork might stir up hatred and regardless of their intentions”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
