UN Secretary General raises alarm on abuse of freedom of expression – JURIST

UN Secretary General António Guterres raised the alarm on Wednesday over the abuse of free speech and expression rights for promoting hatred online, that he said is leading to a “surge in real-world violence” against vulnerable groups.

Speaking on the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, Guterres warned that such speech is a “tool for division,” and is leading the world down the path of dehumanization. Rejecting the notion that taking a position against hate speech infringes free speech rights, Guterres added:

In our digital age, hate speech spreads faster than ever, amplified by unregulated platforms and intensified by artificial intelligence [AI]…

Too many algorithms reward outrage and division, incentivising lies for likes and promoting violence for views. Anonymity online also makes it harder to hold perpetrators to account.

Kalliopi Mingeirou, chief of the Ending Violence against Women section at UN Women, highlighted the negative impact on women of the dangerous combination of hate, technology, and unchecked free speech. Acknowledging that AI did not create misogyny, Mingeirou said that the “wider ecosystem of influencers, forums, social media content, podcasts, gaming spaces even and algorithm-driven content” has facilitated the easier and quicker transmission of misogyny and is amplifying hatred against women.

According to Mingeirou, “Abusers can now create and spread deepfakes, sexualised synthetic images, impersonation content and other forms of image-based abuse faster, cheaper and with less technical skill.”

The concern over rising hate speech and its inevitable and unavoidable implications for free speech rights is slowly surfacing into a hotly debated discussion in recent times. Earlier this month, the upper house of the Canadian parliament rejected a proposal to include “residential school denialism” an offense in its hate crime bill. Even with the proposal rejected, opponents of the bill raised concerns about the bill’s restrictions on free speech rights. Those concerns were reiterated when Canada enacted its new hate crime bill  the next day without the “residential school denialism” offense. While Guterres has raised concerns about abuse of free speech rights, others have raised concerns about selective censorship, particularly in academic circles, that equally has the potential to marginalize vulnerable groups who find themselves “silenced, excluded, or told they don’t belong.” Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has previously criticized how such selective censorship in the name of “cultural sensitivity and political correctness” has led to the pleas and cases of grooming gang victims and whistleblowers being ignored by social workers, local politicians and even the police in the UK.