MN - too lenient on hate speech at present

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Yesterday Amnesty International launched an urgent research campaign into the rise in hate speech Yesterday the UN High Comissioner urged Britain to urgently stop hate crimes

People need to call it out when they see hate speech on mn. There has been plenty recently. It can take courage when so many supporters then pile on though, but you don't need to get into an argument. A simple statement rejecting what they say, without quoting them, is enough. Just simply not saying anything then waiting several hours for mn to delete it adds power to their voice. People always need to report things to mn.

I am concerned that mn are not dealing with things quickly enough at the moment. They must be swamped with reports. I think that an option to report for hate speech should be an explicit available reason and those reports should be red flagged as urgent. The more hate speech that is seen, the more that it tacitly gives others the go ahead to say the same.

I've seen examples of a post being deleted, but the poster not being banned - despite them having said something that is so irrefutably xenophobic, that nobody could interpret it otherwise - and this concerns me. All that teaches them to do is to learn to moderate their language, so that they can get their messages across more subtly. This allows an insiduous tolerance of hate speech to creep across the boards.

It is important to allow freedom of discussion. It is wrong to allow xenophobia, racism and hate to proliferate. It's a difficult one to reconcile, but the balance needs to shift.

MN you could also help by cooperating with amnesty international in recording and reporting incidents to them.

[TinnTinn]

Yes I've definitely seen lots of 'thick' and 'stupid' type posts in regard to the referendum.

It's rude and ignorant but if aimed at me I wouldn't think of it as hate speech necessarily, Just people getting angry and hot under the clear about political views. I wouldn't take it personally.

If however it was a thread in relationships for example, and it was a very sensitive issue and these words were necessarily bandied about I would likely get upset.

[TinnTinn]

*Unnecessarily

[sorenofthejnaii]

I think there is a lot of stereotyping and labelling of groups based on the actions of a few. I don't think that's hate speech but it's othering. Othering is dangerous when it leads to discrimination and hate.

You see 'othering', misinformation, constant negativity etc towards certain groups a lot - on here and elsewhere. I think that is not helpful for those groups but it is freedom of speech.

[ErrolTheDragon]

TinnTinn - no, we're not being overly sensitive. Hate speech is against the law, and certain other things are against the talk guidelines of this site. Its pretty simple - if you see something that looks like it breaks talk guidelines (hate speech is one case, obv, personal abuse is another) then hit the Report button and MN will decide what to do with it. The thing I reported earlier this week (along with others) was unambiguous racist hate speech - I can't show you it because its gone and its not the sort of thing I'd commit to memory.

If MNHQ think the post you report is ok and part of a valid discussion, they'll let it stand, sometimes with a comment.

[TinnTinn]

Ok, so I'm assuming racially abusive language? I imagine mumsnet HQ would jump on this straight away, along with the rest of mumsnet.

Personally I have never seen it, but you are always going to get trolls who pop up and say awful things in order to get attention. I can't see how it could be dealt with any better?

[thecatfromjapan]

It's the just-below-the-radar 'dog whistle' posts I found incredibly worrying. Even illuminating their racism was (and I suspect 'will be' is a verb tense I should use here) hard-going, and involved a minute discussion, in which the poster of said remark would prove (unsurprisingly) unwilling to engage.
I think we will see more of that as we see political parties falling over themselves and the political climate moving to accommodate xenophobia (and racism) as a 'legitimate concern'.