The "Hate Speech" button - really?

[AmaryllisNightAndDay]

I just reported a post to MNHQ and one of the buttons is "hate speech".

This a disturbing and inflammatory way to classify posts. People can say stupid and ignorant things without "hate". What exactly is "hate speech"? What does MNHQ think it means?

"Hate speech" is not a crime but there is something called "hate speech where the police can be involved.

What happens if someone demands to know how many complaints there are about "hate speech" on MumsNet? There they are, all nicely classified.

How is this a good idea? How is it safe for anyone to post if other people can just click a button to claim their post is "hate speech"?

Indeed hence why people claim racism and misogyny on posts that are nothing of the sort. It is weaponising opinions. Ive seen stuff on here classified as hate speech which is simply factually correct just not politically correct.

Sorry Freddy, in terms of the police, mysogyny isn't a hate crime and a non crime hate incident against a mere female wouldn't be logged as we aren't important enough to be considered a victim. It is the only protected characteristic that isn't considered in terms of that particular law. We are fair game.

@AlisonDonut so is misandry that also isn't a hate crime. Have you seen the hate written against men on here too?

Women are not assaulting, raping and killing men at a huge rate are they?

Before they had buttons you had to write what the problem was you could just type 'hate speech' so i don't know what the problem is just because there's now a button.

MumsNet are suggesting those words to you. You're supposed to be helpful and pick the nearest match.

I'm not sure why you (royal you) wouldn't just laugh it off.

In the three scenarios I posted, the original posters are vulnerable or distressed themselves and are not in a good place to just "laugh off" something like that.

I agree with you OP. It makes me very uncomfortable. Surely you only need two buttons

Spammers/advertisers
Other posts, with a drop down box so you can put a reason (like they have now)

I always click the "other" button. Its not my place to decide if the post falls under a specific reason. All I am doing is asking mn to check the post or poster. Then its up to them to put the delete reason if they choose.

Exactly, gives them a rough idea of what you think might be an issue. They may not agree that it's hate speech, or not a genuine poster or whatever you have pressed but it gives them a clue, and then they'll review the post/thread accordingly.

@Surtsey What about just "Offensive"? Offensive is in the eye of the beholder, but then so is hate speech.

It is impossible to rape as a woman. So the number will be zero. A man who sleeps with an underage child is guilty of rape a woman doing the same thing will not be so that is hardly a fair comparison. There is a lot of female on male assaults that are not reported because of stigma. I saw a woman battering a man in the street nobody intervened untill the poor chap dared to defend himself and give some back. Then people got involved they were happy to see him get beaten.

'Offensive' is much broader than what I'd see as coming under 'hate speech' here, and it doesn't confer the same meaning. I suppose 'hate speech' could be changed to something like 'discriminatory language/sentiment' but it's a bit faffy, especially when people will use the option for the same posts anyway.

A poster who's reported won't even know unless a post is deleted, and they won't be told they've been reported for hate speech.

For me, it's less about the label itself and more about having a way to prioritise particular reports to mods, to save them having to filter through 101 reports of a petition on a main board before seeing a report for horrific racism or ableism.

For me, it's less about the label itself and more about having a way to prioritise particular reports to mods,

So you are saying that calling something a "hate crime" is a way to prioritise your complaint? Can you see a problem with that?

Och sorry - not a "hate crime". Hate speech.

I do believe that reports of ableism, racism, homophobia and misogyny should be prioritised over the majority of things reported, yes.

The reporting categories reflect talk guidelines, and, ultimately, if posters report under the 'hate speech' option for spurious reasons then MN won't take any action on the person reported so it's really not a big deal. If it is considered to be 'hate speech' and reported there'll be a deletion/warning/ban. Nothing else happens.

Women are not assaulting, forcing parts of their bodies into men, and killing them at a huge rate...if you want to be specific.

Less than 1% of rapes end with any action at all and that's the ones we know about.

Men murder women and say 'Ooh she said she wanted me to strangle her and it just all went wrong' and get let off.

Males are coercing women, including lesbians, into sex, and strangulting them, hitting them and spitting on and in them and it's seen as 'rough sex'.

This is completely normalised behaviour now.

Men hate us and we can do not a damn thing about it. Whilst men have women like you here to keep on with the 'but what about men' all the live long day.

I don't mind it, and I've used it. I figure it's a way for MN to prioritise reviewing posts that have been reported for being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, or, yes, transphobic. They must get loads of reports and they'll want to prioritise removing the worst offensive stuff over spam.

Hello!

We discussed this a bit on the feminist board, so leaving some points here as asked:

Legally there is no such thing as 'hate speech' - a 'hate crime' is an aggravating element to an existing crime. So if you assault someone but while doing so you use defamatory words referring to their identity that can be taken into account when sentencing.

'Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.’ There are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime:

race or ethnicity

religion or beliefs

sexual orientation

disability

transgender identity'

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2017-to-2018

It's a pretty vague definition, and that's probably largely why so many people are critical of the law.

'Hate crime' isn't the same as the Equality Act, the PCs are different (sex isn't included).

www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime

'The law recognises five types of hate crime on the basis of:

Race

Religion

Disability

Sexual orientation

Transgender identity'
...
'The police and the CPS have agreed the following definition for identifying and flagging hate crimes:

"Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person's disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity."

There is no legal definition of hostility so we use the everyday understanding of the word which includes ill-will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment and dislike.'

Personally, I think it is not terribly a good idea to invoke 'hate crime' when the law itself is so skewed against women, and so vague. It gives the impression MN have more power or standing than they actually do and it also reinforces the whole consept of 'hate crime' which as many will argue is a law that has misogyny baked into it by the omission of 'sex' as one of the pcs.

But I am not an expert, by any means.

So, hate speech doesn't have a legal definition, and so it does indeed just mean "someone has written something egregious in this post, take a look", and there's no problem with the button at all? Great.

There are several problems with the button, as I think this whole thread has been explaining.

1. Its overkill
2. it's suggesting a legal basis for reports that doesn't actually exist
3. it's vaguely referencing a law that is inherently biased against women, when most users of Mumsnet are women
4. It's confusing and unhelpful
5. It may be used against Mumsnet by those who seek to undermine and impugn the site and claim that there is a lot of 'hate speech'

Thanks @ArabellaScott for explaining the legal side of it.

"Hate speech" isn't a crime but then nor are "Spam / Advertising/ Research", "Not a Genuine Poster", "Personal Attack" or most variants of "Other". I don't see why you feel that (lack of) criminal status is relevant in this one case?

All this means is that enough people are already reporting posts and putting "Hate Speech" in the free text description that it makes sense to give it its own category.

Because it's confusing. It implies a quasi-legal category when there is none.

In what way? I get that you're inferring some kind of quasi-legal connection, but I can't see how MN is implying one with "Hate Speech" any more than with "Personal Attack".

Yeah but the so called Mumsnet feminists do indulge in quite a lot of homophobia and transphobia - ie hate speech. I would show you examples but i can't, as they've been deleted for hate speech.