Executive summary

• Author: Petra Bárd - Judit Bayer
• Pages: 18-20

Hate speech and hate crime in the EU and the evaluation of online content regulation approaches

PE 655.135 13

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Hate speech and hate crimes poison societies by threatening individual rights, human dignity and

equality, reinforcing tensions between social groups, disturbing public peace and public order, and

jeopardising peaceful coexistence. They effect private lives, or in cases of violent bias crimes, even

victims’ life and limb. They stigmatise and terrify whole communities. They erode social cohesion,

solidarity, and trust between members of society. Hate speech blocks rational public debate, without

which no democracy can exist it leads to an abuse of rights that endangers the rule of law.

Hate speech and hate crime have been steadily on the rise during the past decade. Most importantly,

hate speech has also appeared at the highest level of the public administration of some Member States,

where transformation into policy is just one step away. The liberal stance towards hate speech was built

on the presumption that the state and the social majority would uphold democratic standards under

all circumstances, and distance themselves from hate speakers, who would inevitably remain outcasts.

But when state representatives remain silent or openly support hate speech and hate crimes, this

assumption holds no longer. The non-organised, individual haters derive authority from the failure of

the state to intervene.

No society is immune from the signs of hatred, but whether they get tamed or deepened, depends on

the social measures that are applied vis-à-vis the phenomenon. Whether by speech, action or omission,

the state's reaction creates norms, and informs society about the current acceptable standards.

According to recent academic literature, counter-speech is crucial in the fight against racism and other

forms of intolerance. Counter-speech should be backed up also by action: official policy on social

inclusion, such as education, awareness-raising, and social programmes to level economic and other

inequalities. Besides, counter-action is also recommended: strengthening the institutional system to

combat hate speech and hate crime.

EU Member States (MSs) have diverging rules, and apply different standards to counter hate speech

and hate crimes. In order to ensure that the representation of EU values is mainstreamed, EU regulation

is needed to reinforce the existing standards and to encourage measures to counter-speech and

counter-act against hate speech and hate crime. Primarily, the EU should declare that hate speech at

the level of the public administration, government and governmental officials, authorities, schools and

all public institutions deeply violates the basic values of the European Union and that MSs are obliged

to use all legal means to eliminate this phenomenon, even in its forms which do not reach the criminal

threshold. MSs – and the European institutions – should be obliged by EU law to withdraw funding

provided to, and prohibit political coalition with political parties and other organisations whose

members repeatedly represent views that are irreconcilable with the values of the European Union,

provided that the party or other entity fails to sanction this.

In order to build social resilience, notice should be taken of the fears and concerns that make people

susceptible to populistic, discriminative or even racist views. Linguistic and psychological research

could greatly contribute to yielding fresh knowledge about the intriguing success of hate speech and

populism. Research to process and decode the 'hate narrative' and to define what is the real concern

behind hate should be supported by the EU. Those concerns should be addressed and managed with

adequate and substantial social policy, and also addressed with credible EU narratives which respond

to the fears, inform citizens and reinforce the values of human rights, equality, tolerance and solidarity.

Giving a narrative means to tell the story of Europe, the values and the choices that EU institutions

make day by day.