PAGBABAGO
Hate speech has been with us since the beginning of time. It is shown in malicious distortions rooted in religious and ethic settings. It promotes division by amplifying disparities and fostering a perception of “us vs. them” according to Dr. Cherian George, professor of Hong Kong Baptist University and recipient of the 2024 AMIC Asia Communication Award.
At the webinar series held last month hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Letters and Literature of the University of Santo Tomas, George noted that academics and journalists have not responded adequately to hate speech challenges as they are operating in an inadequate mental model. “If we cannot picture the problem in its full complexity, there is little chance of dealing with it properly. It is about time to adopt a paradigm shift on how we report hate speech, and that we shift analysis by raising questions such as “What is the process? How is hate speech cultivated? How does speech turn harmful? How can it be countered? How do we detect hate speech? How much outrage is it causing? Should it be blocked?”
Hate speech, he noted, was identified as a precursor to atrocity crimes including genocide. With the advent of social media, its discourse has been weaponized with political gains. In democratic societies, hate speech puts together two deeply held values against each other – free speech and equality.
We realize that its spread had been facilitated with the advent of more sophisticated information technology. As George noted, “hate speech does not appear in individual toxic messages but in long-running campaigns. It is cultivated through a process that includes many levels in a chain which includes othering, scapegoating, dehumanization, threat inversion, call to action and erasure. It has multiple actors which include mass popularizers, intellectual rationalizers, media mouthpieces, creative talents, political leaders, and grassroots agitators. It is however reactive and focused on isolated events rather than how the system works. It invokes statements that promote malicious stereotypes intended to incite hatred or violence against a group. It also includes nonverbal depictions and symbols. Pornography and the Nazi swastika are considered examples of hate speech. The holocaust did not start with the gas chambers but with hate speech.
Among the examples in the Asian region are the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar which elicited dehumanizing language against them. The Cambodian genocide started with hateful speech where ethnic and religious minorities were considered enemies of the people.
George further emphasized the need to investigate the production of hate propaganda and disinformation as part of creative industry and the economic incentives involved. He challenged journalists to “rethink how they cover hate speech as the coverage has been found to be reactive.
George further notes the twin concept of hate speech – “hate spin” which combines conventional hate speech with the novel strategy of “offense taking” or the deliberate weaponization of outrage. It is used today as it is no longer politically acceptable to express vilification of a minority community so openly especially in democracies. Manufactured outrage becomes a more subtle way of victimizing a minority group. Hate spin stokes up fears, exploits identity politics and instigates mob action.
Marace Villahermosa in Diskurso (2025), notes the absence of a specific law that defines and penalizes hate speech in the Philippines, citing as an example the notable increase in sexist and hate speech targeting female relatives of extrajudicial killing victims following the arrest of former President Duterte by the International Court of Justice. This report came from the human rights group, Karapatan which expressed alarm over these attacks, attributing them to a “mercenary troll army.”
In summary, our society today faces the threat of polarization not only from fake news and disinformation but from the twin threats of “hate speech” and “hate spin.” (Florangel.braid@gmail.com)