The Open Society Forum explored ways to combat hate speech

Hate speech – to react or not to react?

In his keynote speech, Jordi Vaquer, the director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, warned societies of ignoring hate speech. “Hate speech should be stopped immediately as a joint effort of the media, government and civil society,” Vaquer said, underlining that hate speech is not only dangerous as a stepping stone to physical violence but also in itself, dehumanizing the victim and intimidating those who fight against it. According to Vaquer, the fact that changing society’s values may take generations is not an excuse for ignoring hate speech and extremist views. He emphasized that although tolerance cannot be achieved overnight, putting a stop to hate speech as soon as it appears helps build long-term changes in values.

To illustrate his point, Vaquer explained that while in 1975 his home country Spain was probably one of the most xenophobic and intolerant societies in Europe, it has grown into one of the most tolerant ones in just a couple of decades. Despite having admitted 6.5 million immigrants in the past 10 years, there have been no major escalations of violence and hate speech.

Who reads and writes angry comments?

The second panel concentrated on Estonia and analyzed the phenomenon of hate speech in internet comments. The IT visionary and chair of OEF’s board Linnar Viik and media expert Raul Rebane presented fresh statistics from a recent survey of online media use commissioned by the Open Estonia Foundation and conducted by TNS Emor, which revealed that more than half of Estonian internet users regularly read the comments sections in online media outlets. According to the survey, there are 823 000 internet users in Estonia (3/4 of the population), out of whom 575 000 use the internet daily and 484 000 regularly read online comments. The majority of those who read comments do it every week, while 25% read comments every day. Most readers consult comments because they see comments as an integral part of an article and a source for additional information. Other reasons include personal experience with the issue at hand, humor, and the wish to learn what other people think (the latter is two times more important to readers with non-Estonian backgrounds). Strikingly, a third of the respondents admitted they read online comments to see how vulgar a discussion can become.

Most comment readers are men (79.7%) and have higher education (82.2%). At the same time, an average comment writer has basic or secondary education, is under 35 years of age and more likely Russian-speaking (23.6%) than Estonian-speaking (17.1%). While there are around 29 000 people in Estonia who regularly comment online, only 3000 do it every day. Most commentators have preferred to remain anonymous whereas those with lower education levels tend to be more willing to use their real name. According to the poll, the main reason for writing comments was the writer’s belief they had important information to add to the topic (65.6%, i.e. 102 000 people). However, the number of commentators seeing commenting as part of the freedom of speech is rather marginal (14%).

How to restrict hate speech in Estonia?

Building on the statistics and an analysis of the comments in the two biggest Estonian online news portals, the third panel posed the crucial question: what should media companies do to restrict the spread of hate speech online?

„When 40% of comments are completely off-topic and only 20% actually refer to the article’s content, we must ask how to decrease this gap?” Tiit Hennoste, the linguistics and media professor of the University of Tartu, asked the chief editors of Postimees and EPL/Delfi, the two most popular online media outlets in Estonia. Hennoste underlined that the task of media is not to abolish commenting altogether but to ensure comments are well-argumented and follow the rules of polite communication.

Both Anvar Samost, editor-in-chief of Postimees, and Urmo Soonvald, editor-in-chief of Delfi/EPL, admitted that anonymous comments are part of their business model and the only way to restrict hate speech in comments is to make the major media outlets agree on a common commenting policy. Both promised to take decisive steps already in the near future.

More on the forum: www.oef.org.ee/forum2013en