People protest hate speech on February 1, 2017, in Berkeley, California. Photo by: AP Photo/Ben Margot
Hate speech is an expression that mocks or belittles a person because he or she may belong to a certain social group. That group may be a certain race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, someone with physical or mental disability or something else.

Typical hate speech involves labels and slurs. Hate speech can be directed so people inflict hatred or violence against a group. Some hate speech involves cruel stereotypes — believing that all people of one group act a certain way, or have a certain attribute.

Hate speech can also include unspoken pictures and symbols. For example, the Nazi swastika and the Confederate battle flag (of the Confederate States of America) are considered hate speech by many people.

Critics of hate speech argue that it causes psychological harm to its victims, and physical harm when it incites violence. They also say that it makes its victims less equal in society. That is particularly true, they claim, because hate speech is usually directed at marginalized groups — people who have less power in society.

The Ongoing Debate About Hate Speech

Therefore, hate speech poses a challenge for modern, free societies. Free, democratic nations believe that all people are equal, but they should also be free to express themselves and their feelings. Thus, there is an ongoing debate in those societies: Should hate speech be regulated or censored? If so, how?

In the traditional idea of what liberal, democratic societies should be, all speech is typically allowed — even hate speech. A person may be disgusted by hate speech. But they may also find it worse to allow their government to censor the words of a citizen, even if those words are bigoted or hateful.

Any censorship, they might say, would lead to more censorship by a government. If the government were allowed more freedom to censor, who's to say they wouldn't censor anything that is unpopular? That could mean that something important, like criticism of the government, might get censored just because some people didn't like it. This kind of censorship would be unthinkable: Criticism of government is key to the health of a free, open democracy.

Discussing And Agreeing On Ideas

Some people argue that the best way to fight hate speech is to point out how wrong and false it is as an idea. In this "liberal" society, there's an "open exchange of ideas." In this situation, all ideas are to be discussed and debated. Society then comes to an agreement about what ideas it wants or doesn't want.

Some people believe that hate speech should be censored. They typically argue against the traditional liberal model above, which says that all people and groups are equal in society. The "open exchange of ideas" doesn't fairly recognize the fact that there are marginalized groups who could get hurt because of hate speech.

Hate speech, they argue, is not simply the "free expression of ideas." It actually causes its victims to be unsafe and lesser in society. When aimed at oppressed minorities and other people of color, hate speech is not just insulting — it also continues the oppression of these minorities. It causes the victims, the people spewing hate and the rest of society to absorb the hateful messages and act on that hate.

U.S. Courts Don't Censor Hate Speech

To them, victims of hate speech cannot enter the “open marketplace of ideas” as equal participants to defend themselves. For them, hate speech is part of a broader system of inequality and unjust discrimination. It just causes more problems for the victims, effectively silencing them.

The United States protects freedom of speech in the First Amendment. U.S. courts have generally ruled against attempts to censor hate speech. The only exceptions are if hate speech is being used to incite immediate harm to a person or group.

Other liberal democracies such as France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand have laws designed to lessen hate speech. Such laws have gotten more popular since World War II.

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