Fergus Finlay: We must take three steps to censor hate — and not apologise for it

His principal argument was that we shouldn’t legislate against hatred because we don’t know what hatred is, really. “All reasonable people are against inciting hatred, of course”, he wrote. “But the combination of vagueness in the legislation and the new ‘cancel culture’ out to silence certain points of view unlocks the potential of... censorship.”

 He’s not the only one consistently demanding definitions of hatred in the hatred legislation. Michael McDowell threatens us with the spectre of citizen’s arrests every time he gets on the radio. David Quinn was on something recently called GB News, a tiny TV station with very pronounced views on things, parroting the same line about what was called “the Irish Government’s draconian hate crime bill”.

That was then, of course. Is this now? Is it even barely possible that the likes of McDowell and Mullen were able to look out their office windows last week and watch hatred being defined for them on the street outside? Is it even barely possible that somewhere in their heads or hearts they’re beginning to realise that we have a serious, and growing, problem of hatred?

Rise of hatred

We’re beginning to know who the haters are. They took to the streets last week outside the Dáil, but they’re omnipresent on every branch of social media in Ireland. Their names, even, are beginning to appear on a regular basis in news reports. I’ve lost count of the number of new “political parties” they’ve created, all with Ireland in the name. (Find the websites of these new “parties” by the way, and the first thing you’ll see is a request for money.) We also know who the victims and potential victims of the haters are. They’re everyone who is different, everyone who is capable of being bullied, and everyone who is already a bit scared because of the circumstances in which they live (or often, just try to survive).

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the danger the haters pose. The economic chaos and poverty of Germany and other parts of Europe in the 1920s and 30s led directly to the rise of fascism. An overwhelming desire to “take back our country” enabled Mussolini and Hitler to thrive, and their key weapon was hate. Hatred of anyone seen as foreign or different.

We’ve been through our own version of economic collapse. I can still remember the shame I felt at the moment the troika appeared in Ireland, at more or less precisely the moment our government was denying its existence. But the years of austerity that followed, here and elsewhere, even though they were caused by prior years of bad politics, left thousands of people embittered and alienated. It’s in that alienation that the seeds of fascism can be sown.

We recovered — a lot faster than many other countries did. And then we came through a pandemic that, as hard as it was, showed many of the best sides of us.

But in the undergrowth, there have been people all that time trying to feast on disillusionment and bitterness. They have developed elaborate conspiracy theories about vaccination, about immigration, about elites seeking world domination, and about how Ireland is being taken away from the Irish.

It’s in its infancy here. No “respectable” politician wants to touch them. The organs of the right — the Gript medias of our world — dismiss their carryon as a bit of “argy bargy”. But look at what has happened throughout Europe, and in the United States. Look at the emerging “culture wars” about all aspects of gender identity. Look at the rise of Trump and Trumpism. Look at that the Tories, beset by economic failure, are trying to do in Britain.

That’s why we have to do three things. First, take it seriously. What isn’t a real threat now will become one if we allow it to happen. Second, we have to pass the hate speech bill. No more nonsense about listening to the siren voices who bleat on about defining hatred and citizens’ arrests. Just get it done.

And thirdly, we need to regulate the hell out of their internet access and abuse.

There’s a commission in place now, under law. It’s still trying to get itself set up, and I recognise how cumbersome that can be, despite everyone’s best intentions. But in the absence of a proper regulator, we have to rely on the very peculiar practice in Ireland of self-regulation.

There’s still an entity in Ireland called Hotline.ie, which advertises itself as the “go-to” place in respect of harmful content. It’s run by the internet service providers, essentially. It says on its website that it’s governed by six directors, but you’re a better researcher than me if you can find out who they are.

But it has a code of practice. There’s a basic requirement in that code of practice that every member of Hotline “will include and promote on their corporate website the Hotline.ie logo (having regard to Hotline.ie brand guidelines) and link to www.hotline.ie website.” Over the last weekend, I went to the website of the eleven significant internet service providers you can find on the web, most of whom are members of Hotline. Not one of them — not a single one — has the Hotline logo or link anywhere.

Maybe it’s because they know there is a regulator on the way. Or maybe they just don’t care. Ten years ago I wrote here: “How is anyone to believe that these people are prepared to take their responsibilities seriously on a voluntary basis when they won’t even honour the simple bits of their own code?” They haven’t changed a bit in that decade. They still don’t care.

And here’s the thing. When we think about dangerous content, we tend to think about the need to regulate Facebook and Twitter (or whatever it’s called now). But every one of us accesses social media over platforms provided by eir or Vodafone or Three. We couldn’t do it otherwise. And they’re the ones we need to go after first.

The regulator is in its infancy and is trying to figure out how to proceed. But on its pretty bare website, it says “we will enforce rules about how online services or platforms should deal with harmful and illegal content on their services”.

You can search all the bumph that has been written for years about online safety — something we’ve always entrusted to the providers themselves on a voluntary basis — and you won’t find that phrase “we will enforce rules” anywhere. But it’s there now. It needs to lead the fight back against hatred. If we need to censor hate, as Rónán Mullen would put it, then let’s censor hate. Without apology.