Hatred only spreads seeds of anger and ill feelings. So hate speech cannot be condoned in any way. This is a necessary evil in society.
Hate speech is mainly generated on social media sites. Therefore, it is a must that the administrators of social media sites introduce a mechanism to remove such comments from their sites immediately.
From a legal perspective, laws should be implemented to control hate speech and punishment should be meted out as a deterrent to those responsible.
Of course, social groups and we as individuals have an important role to play in countering hate speech with messages of love and peace. These values must be instilled in children from early childhood. This will help to build up good will among all communities.
This is a broad issue that has to be taken up in many perspectives.
Firstly, it is better to deal with the root causes of hate speech and restrict or close down such paths. It sparks between and among the powerful and not powerful or as widely known, the majority and minority. People feel that their rights as citizens are deprived and have not received due attention. As a result, it is as if they are threatened. Then they vent by voicing it, resorting to speech that can harm another based on the topics of race, gender and ethnicity, depending on the problem at hand.
Secondly, it is also the responsibility of media organisations in their operations – in how they showcase their print and broadcast media. For them, it’s their brand value, and their broadcast content including hate speech is high in commercial flavour and a commodity to make money. But the country or the public pay the ultimate price. The tarnished image is an irreparable loss.
There should be a clear-cut guideline on this where infringements should be penalised. In preventive mode, media organisations are less likely to host such sensitive topics or broadcast such content that can cause hate speech in talk shows, news and in their schedule of programmes.
You won’t get clean drinking water from a septic tank. In the same way, you can’t expect pleasant speak from a corrupt minded and undisciplined person.
What I feel is that the way you talk reveals who you are. But how do you define hate speech as the effect of hate speech differs from one language to another?
For instance, a hate word that we use in Sinhala or Tamil will be considered a normal word in English. In the same way, when a recognised person speaks some sort of hate language, it will be considered a joke. After all, the effect of hate language differs from language to language and person to person.
We are disciplined by our culture, our religion, our education and mostly by the example of our parents. When any of these is missing or neglected, the outcome is bad.
Nowadays, the hate speech you experience is commonly used either by adults or children. The main reason for this is that people are stressed and they have to release the stress somehow. You have no time to think about what you utter. But the only solution for this is to spend few minutes in the morning meditating upon your religion and reading some religious books that calm your mind.
Finally, I would like to finish with a quote from the Bible. “So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. (See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!) With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men.”
The corrupt culture in this country is a reason to breed and spread this ugly communication of hate speech. Similarly, targeting people and people falling prey as victims in the hardships they face due to poor governance needs no effort in a corrupt atmosphere. These are the same bricks that should be destroyed but we are unable to get rid of.
It is advisable not to target, exploit and arouse people especially the marginalised for actions that can be subtle and conflicting, nor to engage in hate conversation that can spread like forest fires.
Much of hate speech is caused and spread by groupthink. People from many walks of life are enthralled by social media. Perhaps a majority of them believe that social media reveals genuine feedback and the bitter truth – which is a false impression.
Further to staying away from the above mentioned irrational behaviour, people should also stay away from such motives or groups sharing electronic media that can go viral or spreading word of mouth that can cause rumours and misconceptions.
In Sri Lanka, an attacking approach is habitual and speech too resembles features of the same. This should be curbed. It should be nipped in the bud.
The doers are mostly politicians seeking prominence for baseless, promising headlines, which the public will watch, read or listen to in newspaper, radio or television. The public too is accustomed to listening to who is saying what, who is blaming whom and what is happening. The latter that captures all is who has been taken care of by social media.
From this attacking approach later stemmed hate speech, a spin that extends. On top of this, people desire to seek their prominence and who is following them – in the ‘digital’ way. As for the primitive segment of the public – the easy, instant, low cost access is social media.
If all creators of hate speech can see and realise their fallacies and potential risks of their images being shattered, the selfish interest that stimulates them to do so can be compromised. But will they? A large knot to untie!
The world is being pulled towards the age of hyper communication. Sri Lanka is not an exception. People are engulfed in curiosity, thirst for what is turning the world around or the country they live in, browse approximately every hour and news is only a click away, and have a ride through the web to know what is trending, shared and communicated regardless of its purpose and origin. All of these make for a heavy toll.
Maybe since we do not pay it monetarily, we do not grasp the gravity unless an upheaval strikes. Only if we can reverse these trends can we do better.
One solution is to take a break and stay offline of all newsfeeds and posts. See how you will be relieved and will be refreshed. Social media and hate speech are vicious companions and a union that is disastrous. Both go hand in hand. This harmful bond can be counteracted by the civility of people.
There may be restrictions and controls in place and authorities delegated as watch guards. Suppression as a quick mend can have daunting repercussions on this burning issue. Unless the required discipline comes within from people, an imposed solution is questioned for longevity. Gradual improvements can be time consuming, yet will be able to sustain some promising results.
Controls at the receiving point may discourage the inception of hate speech and posting of same to a certain level. There should be independent consideration with built-in controls and staff on social media websites who can be entrusted to control it beforehand.
For example, suppose if computer programmes could be built to give a warning to site administrators when comments contain certain words. If the post is suitable, free of discriminatory language and/or intimidation, then it can be authorised for posting. Unsuitable posts that can harm the rights and respect of others or posts that can trigger contradictions will be removed. This approach can be proved to be more effective than restricting access to social media. Rather, the users too will put their comments in an acceptable way.
At the enforceable policy level there should be a legitimate one as to how people can provide comments to media and post comments in media. It should be made available to the public and to their constant attention. For today’s media is mostly influenced by social media, which is easily accessible by the public on handheld devices and for this very reason, the public should be accountable for what they say.
The first thing is that hate speech is a sign of the uncomfortable status of human minds. If a large percentage of people in a country try to make hate speeches, there must be a problem with the economic and social status of the country. If people don’t have enough finances to live, their minds are always troubled. So they try to criticise others and always try to hold aggressive feelings towards others because of their dejected mental statuses.
The next reason to make hate speeches can be reasonable. If the government, other authorities and responsible people don’t try to listen to them and if they don’t pay attention to give them fair answers, they try to make more and more hate speeches and try to release their pressure through these kind of things.
The next thing is the educational background. If the education system always tries to force-feed children’s minds, the output of the educational system will be a mentally downtrodden citizen.
In Sri Lanka, it’s not an amazing thing to see this kind of bad situation.
Hatred only spreads seeds of anger and ill feelings. So hate speech cannot be condoned in any way. This is a necessary evil in society.
Hate speech is mainly generated on social media sites. Therefore, it is a must that the administrators of social media sites introduce a mechanism to remove such comments from their sites immediately.
From a legal perspective, laws should be implemented to control hate speech and punishment should be meted out as a deterrent to those responsible.
Of course, social groups and we as individuals have an important role to play in countering hate speech with messages of love and peace. These values must be instilled in children from early childhood. This will help to build up good will among all communities.
This is a broad issue that has to be taken up in many perspectives.
Firstly, it is better to deal with the root causes of hate speech and restrict or close down such paths. It sparks between and among the powerful and not powerful or as widely known, the majority and minority. People feel that their rights as citizens are deprived and have not received due attention. As a result, it is as if they are threatened. Then they vent by voicing it, resorting to speech that can harm another based on the topics of race, gender and ethnicity, depending on the problem at hand.
Secondly, it is also the responsibility of media organisations in their operations – in how they showcase their print and broadcast media. For them, it’s their brand value, and their broadcast content including hate speech is high in commercial flavour and a commodity to make money. But the country or the public pay the ultimate price. The tarnished image is an irreparable loss.
There should be a clear-cut guideline on this where infringements should be penalised. In preventive mode, media organisations are less likely to host such sensitive topics or broadcast such content that can cause hate speech in talk shows, news and in their schedule of programmes.
You won’t get clean drinking water from a septic tank. In the same way, you can’t expect pleasant speak from a corrupt minded and undisciplined person.
What I feel is that the way you talk reveals who you are. But how do you define hate speech as the effect of hate speech differs from one language to another?
For instance, a hate word that we use in Sinhala or Tamil will be considered a normal word in English. In the same way, when a recognised person speaks some sort of hate language, it will be considered a joke. After all, the effect of hate language differs from language to language and person to person.
We are disciplined by our culture, our religion, our education and mostly by the example of our parents. When any of these is missing or neglected, the outcome is bad.
Nowadays, the hate speech you experience is commonly used either by adults or children. The main reason for this is that people are stressed and they have to release the stress somehow. You have no time to think about what you utter. But the only solution for this is to spend few minutes in the morning meditating upon your religion and reading some religious books that calm your mind.
Finally, I would like to finish with a quote from the Bible. “So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. (See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!) With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men.”
The corrupt culture in this country is a reason to breed and spread this ugly communication of hate speech. Similarly, targeting people and people falling prey as victims in the hardships they face due to poor governance needs no effort in a corrupt atmosphere. These are the same bricks that should be destroyed but we are unable to get rid of.
It is advisable not to target, exploit and arouse people especially the marginalised for actions that can be subtle and conflicting, nor to engage in hate conversation that can spread like forest fires.
Much of hate speech is caused and spread by groupthink. People from many walks of life are enthralled by social media. Perhaps a majority of them believe that social media reveals genuine feedback and the bitter truth – which is a false impression.
Further to staying away from the above mentioned irrational behaviour, people should also stay away from such motives or groups sharing electronic media that can go viral or spreading word of mouth that can cause rumours and misconceptions.
In Sri Lanka, an attacking approach is habitual and speech too resembles features of the same. This should be curbed. It should be nipped in the bud.
The doers are mostly politicians seeking prominence for baseless, promising headlines, which the public will watch, read or listen to in newspaper, radio or television. The public too is accustomed to listening to who is saying what, who is blaming whom and what is happening. The latter that captures all is who has been taken care of by social media.
From this attacking approach later stemmed hate speech, a spin that extends. On top of this, people desire to seek their prominence and who is following them – in the ‘digital’ way. As for the primitive segment of the public – the easy, instant, low cost access is social media.
If all creators of hate speech can see and realise their fallacies and potential risks of their images being shattered, the selfish interest that stimulates them to do so can be compromised. But will they? A large knot to untie!
The world is being pulled towards the age of hyper communication. Sri Lanka is not an exception. People are engulfed in curiosity, thirst for what is turning the world around or the country they live in, browse approximately every hour and news is only a click away, and have a ride through the web to know what is trending, shared and communicated regardless of its purpose and origin. All of these make for a heavy toll.
Maybe since we do not pay it monetarily, we do not grasp the gravity unless an upheaval strikes. Only if we can reverse these trends can we do better.
One solution is to take a break and stay offline of all newsfeeds and posts. See how you will be relieved and will be refreshed. Social media and hate speech are vicious companions and a union that is disastrous. Both go hand in hand. This harmful bond can be counteracted by the civility of people.
There may be restrictions and controls in place and authorities delegated as watch guards. Suppression as a quick mend can have daunting repercussions on this burning issue. Unless the required discipline comes within from people, an imposed solution is questioned for longevity. Gradual improvements can be time consuming, yet will be able to sustain some promising results.
Controls at the receiving point may discourage the inception of hate speech and posting of same to a certain level. There should be independent consideration with built-in controls and staff on social media websites who can be entrusted to control it beforehand.
For example, suppose if computer programmes could be built to give a warning to site administrators when comments contain certain words. If the post is suitable, free of discriminatory language and/or intimidation, then it can be authorised for posting. Unsuitable posts that can harm the rights and respect of others or posts that can trigger contradictions will be removed. This approach can be proved to be more effective than restricting access to social media. Rather, the users too will put their comments in an acceptable way.
At the enforceable policy level there should be a legitimate one as to how people can provide comments to media and post comments in media. It should be made available to the public and to their constant attention. For today’s media is mostly influenced by social media, which is easily accessible by the public on handheld devices and for this very reason, the public should be accountable for what they say.
The first thing is that hate speech is a sign of the uncomfortable status of human minds. If a large percentage of people in a country try to make hate speeches, there must be a problem with the economic and social status of the country. If people don’t have enough finances to live, their minds are always troubled. So they try to criticise others and always try to hold aggressive feelings towards others because of their dejected mental statuses.
The next reason to make hate speeches can be reasonable. If the government, other authorities and responsible people don’t try to listen to them and if they don’t pay attention to give them fair answers, they try to make more and more hate speeches and try to release their pressure through these kind of things.
The next thing is the educational background. If the education system always tries to force-feed children’s minds, the output of the educational system will be a mentally downtrodden citizen.
In Sri Lanka, it’s not an amazing thing to see this kind of bad situation.