RTÉ Lifestyle's Charlotte Ryan joined Jennifer Zamparelli on RTÉ 2FM to talk about the updated laws on hate speech that are currently making their way through the Oireachtas. You can listen back to their chat above.
A new proposed hate speech bill is drawing concerns and criticism from ministers, Free Speech Ireland as well as Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jnr, the latter of which called the proposed changes "insane".
A robust restructuring of the current law, the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989, the new bill – the Criminal Justice Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill 2022 – will "create new laws to target hate crimes and hate speech under a newly expanded set of criteria", Ryan said.
Hate speech is defined as any communication that is written, spoken or broadcast that is intended or likely to incite hatred toward a person or group on the basis of factors like race, nationality, sexual orientation and religion.
The current law protects people under the characteristics of race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation, but doesn't include gender and gender expression, disability and descent.
Now over 30 years old, the current law also did not account for the birth and growth of social media, where much of the incendiary and damaging conversations around these topics takes place.
"[The current law] never imagined what social media would come to be in our lives", Ryan said. "We don't have a hate speech, hate crime law that factors in the all-encompassing influence of social media in all aspects of our lives."
One of the key difference between the two laws is that under the current one, the person accused of committing a hate crime or hate speech toward another person can "defend a charge by saying they didn't realise the material they may have been saying or broadcasting or spreading was harmful."
Protests took place last weekend against these new laws, with the question of freedom of speech chief among people's concerns, as well as a five year sentence proposed as the maximum penalty for breaking the law.
"I think the short version of it is that it seems very extreme to many people", Ryan said, while acknowledging there is a pressing need for reform of the current law to better protect people. "The penalties, the expansiveness of it.
"But one of the main concerns is whether or not it impinges on freedom of speech. That's what Elon Musk is getting at. People are concerned that if you put restrictions on how you can speak about certain characteristics, in the interest of protecting them – this is the thing, this is all intended to protect people – if it goes that extreme then it may veer into the territory of censorship, that people will be afraid to speak about this."
Possession or preparation of material that could be used to incite hatred will also be grounds for a sentence under the new laws.
"The way I think about it is, who doesn't have memes on their WhatsApp group chats and stuff? If you're in a hen or a stag [group] or your parents send you inappropriate kind of memes. Depending on what your settings are on your phone, I know myself my WhatsApp photos will save automatically. I could never have interacted with that meme at all, but it could live on my phone, so is that enough to get yourself sentenced? We don't actually know."
