Essay on Social Media Normalizing Hate: Balancing Freedom and Responsibility

Each time the issue of hate speech is discussed, it is usually a context of human rights. The individual rights have been balanced, and the corresponding responsibilities stated. Most countries have been trying for decades to balance freedoms of expression and fighting the acts of racism and xenophobic nature. Nevertheless, studies show that the effects of hate on social media are a greater danger, which has resulted in the normalization of hate on social media platforms. Hate groups have made it appear like it is reasonable to publish the content that contains the hate messages and made it look like it is okay for the society to see it and accept it. Clearly, if the community can perceive the hate message as an opinion, then it can be openly expressed. The overall objective of this paper is to demonstrate the principles surrounding cybercrime, analyses the institutional response and awareness of the contemporary issues around cyber-crime.

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Finding the definition of hate speech is a challenging task since it is vague and is also subject to many interpretations. The meaning depends on the context, and the jurisdiction of coming up with one clear definition is a huge task. According to the council of Europe (CoE) committee, hate speech is considered as all the forms of expression that are spread to incite, promote racism or racial hatred, xenophobia, or other types of hatred that are based on intolerance (Waseem et al, 2016, pp88-93). Intolerance involves aggressive nationalism, discrimination, or worse hostility against the minorities or foreigners. On the other hand, social media is a group of internet-based applications that are built on technological foundations.

Hate speech is an umbrella term that carries many forms such as blogs like Twitter, content communities like YouTube, networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram, and collaborative projects like Wikipedia, among others. Among the social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter are known to have over a billion users. They enable people to convey a message to billions of people within seconds. It is easy to access and own one hence the reason for the many users.

There are assumptions that human rights are eternal and are said to be the unimpeachable moral ways that are used to understand freedom. Freedom became a meaningful way back during the Second World War. Freedom of speech is essential and absolute; hence it is not negotiable or a subject to be balanced with anything. Some claim that unless people are free to say what they believe and express whatever emotion individuals have, which includes hate and also hate whatever and whomever a person chooses, then we are not free at all. However, one senior judge in the United Kingdom stated that "freedom only to speak offensively is not worth having." Other hate groups claim that once there is a limitation in free speech, then it ceases to be true. It is the high time that people understood the impact of hate speech and the damage it causes to people's life and the nation at large.

Several people claim that they support the principle of free speech, but due to the regulations, they are unable to express their ideas, which include hateful ideas. Different incidents have been reported from almost all continents. Due to modern technology, many of the people around the globe communicate through social media. Also, nearly a third of the world's populations are active on at least one social media platform. More and more people are moving online. Experts claim that the more people move online, the more they are inclined towards racism, misogyny, and homophobia that are likely to goad them to violence. Also, through social media, the violent actors are given a chance to publicize their acts.

Scientists and other researchers conducted research where they observed how social media posts and other online speech are used to inspire violence. A good example is a Facebook post that showed cases of racism in the United States. The perpetrators of white supremacist attacks have embraced the use of social media platforms to publicize their acts actively. The prosecutor who charged the Charleston church shooter who killed nine black clergy and worshippers in the year 2015 stated that the killer was engaged in the self-learning process through the online platforms. He said that after seeing the white supremacy hate speech online, he assumed that they needed violent action to erase the blacks.

David Blunkett, the UK's home secretary, said that he wishes to propose the introduction of religious hatred as an offense in British law. He insisted, "People's rights to debate matters of religion and would be protected, but we cannot allow people to use religious differences to create hate." Most people have used religion to criticize others. They fail to respect other people's religions because they practice some cultures that are different from others. The Muslims are the most affected when it comes to religion because their beliefs are very different compared to the Romans and the protestants. Freedom of speech was passed to enable people to develop and identify progressive ideas that can help them expand their businesses or rather be productive. However, it is essential to note that there are those people who will still exploit the freedom and post speeches that are far from being progressive (Fraunholz et al, 2017,pp.1-7). Likely, we will never enjoy the freedom of speech if we do not accept the concomitant obligation of using this freedom to contest ideas. Those that we do not agree with should be solved through the court of public opinion rather than calling upon private sensors to suppress these ideas on social media. Additionally, freedom of speech has been subjected to certain exceptions that are outside the human rights framework.

In the new millennium, computers have gained popularity in every aspect of their lives. Almost all crimes committed today there is the use of computers by the individuals who were involved in crimes. Networks play a massive role in all crimes today. However, not all crimes that are committed that include computers, but they are closely related. For example, when a person posts a hate speech that leads to violence, he or she might have used the computers to publish hate speech. To access the online platforms, one can use a computer or a smartphone. So in one way or another, machines are the primary key to crimes.Cyber-crime is a broad word that is used to explain the punishable acts according to the technology information act. It involves the unlawful acts where the computer is used for crimes such as email spoofing and sending threatening emails without the owner of the email consent. As technology continues to improve, people have continued to identify better ways to hack the online platforms owned by different individuals and post speeches that are not welcoming. Some principles are used to guide the people on what to post on media platforms or the internet.

The online platforms ensure that the content posted is ethics and observe the terms and conditions for each platform. For example, YouTube does not allow people to post content that entertains nudity or videos that can be termed as immoral. Once the group or person owns the platform posts the illegal contents, YouTube management has a right to remove the content from the channel. The same case occurs on Facebook and Instagram. The platforms can indeed be used for fun, but once they become unethical or the content is used to spread hate against some people, then the account is closed or suspended. The above actions have reduced cases of hate speech worldwide. The problem is that once the accounts or channels used to spread the hate conversations are identified, the owners always claim to have been hacked, which is why cybercrime should be addressed. Most of the people who want to spread hate speech hack other people's accounts or even create fake accounts. The challenge in cyber-crimes is the difficulties endured when trying to figure out the people who posted the hate speech. A person who is well conversant with technology will leave zero traces hence making the investigations more difficult. Also, by the time the account or the crime is being reported, the information has reached a considerable population.

Excellent guidelines on the issue of freedom were set by the ministerial committee of the council of Europe. The principles were to regulate the freedom that has people have on the internet. The policies were established to help reduce the cases of cybercrimes. The principles guide people using internet platforms on how to protect their accounts to ensure that no content is posted without their consent. The first rule is avowing logging in to individual accounts using public computers. Some of the cybercriminals set their networks in a way that once a person logs in using those computers, the logins will be left there hence giving the hackers a chance to access the platform. The second thing that the committee advised is that those online platforms' passwords should be confidential. The passwords should be keen to make it impossible for hackers. With the two principles observed, cases of cybercrimes will have reduced (Mali et al, 2018).

Institutions have embraced technology to enable them to offer better services through modern technology. However, this has made them be exposed to cybercrimes. Financial institutions are the ones that are greatly affected by these crimes. Every year they lose lots of money through the cyber-crimes. One advantage for these ICT criminals is that they use fewer efforts to get huge profits. The banking sectors have embraced the digital worlds, which have made them vulnerable to cybercrimes. Those financial institutions, especially those that operate across different jurisdictions, are at risk of being robbed through cyber-attacks. Most of these institutions have embraced online banking, new payment systems such as PayPal and the apple wallets, and also practice a lot of international transactions that are done online. Once a hacker hacks the system, he or she can divert the system such that he will receive the money instead of the intended party. A good example is PayPal. PayPal allows its users to conduct business worldwide. Large transactions are made, and the users' bank details are linked to PayPal. Assuming a hacker can access PayPal, which is related and has the bank details, it will be easy for them to access the owners' bank and withdraw all the possible cash. For the last decade, over 50 banking websites have obtained illegally, which has led to a loss of over 1 billion.

Conclusion

Two types of cyber-crimes are threats to various institutions. The first one is cyber-independent crimes, which include hacking and DoS attacks. The independent cybercrimes have to use the internet for it to be the effect. The second type of cybercrime done in institutions is a cyber-enabled crime. In this type of crime, the traditional methods of crimes such as robbery and extortion are used only that the internet and technology assist them. For example, criminals can hack into the security systems of an institution to monitor where the money or the documents of interests are kept. With this type of information, it will be easier for them to stage plan a robbery in that firm without being caught.It is the high time that institutions identified the best strategies that will help them in understanding and responding to cybercrime threats. In the financial institutions, the more reported threats are the cybercrimes. There are no specific strategies that can be used to address these threats since they are internet related. Those hackers are people who are well conversant with the internet hence making it difficult to control the situation. Some researchers said th...