Dangerous speech

The concept of "dangerous speech," which I proposed in the early 2010s, illuminates a key fact that is often missed: hate speech (and related categories like toxic and extreme speech) affects people gradually, cumulatively, and by dint of repetition. Dangerous speech is defined based on the specific harm it engenders (inspiring intergroup violence) rather than its content alone or the intent of those who spread it, allowing for a more consistent definition and broader consensus that it should be addressed. In this article, I explain why this concept is useful; describe the five aspects of speech that must be evaluated in order to determine dangerousness; share examples of projects that have been conducted to monitor, evaluate, and counteract dangerous speech; and suggest future avenues for research

But Facebook’s Not a Country: How to Interpret Human Rights Law for Social Media Companies

Private social media companies regulate much more speech than any government does, and their platforms are being used to bring about serious harm. Yet companies govern largely on their own, and in secret. To correct this, advocates have proposed that companies follow international human-rights law. That law–by far the world’s best-known rules for governing speech–could improve regulation itself, and would al-so allow for better transparency and oversight on behalf of billions of people who use social media. This paper argues that for this to work, the law must first be interpreted to clarify how (and whether) each of its provisions are suited to this new purpose. For example, the law provides that speech may be restricted to protect national security, as one of only five permissible bases for limiting speech. Governments, for which international law was writ-ten, may regulate on that basis, but not private companies which have no national security to protect.To fill some of the gap, the paper explains and interprets the most relevant provisions of international human-rights law–Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which pertain to freedom of expression–for use by social media companies, in novel de-tail

Dangerous Speech: A Practical Guide

No one has ever been born hating or fearing other people. That has to be taught – and those harmful lessons seem to be similar, though they're given in highly disparate cultures, languages, and places. Leaders have used particular kinds of rhetoric to turn groups of people violently against one another throughout human history, by demonizing and denigrating others. Vocabulary varies but the same themes recur: members of other groups are depicted as threats so serious that violence against them comes to seem acceptable or even necessary. Such language (or images or any other form of communication) is what we have termed "Dangerous Speech."Naming and studying Dangerous Speech can be useful for violence prevention, in several ways. First, a rise in the abundance or severity of Dangerous Speech can serve as an early warning indicator for violence between groups. Second, violence might be prevented or at least diminished by limiting Dangerous Speech or its harmful effects on people. We do not believe this can or should be achieved through censorship. Instead, it's possible to educate people so they become less susceptible to (less likely to believe) Dangerous Speech. The ideas described here have been used around the world, both to monitor and to counter Dangerous Speech.This guide, a revised version of an earlier text (Benesch, 2013) defines Dangerous Speech, explains how to determine which messages are indeed dangerous, and illustrates why the concept is useful for preventing violence. We also discuss how digital and social media allow Dangerous Speech to spread and threaten peace, and describe some promising methods for reducing Dangerous Speech – or its harmful effects on people

Considerations for Successful Counterspeech

It may sometimes seem that the Internet is sullied by a relentless tide of hatred, vitriol, and extremist content, and that not much can be done to respond effectively. Such content cannot all be deleted, after all, since even if a statement, image, or user is deleted from one platform, there is always somewhere else to go.We have been pleasantly surprised, however, that our study of Twitter turned up numerous cases of effective counterspeech, which we define as a direct response to hateful or dangerous speech. Based on this first, qualitative study of counterspeech as it is practiced spontaneously on Twitter, we offer some preliminary suggestions on which strategies may help to make counterspeech successful

Counterspeech on Twitter: A Field Study

As hateful and extremist content proliferates online, 'counterspeech' is gaining currency as a means of diminishing it. No wonder: counterspeech doesn't impinge on freedom of expression and can be practiced by almost anyone, requiring neither law nor institutions. The idea that 'more speech' is a remedy for harmful speech has been familiar in liberal democratic thought at least since U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis declared it in 1927. We are still without evidence, however, that counterspeech actually diminishes harmful speech or its effects. This would be very hard to measure offline but is a bit easier online, where speech and responses to it are recorded. In this paper we make a modest start. Specifically we ask: in what forms and circumstances does counterspeech - which we define as a direct response to hateful or dangerous speech - favorably influence discourse and perhaps even behavior?To our knowledge, this is the first study of Internet users (not a government or organization) counterspeaking spontaneously on a public platform like Twitter. Our findings are qualitative and anecdotal, since reliable quantitative detection of hateful speech or counterspeech is a problem yet to be fully solved due to the wide variations in language employed, although we made progress, as reported in an earlier paper that was part of this project (Saleem, Dillon, Benesch, & Ruths, 2016).We have identified four categories or "vectors" in each of which counterspeech functions quite differently, as hateful speech also does: one-to-one exchanges, many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. We also present a set of counterspeech strategies extrapolated from our data, with examples of tweets that illustrate those strategies at work, and suggestions for which ones may be successful

Dark sectors 2016 Workshop: community report

This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration, and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the next 5-10 years

Genomic investigations of unexplained acute hepatitis in children

Since its first identification in Scotland, over 1,000 cases of unexplained paediatric hepatitis in children have been reported worldwide, including 278 cases in the UK1. Here we report an investigation of 38 cases, 66 age-matched immunocompetent controls and 21 immunocompromised comparator participants, using a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and immunohistochemical methods. We detected high levels of adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) DNA in the liver, blood, plasma or stool from 27 of 28 cases. We found low levels of adenovirus (HAdV) and human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) in 23 of 31 and 16 of 23, respectively, of the cases tested. By contrast, AAV2 was infrequently detected and at low titre in the blood or the liver from control children with HAdV, even when profoundly immunosuppressed. AAV2, HAdV and HHV-6 phylogeny excluded the emergence of novel strains in cases. Histological analyses of explanted livers showed enrichment for T cells and B lineage cells. Proteomic comparison of liver tissue from cases and healthy controls identified increased expression of HLA class 2, immunoglobulin variable regions and complement proteins. HAdV and AAV2 proteins were not detected in the livers. Instead, we identified AAV2 DNA complexes reflecting both HAdV-mediated and HHV-6B-mediated replication. We hypothesize that high levels of abnormal AAV2 replication products aided by HAdV and, in severe cases, HHV-6B may have triggered immune-mediated hepatic disease in genetically and immunologically predisposed children

Palabras como armas

Violent discourse detonates violence. A song that proclaims firing could lead to genocide. In this article, Susan Benesch highlights the power of the word of oppressors and oppressed as subtle weapons in violating rights. Malema's example when he sang Dubulu iBhunu, a historical hymn against apartheid in Africa, guides this narrative in which many linguistic battlefields converge.Un discurso violento detona violencia. Una canción que proclama disparos podría generar genocidios. En este artículo, Susan Benesch destaca el poder de la palabra tanto de los opresores como de los oprimidos como armas sutiles a la hora de violar derechos. El ejemplo de Malema cuando cantó Dubulu iBhunu, un himno histórico contra el apartheid en África, guía este relato en el que convergen numerosos campos de batalla lingüísticos