Hyderabad: Nowadays, hate speech has become the most frequent method for spreading divisive rhetoric due to easy access to the internet. Hate speeches possess the ability to harm global peace and development. Hate speeches can create conflict and tensions among communities and nations while causing human rights violations on a wide scale. Therefore, there should be necessary efforts towards regulating hate speeches and making them illegal.
To tackle this global struggle, the United Nations adopted the resolution to combat hate speech and started observing June 18 as the 'International Day for Countering Hate Speech' all across the globe. United Nations states that "Hate speech is any speech or writing which assaults or discriminates against a group or an individual, creating divide based on religion, nationality, colour, gender, ethnicity, race, descent, or various other identity factors".
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On this day, the United Nations, along with various governments, civil society groups, international organisations, and individuals, hosts events and initiates promotional strategies to identify, address and counter hate speech. Every year, UNESCO hosts a Twitter event to share knowledge about the spread of hate speech. This event helps in discussing solutions to counter this global phenomenon with the member states of UNESCO. This UNESCO project is called 'Social Media 4 Peace' and is funded by the European Union.
Through 'Social Media 4 Peace' UNESCO raises awareness about the spread of hate speech on social media in various countries and discusses measures to counter it. After noticing a rising pattern in the spread of xenophobia, intolerance, antisemitism, racism, violent misogyny, and anti-muslim hatred across the globe, the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech was launched by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on June 18, 2019. This resolution recognises June 18 as 'International Day for Countering Hate Speech'.
Limiting hate speech could contribute towards lowering its impact, but sometimes it can be hard to distinguish whether a comment can be classified as hate speech, especially in the virtual world. For a lot of people, dealing with hateful content becomes overwhelming, but taking a stand against it is necessary even if you are not personally a victim of it. The world is a very volatile and vulnerable place as it is, and speech should not be used as a weapon to cause more chaos in it.
