Hate speech in the context of Blogs

Moldova's constitution provides for freedom of religion and complete separation of church and state, though the constitution cites the "exceptional importance" of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation is illegal, and incitement to religious and ethnic hatred was made illegal in May 2022. Moldovans are overwhelmingly adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy. According to the 2024 Moldovan census, 95.2 per cent of the country reported to be of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. Of this number, around eighty to 90 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Moldovan Orthodox Church (formally known as Metropolis of Chișinău and All Moldova) which is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and has played a powerful role in deepening Russia's influence in Moldova. The remaining 10–20 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which is subordinate to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments and private institutions. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as self-censorship. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel. Specific rules and regulations regarding censorship vary between legal jurisdictions and/or private organizations.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. The convention also requires its parties to criminalize hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations.

The convention also includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties. This has led to the development of a limited jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section that confirms that the rights listed in the Charter are guaranteed. The section is also known as the reasonable limits clause or limitations clause, as it legally allows the government to limit an individual's Charter rights. This limitation on rights has been used in the last twenty years to prevent a variety of objectionable conduct such as child pornography (e.g., in R v Sharpe), hate speech (e.g., in R v Keegstra), and obscenity (e.g., in R v Butler).

When the government has limited an individual's right, there is an onus upon the Crown to show, on the balance of probabilities, firstly, that the limitation was prescribed by law namely, that the law is attuned to the values of accessibility and intelligibility; and secondly, that it is justified in a free and democratic society, which means that it must have a justifiable purpose and must be proportional.

A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, multi-author blogs (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users who did not have much experience with HTML or computer programming. Previously, knowledge of such technologies as HTML and File Transfer Protocol had been required to publish content on the Web, and early Web users therefore tended to be hackers and computer enthusiasts. As of the 2010s, the majority are interactive Web 2.0 websites, allowing visitors to leave online comments, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service. Indeed, bloggers not only produce content to post on their blogs but also often build social relations with their readers and other bloggers. Blog owners or authors often moderate and filter online comments to remove hate speech or other offensive content. There are also high-readership blogs which do not allow comments.

Hate speech in the United States cannot be directly regulated by the government due to the fundamental right to freedom of speech protected by the Constitution. While "hate speech" is not a legal term in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that most of what would qualify as hate speech in other western countries is legally protected speech under the First Amendment. In a Supreme Court case on the issue, Matal v. Tam (2017), the justices unanimously reaffirmed that there is no "hate speech" exception to the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment and that the U.S. government may not discriminate against speech on the basis of the speaker's viewpoint.

In academic circles, there has been debate over freedom of speech, hate speech, and hate speech legislation. Other forms of speech have lesser protection under court interpretations of the First Amendment, including commercial speech, "fighting words", and obscenity.

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an American unaffiliated Primitive Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, that was founded in 1955 by pastor Fred Phelps. It is widely considered a hate group and a cult, and is known for its public protests against gay people and for its usage of the phrases "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers". It also engages in hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and other Christian denominations. The WBC's theology and practices are widely condemned by other Christian churches, including the Baptist World Alliance and the Southern Baptist Convention, and by politicians and public figures, including former U.S. president Barack Obama.

WBC has been protesting against homosexuality since 1989. Within a few years, the group expanded to protesting across the country. They often protest at public and private events, including funerals, sports games, and concerts. The group protested at the funerals for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the West Nickel Mines School shooting. The group is known to deface the American flag or fly it upside down while protesting. It also draws counter-protests.

In the United States, censorship involves the suppression of speech or public communication and raises issues of freedom of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Interpretation of this fundamental freedom has varied since its enshrinement. Traditionally, the First Amendment was regarded as applying only to the Federal government, leaving the states and local communities free to censor or not. As the applicability of states' rights in lawmaking vis-a-vis citizens' national rights began to wane in the wake of the Civil War, censorship by any level of government eventually came under scrutiny, but not without resistance. For example, in recent decades, censorial restraints increased during the 1950s period of widespread anti-communist sentiment, as exemplified by the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In Miller v. California (1973), the U.S. Supreme Court found that the First Amendment's freedom of speech does not apply to obscenity, which can, therefore, be censored. While certain forms of hate speech are legal so long as they do not turn to action or incite others to commit illegal acts, more severe forms have led to people or groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan) being denied marching permits or the Westboro Baptist Church being sued, although the initial adverse ruling against the latter was later overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court case Snyder v. Phelps.

The First Amendment protects against censorship imposed by law, but does not protect against corporate censorship, the restraint of speech of spokespersons, employees, or business associates by threatening monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace. Legal expenses can be a significant hidden restraint where there is fear of suit for libel. Many people in the United States are in favor of restricting censorship by corporations, citing a slippery slope that if corporations do not follow the Bill of Rights, the government will be influenced.

The Khmer Krom (Khmer: ជនជាតិខ្មែរក្រោម, Chónchéatĕ Khmêr Kraôm, [cɔnciət kʰmae kraom]; lit. 'Lower Khmer people' or 'Southern Khmer people') are ethnically Khmer people living in or from the Mekong Delta (Tây Nam Bộ), the south western part of Vietnam known in Khmer as Kampuchea Krom (Khmer: កម្ពុជាក្រោម, Kâmpŭchéa Kraôm [kampuciə kraom] lit. 'Lower Cambodia'). The Khmer Krom people are considered as the indigenous people of parts of Southern Vietnam and have the oldest extant recorded history of inhabiting in the region. In Vietnam, they are recognized as one of Vietnam's fifty-four ethnic minorities.

In accordance with Resolution 117-CT/TƯ issued September 29, 1981 by the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Resolution 122-CT issued on May 12, 1982 by the Vietnamese Ministry Committee, the term Khmer (as well as its Vietnamese transliteration Khơ Me and Khơ-me) was sanctioned by the government as the only state-recognized ethnonym of the Khmer Krom people; the Resolutions also stated that all other colloquial exonyms previously used by Vietnamese to refer to Khmer people "are incorrect and have negative racial connotations" and declared that any acts that intended to incite and direct hate speech and discrimination toward the Khmer people are prohibited by the law.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights in Greece are among the most advanced in Europe, with the country consistently placing in top positions on LGBT rights classifications. Public opinion on homosexuality in Greece is generally regarded as culturally liberal, with civil partnerships being legally recognised since 2015 and same-sex marriage since 16 February 2024.

Both male and female types of same-sex sexual activity have been legal in Greece since 1951, and anti-discrimination laws in employment were enacted in 2005. Since then, anti-discrimination laws have been extended to other spheres, including gender identity. Hate speech and hate crime legislation is one of the most rigid and comprehensive in Europe. In 2015, civil unions (Greek: σύμφωνο συμβίωσης; cohabitation agreements) were legalised for same-sex couples, making households headed by same-sex couples eligible for many of the legal protections and rights available to married opposite-sex couples. In 2017, transgender people were granted the right to have their gender identity recognized and to change their legal sex without having to undergo surgical alteration of their genitals in order to have key identity documents changed. In February 2018, a county court in Greece granted a non-binary person the right to a gender-neutral name. In May 2018, the Greek Parliament passed a law granting same-sex couples the right to foster care children. In February 2024, the Parliament made marriage and full adoption rights available to same-sex couples.

Rudeness (also called effrontery) is a display of actual or perceived disrespect by not complying with the social norms or etiquette expected within a relationship, social group, or culture. Social norms are established as the essential guidelines of normally accepted behavior within a given context, and individuals often establish personal boundaries to meet their own needs and desires within smaller settings, such as friendships. To be unwilling to align one's behavior with these norms known to the general population of what is socially acceptable is to be rude. These norms may resemble a sort of "unspoken law", with social repercussions or rewards for violators or advocates, respectively.

Rudeness, "constituted by deviation from whatever counts as politic in a given social context, is inherently confrontational and disruptive to social equilibrium". Forms of rudeness include behaving in ways that are inconsiderate, insensitive, deliberately offensive, impolite, obscene, or that violate taboos. In some cases, an act of rudeness can go so far as to be a crime (e.g., the crime of hate speech). In many cultures, joking can create a context where rudeness is temporarily excused or indulged for the purpose of making people laugh.

Street harassment is a form of harassment, primarily sexual harassment that consists of unwanted sexualised comments, provocative gestures, honking, wolf whistles, indecent exposures, stalking, persistent sexual advances, and groping by strangers, in public areas such as streets, shopping malls and public transportation. Besides actions or comments that contain a sexual connotation, it often includes homophobic and transphobic slurs, and hateful comments referencing race, religion, class, ethnicity and disability. The practice is rooted in power and control and is often a reflection of societal discrimination, and has been argued to sometimes result from a lack of opportunities for expression of interest or affection (e.g. an inability to have social interaction).

Recipients include people of any gender, but women are much more commonly victims of harassment by men. According to Harvard Law Review (1993), street harassment is considered harassment done primarily by male strangers to females in public places.

Locals Technology Inc., also referred to as locals.com, is a US creator crowdfunding site cofounded by conservative commentator Dave Rubin and Assaf Lev. It started in 2019 and is based in Miami.

The site was founded after Rubin and Jordan Peterson left Patreon in response to its banning of Carl Benjamin for paraphrasing hate speech. The startup raised just over $1 million from 10 506(b) private placement investors in March 2020. Locals announced further funding of $3.8 million on April 20, 2021 led by Craft Ventures.

Following the October 7 attacks, and the outbreak of the Gaza war, there has been a surge of anti-Palestinianism, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia. Palestinians have expressed concerns over increased anti-Palestinianism in mass media and anti-Palestinian hate crimes. Human rights groups have noted an increase in anti-Palestinian hate speech and incitement to violence against Palestinians.