Freedom of Speech
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Press Release: A climate of terror and fear
Our condolences go to the victims of the terrorists attack in London. Our admiration goes to the British PM who in the face of a terrorists attack on Parliament still had the conviction to speak out not only against terrorism but also for the values democracy seeks to protect, including both human rights and free…
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OHPI response to the Freedom of Speech / S18C Report
The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) welcomes the report into Freedom of Speech and S18C of the Racial Discrimination Act from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. OHPI’s submission and evidence from our CEO were cited repeatedly in the Committee’s report and we’re please to have made a valuable contribution to the discussion. OHPI’s…
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OHPI gives evidence to Parliament on S18C and online hate
On January 31, OHPI’s CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, gave evidence at a hearing of the Joint Parliamentry Committee on Human Rights as part of their inquiry into Freedom of Speech and S18C. Dr Oboler appeared as part of the Victorian Multicultural, Multi-Faith and Community Coalition which OHPI is proud to be apart of. A full transcript of…
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Freedom of Speech Inquiry – what people said
The first submissions to the Federal Government’s inquiry into S18C and Freedom of Speech have been published on the Parliaments website. More submissions will be released in due course. Here’s some extracts of what some people and organisations said in their submissions: Professors Luke McNamara and Katharine Gelber (Submission 2): “Based on the evidence, therefore,…
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2016 submission on S18C and Freedom of Speech in Australia
The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) is Australia’s only Harm Prevention Charity dedicated to the issue of online hate. A large part of our work relates to identifying and combating cyber-racism against various parts of the community. In our work, we seek to strike a balance between protecting freedom of expression and protecting the right…
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Responses to the EU agreement
Yesterday’s briefing on the agreement between the European Commission and Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter on improvements to handling hate speech received a strong positive reaction, almost 300 likes and shares, but also a backlash in the comments from people arguing this was impinging on their free speech. That argument mostly comes from bigots who…
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The lines of Laws and Norms
Some argue that the only solution to hate speech is more speech. We believe there is a need for three things to tackle hate speech: the removal of content which cross the line messages responding to things which don’t cross the line but are inappropriate messages promoting the positives values which hate seeks to undermine…
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Crossing the line on political speech
Australia does not have a bill of rights, or a broad concept of “freedom of speech”. What we do have is a narrow concept of freedom of political communication. This is a right enforced by the High Court of Australia who ruled that it is implied by the wording of the Australian Constitution. Our implied…
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Facebook’s Free Speech
When we post a briefing highlighting a Facebook page promoting hate we often get asked “Isn’t there a free speech issue here?” Yes, there are; two in fact. Facebook’s Free Speech One free speech issue is that Facebook has a free speech right to decide what is, and what is not, allowed on their social media…
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Why Facebook is Awesome
Late last night the Online Hate Prevention Institute published a new briefing highlighting how some people were abusing reporting systems to attack those speaking out against hate. In our briefing we highlight how false reports of nudity were seeing anti-hate content taken down and the accounts of those challenging the hate suspended. The reports were not…