The Legal Framework on Hate Speech and the Internet Good Practices to Prevent and Counter the Spread of Illegal Hate Speech Online

Hate speech includes all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred towards a person or group. The expansion of the Internet has marked an important change in the phenomenon, insofar as content is no longer mediated by editors. Hate speech based on ethnic, racial and religious hatred is recognized as a violation of the human rights set out by the European and international standards. This is not the case for sexist hate speech, although this difference is not justified by the data. The lack of a shared regulatory definition leads to shortcomings in, or even the complete absence of victim protection. Gender equality and freedom of expression are interconnected: enabling hate speech against women and girls to go unpunished limits women’s freedom of information and deprives society of their voices. The balance must be struck by finding the tools for free speech. An overview of such tools is the goal of this contribution.


Introduction
The term 'hate speech' includes all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred towards a person or group. Traditionally, the phenomenon has been taken into consideration by international and national standards in reference to racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility towards minorities. Hatred towards women -gender hate -has been taken into consideration only in recent years, even though international conventions to protect human rights ban gender-based discrimination in the same way as discrimination based on race, nationality and religion. Public expressions of hate are a concern, not only because they harm personal dignity and identity, but also because they are capable of creating a favourable environment for crimes inspired by hatred and fuelling social conflicts on a wider scale. These are the reasons why it becomes acceptable to limit freedom of expression, considered a fundamental right in democratic States.
The impact of hate speech is directly correlated to the size of the public who see and hear it: indications on the need to abstain from using or circulating hate speech are therefore mainly addressed to the media.
The expansion of the Internet has marked an important change in the phenomenon, insofar as content is no longer mediated by editors (disintermediation of information) and it spreads further. Social networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn) are the main arenas where the haters wage battle, but the same methods can be seen wherever it is possible to comment on a text (on web content and themed discussion sites e.g., Reddit), in search engines (e.g., Google), instant messaging services (e.g., Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WeChat or Skype), blogs, dating sites and apps, media and online newspaper comments sections, forums (e.g., 4chan), chat rooms, online video games, etc.
The specific characteristics of the Internet facilitate hate speech because they: 1. allow hate contents to remain visible for very long periods of time; 2. enable hate that is removed from the web to return easily in a different form or with a different title; 3. can provide anonymity, removing the inhibitions of many users owing to the conviction that they can avoid the consequences of their actions; 4. make it difficult to identify the people behind it, given the transnational nature of the web. Gender Hate Speech. The Phenomenon In the relationship between men and women, hate speech is fundamentally linked to the persisting inequality in male and female power relations. 'Sex' refers to male or female biological characteristics, while 'gender' is a social construct referring to the socially accepted idea of masculinity and femininity. Targeting people owing to their sex or because their behaviour contrasts with the dominant thought as to how a person should orient his or her sexuality is a crime inspired by gender hatred. As far as women and the web are concerned, there are two interesting aspects.
First of all, one of the main digital divides is the gender divide: from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2017 it emerged that 184 million fewer women than men possess a mobile phone; that 250 million fewer women than men use the Internet; and that in Europe only 17% of jobs in IT are occupied by women.
At the same time, international organization reports (UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development 2015; EIGE 2017) document that women are among the main victims of web-based violence, and that this violence has a significant impact on real life (in 77% of cases as indicated in the 2017 EIGE report). The Italian association Vox carries out on a yearly basis a mapping activity of the hate speech contents spread via social networks and online websites. The resulting maps focus on diverse hate and discrimination grounds, also including misogyny; according to the maps, lots of contents propagate hate against women (in 2019 the 27% of the mapped contents). 1 Gender hate speech is linked to the representation of women, which continues to be hampered by entrenched stereotypes. Sexist hate speech takes on many forms, in particular criticism and victimization of the targets; brutal and sexualized threats of death, rape and violence; and offensive comments on appearance, sexuality, sexual orientation or gender roles on social networks, websites or in Internet chat rooms. However, it can also involve false compliments or alleged jokes, using humour to humiliate and ridicule the victim, nonconsensual use of images and sexist hate speech.
The haters' goals, or nonetheless the consequences of their action, also come to bear in the real world. For example, they can jeopardize a person's employment possibilities owing to a reputation compromised by information shared online. In some cases, it can even result in the victim's suicide.
In all cases, the goal is to humiliate and objectify women, destroy their reputation and make them vulnerable and fearful. It is a form of 'social shaming', which spreads the message that women are 'less human beings'. Gender hate speech instils deep fear and creates, reinforces and perpetuates gender hierarchy in public places. In any case, the anonymity often associated with its perpetrators should not be a deterrent for the lawmaker.
In the same way as gender discrimination, sexist hate speech has some main characteristics: the victim is a woman (men are less exposed); the aggression is addressed towards one woman in particular; the abuse involves the gender of the person who is targeted in sexually threatening and degrading ways.
The period 2018-20 saw a re-emergence of fear of foreigners and migrants, with the consequent increase in hate speech prompted by racial discrimination. This trend appears in the annual reports on the application of the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online published by the EU Commission, based, however, on the number of notifications sent by national organizations. 2 In spring-summer 2020, the international attention was more focused on hate speech connected to the Coronavirus emergency. The web platforms fell into line, updating their guidelines to protect people against dangerous content and new types of improper platform use linked to  All the same, there has been no decline in gender hate speech. It emerges every time that a piece of news comes out concerning a woman. One out of three personal attacks directed at women is sexist. Amnesty International Italia (2020) monitored the social profiles of 20 influential figures in Italy (ten men and ten women) in the period November-December 2019: it emerged that liberal-minded, high-flying women whose actions attract media interest are particularly subject to aggression. Indeed, on the social networks sexist attacks are seen against women who touch topics occupying a sensitive or dominant spot in the public debate: examples are the offence against ship captain Carola Rackete, aid worker Silvia Romano and journalist Giovanna Botteri.
In substance, attacks are made against women who present themselves as independent and making their own free choices, or against women who come out in favour of other categories of hate speech victims, such as migrants and Muslims. It is a true assembly line of hate, putting together ideas, behaviours, identities and choices to which people are freely entitled, in order to subject them to public mockery and violent discrimination. What is concerning is that these forms of expression, which entail a tendency to deny fundamental rights -and, in some cases, to lead to physical violence -find room to circulate and gain followers in the media system and political establishment.
In the report on 'keyboard sexism' published in June 2020, Amnesty International Italia highlights how one third of comments to influencers are sexist, substantially constituting attacks against gender rights, sexuality and the right of expression. 'Moral' insults which brand women as immoral or 'prostitutes', which classify them by their way of dressing or love life, are common. These comments stem from women's stance against gender discrimination and their support for the right to abortion, to equality between the sexes or to the free expression of their sexual choices. It is particularly interesting to analyse the various methods of verbal aggression towards women: sarcasm is seen alongside offensive terms used for other categories, de-humanizing insults and language attacking sexual identity; physical and personal attacks are used to delegitimize at the political or moral level; and gender hate speech is denied through 'but what about this?' and 'anyone can see' tactics.
Despite the increase in the phenomenon, interventions to remove hate speech are to a large extent left to the initiative of the providers, even following requests by the various stakeholders. Multinationals such as Google and Facebook rely on work teams whose task is to decide if particular content breaches the rules for use of the platform or not. YouTube explicitly prohibits hate speech, which is defined as offensive discriminatory language. Facebook abstractly bans hate speech, but allows messages with clearly satirical or humorous content, which in other circumstances could present a threat and many might nevertheless be considered in bad taste. Twitter for a long time did not explicitly ban hate speech, nor does it even mention it, except in a note which reads that political campaigns against a candidate are generally not considered hate speech.
In any case, it is at the providers' discretion to intervene (not all notifications result in removal) and few tools are available to those affected to demand the removal of hate content. Difficulties are encountered in evaluating contents as offensive, both because of the different sensibilities of the people making the evaluations and the lack of specification in the platforms' 'rules of engagement'.

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Combating the Hate Speech Phenomenon The fight against hate speech began in the 1960s. The protocols against hate crimes -the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which was signed in New York in 1965 and came into force in 1969, and the UN Inter-national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) from 1966 -et out to punish incitement to hatred for reasons of race, "colour", ancestry or national or ethnic origin, and invited the States to take action accordingly. Hate crimes are described as having been committed when the victim is targeted because of his or her group identity: prejudice towards a group (bias motivation) is the element that distinguishes crimes inspired by hate from other crimes. This stance was based on the principle of equality, cornerstone of democratic States, as stated in national constitutions and international conventions for the protection of human rights, which prohibit discrimination on any ground such as gender (sex), race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or any other status. 3 In 1997, having noted the media's multiplier effect on the spread of the phenomenon, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued a recommendation dedicated to hate speech which invites member States to equip themselves with suitable tools to combat hate speech, albeit in observance of the freedom of the press and expression. The hate speech taken into consideration covers all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin. 4 The same definition is found in 2001, in the Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime 5 and in the recommendation on self-regulation and user protection against incitement to hatred in the new media. 6 Like in all other crimes, hate speech victims are chosen on the grounds of what they represent, rather than who they are. They are classified according to their association with a group. Hate speech conveys the message to the victims and the group to which they belong that they are not welcome and are not safe.
The reaction of the legal system to hate speech must be carefully balanced with the fundamental right of freedom of expression and thought. In view of this fact, over the years democratic States have regulated hate speech in a more or less broad manner, on the basis of the definitions given in the international conventions, and banned this speech when it constitutes an immediate threat of violence or
In 2011 it was recognized for the first time that the development of information and communication technologies and their use in mass communication had introduced significant changes to the media ecosystem. 7 The immense possibility of interaction between users, even without particular technical skills or professional requirements, gave the unprecedented opportunity to involve diversities in media governance, but at the same time facilitated the spread of harassment, intimidation and stalking. While the problem was acknowledged, its consequences were not examined. What is more, the recommendations were aimed prevalently at the private sector, with the invitation to outline forms of self-regulation to combat discrimination and stereotypes, promote gender equality and avoid the spread of hate speech or other content that could incite violence or discrimination for any reason.
In 2016 the European Commission, in accordance with the Facebook, Microsoft and Youtube web platforms (which are due to be joined by Instagram, Google+, Snapchat, Dailymotion and jeuxvideo) introduced the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online, a tool for removing hate speech from the web, with user notification and intervention by the platforms within a few hours. According to the five reports drafted on the monitoring and removal activities, the last in December 2019, on average 70% of harmful content has been removed. In any case, it is always left up to the big platforms to evaluate whether the content should be removed. 8

Gender Hate Speech. No Definition, no Sanction
The definition of hate speech did not change until 2019 (see § 5) and still today it is a struggle to punish gender hate speech. This is despite the great spread of hate speech against women, and despite the prohibition of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex as well as race, religion, ethnicity etc. in the values and fundamental rights set out in all the international sources (from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights onwards).
In 2011 it began to be acknowledged that the new media could be a vehicle for forms of abuse against women, such as aggression, bullying, intimidation and stalking. 9 In 2013 it was recognized that free- Quaderni del Comitato Unico di Garanzia dell'Università Ca' Foscari Venezia 1 188 Language,Gender and Hate Speech,[181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193][194][195][196] dom of expression, as a fundamental right, goes 'hand in hand' with gender equality. Nevertheless, on a practical level, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe only went so far as to invite the media, Internet service providers and online content and service providers to adopt best practices to prevent advertising, language and content from resulting in sex-based discrimination, the promotion of hatred and gender violence. 10 This stance was taken at the same time as some important awareness-raising campaigns. The first, launched by UN Women, was on the so-called "autocomplete truth" of the web. 11 It was based on the results of real Google searches and aimed to reveal that sexism still exists and is a big problem in contemporary society. The second, by the No Hate Speech Movement, sets out to raise awareness among young people so that they can recognize and combat online hate speech. It also comprehends forms of discrimination and prejudice not included in the indications of Recommendation R (97) 20, such as misogyny and sexism. Sexism, in turn, can be defined as: the supposition, belief or assertion that one sex is superior to the other, often expressed in the context of traditional stereotyping of social roles on the basis of sex, with resultant discrimination practiced against members of the supposedly inferior sex. (UN-ESCO 2012, 54) In the General Policy Recommendation on Combating Hate Speech, the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) refers explicitly to gender, which is indicated as "the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men" (ECRI 2016, 14), and gender identity, namely: each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerism. (14) Indeed, the recommendation remembers the necessity to fight gender-based discrimination and gender-based sexism and recognizes that hate speech can be based on different criteria to those hitherto traditionally considered, amongst which, gender. In addition to the Commission's recommendations, the previously mentioned 2017 EIGE report suggests that: [t]he EU should aim towards agreeing on definitions of forms of cyber violence against women and girls and incorporate these forms of violence into EU legislation, to ensure that victims of cyber VAWG in Member States have access to justice and specialised support services. (EIGE 2017, 5) In all of these cases, none of the interventions or stances are binding. Added to the light touch of the Council of Europe is the position adopted by UNESCO (2015), which remembers how limiting freedom of expression has to be exceptional and legitimized by binding international standards. In the case of hate speech on grounds of race, nationality and religion, the references are indicated in the New York Convention and the ICCPR, 12 which clearly impose the criminalization of such expressions. Instead, in the case of gender hate speech, limits can, but do not have to be introduced, based on another ICCPR standard (solely) to protect reputation. 13 It is probably owing to the lack of gender in the obligatory regulations that few States have included gender and/or sex as a protected category in their domestic legislation on hate-inspired crimes or policies to detect these crimes. All the same, many States have undertaken to include equality between men and women in their policies and prevent and combat all forms of sexual-based violence against women and girls.
Gender hate speech is struggling to be recognized and remains underestimated. Nevertheless, its impact on women, whether emotional, psychological and/or physical, can be devastating, especially for young women. The lack of provisions expressed against gender hate speech has been justified over time by the necessity to guarantee freedom of expression, and by referring to other tools as suitable to fight it; in the report accompanying the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on hate speech, 14 justification was given for the failure to refer to sex, gender and gender identity by stating the necessity to avoid detracting from the focus of the text by setting out every form of intolerance in detail. It highlighted how the discussion on freedom of expression tends to stoke tensions and how the conflict between freedom of expression and gender equality 12 ICCPR Art. 20.2: "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law".
13 ICCPR Art. 19.3: 3. "The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article [right to freedom of expression] carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by the law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; […]". was the greatest obstacle to fighting it. In substance, it highlighted how freedom of expression was more important than gender equality, and hence every attempt to combat gender hate speech was perceived as censure. There seem to be no concrete grounds for putting forward this reasoning with regard to gender hate speech, and not to other types of hate speech. And yet still today there is the widespread conviction that the efforts to combat crimes based on gender hate interfere with a particular social order; but it is hard even to imagine that a manifestation of hate can be part of a society's values and the harmful, long-term impact on victims cannot be ignored. 15 The OECD office dedicated to monitoring gender-based hate crimes, as well as hate crimes on multiple grounds (multiple bias motivation), has highlighted that while on one hand many OECD participating States transmit both gender-based and multiple-bias data to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), these crimes are often underestimated and misunderstood. Very often the gender prejudice element of hate crimes is neglected, despite its reach and prevalence compared to other factors in multiple-bias crimes. 16 The lack of a shared (regulatory) definition leads to shortcomings in, or even the complete absence of victim protection. The insufficient response of the justice system (both criminal and otherwise) can be attributed in part to the dichotomy between offline and online violence. As a result, the authorities (criminal investigation department) designated to protect citizens often tend to minimize the harm caused by cyberviolence, and reconstruct the victims' experiences as 'incidents', rather than as repeated (or repeatable) forms of behaviour.
In Italy, the most significant forms, or the ones which receive most social and media attention, can be classified as crimes promoting racial hatred, 17 threats, defamation, or crimes linked to slander or the protection of personal details. Nevertheless, gender hate speech still lacks any form of cover.
An emblematic case is that of a woman regional councillor, at the same time author and victim of sexist hate speech. On 13 June 2013, the councillor wrote on Twitter, referring to Cécile Kyenge, of Afri-15 Liesbet Stevens, Deputy Director of the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men in Belgium and a participant in the ODIHR (OECD Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) event on gender-based hate crime (https://hatecrime.osce. org/infocus/2019-gender-intersectionality-and-hate-crime).
16 In order to define and categorize such crimes, and to translate the key concept into practical policy measures, ODIHR held two expert roundtables in 2019. These events examined the application of legal provisions in the 21 OECD participating States that track gender-based hate crime, and the potential for integrating an intersectional perspective into national hate crime responses. This helped increase the visibility of victims and potential targets of hate crime, to make their voice heard when approaches to countering gender-based and multiple-bias hate crimes are developed.
In the same period, the European Commission adopted the Audiovisual Media Directive. 19 This directive invites the member States to ensure that audiovisual media services, supplied by media service providers and video sharing platform providers and subject to their jurisdiction, do not contain any incitement to violence or hatred towards a group of people or a member of a group on any of the grounds in article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, also including gender.
In Italy there is still a long way to go. Hatred against women in Italy is customary, it seems to be rooted in Italian culture and characterizes everyday language, which is still based on prejudices and stereotypes. At present, hate speech is criminalized on grounds of race, ethnicity, religion or nationality. 20 Some bills to fight homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity are currently under examination in parliament, providing a good opportunity to intervene and assert equality. 21 The debate is over the definitions (for example, the difference between 'incitement', 'promotion' and 'propaganda'), the type and entity of the sanctions to impose and the minimum threshold in order to evaluate conduct as punishable (is imprisonment justifiable for a post on Facebook which does not determine a real danger of the commission of acts of discrimination or violence?).