Ireland’s hate speech bill is among the world’s “most draconian” and “straight out of Minority Report,” a US House Judiciary Committee meeting on government censorship has heard.
On Thursday this week the Committee held a hearing on the “Weaponisation of the Federal Government,” which took place one year after the first Twitter Files report. Its purpose was to “examine the federal government’s involvement in social media censorship, as well as the recent attacks on independent journalism and free expression.”
During the meeting, Rupa Subramanya, a Canada-based journalist for The Free Press, brought up the Irish government’s hate speech bill as an example of “draconian” censorship legislation, saying that censorship is “happening all over the world now.”
“It’s happening in Ireland,” she said.
“Ireland is about to pass legislation, which is among the most draconian hate speech laws in the world. They’re trying to stamp out hate, [but] how does one stamp out hate? It’s part of the human condition, and this is extremely worrying.”
Subramanya went on to criticise the vagueness of the legislation as a potential problem with it.
“The [Irish] government cannot define hate, but yet they have this legislation,” she said.
“It can even come down to a situation where you could have a meme on your phone, and the Irish police would have the authority to come and arrest you, even if you haven’t shared that meme. This is where we’re going.”
She added: “It’s straight out of Minority Report, you know, where the precogs determine that you’re about to be hateful, and they come and arrest you. This is happening in a Western liberal democracy.”
Subramanya went on to say that countries had to look at the “warning signs” regarding rising state censorship.
“We have to look at what’s happening in Canada, in Ireland, and France, in the EU,” she said.
“…We know that’s happening under the Biden Administration, where they got media companies like Facebook and Twitter to deplatform content on their sites which they didn’t like. But since it comes from a private platform, it doesn’t violate the First Amendment at first glance.
“But if it was under duress from the federal government, then there are grounds to believe that it violates the spirit of the First Amendment.”
In recent times, the proposed hate speech legislation by the Irish government has garnered significant attention internationally, sparking debates and concerns around the world.
This proposed law, which has yet to be enacted, aims to outlaw “hateful” speech. However, it has been criticised for its lack of clarity in legally defining “hatred.” Moreover, the bill would criminalise not just the expression but also the mere possession of materials deemed to propagate “hate,” whether carried personally or kept at home.
One notable aspect of the bill is its stated goal of protecting “genders other than that of male or female.” However, there has been a lack of clarity on the scope of this protection, as highlighted by the Irish Taoiseach’s admission that his government has “no official position” on the number of genders covered by the bill.
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says his government has "no official position" on how many genders there are, even though genders "other than male or female" are protected categories under his government's hate speech bill.#gript pic.twitter.com/wH0kKmUnLP
— gript (@griptmedia) June 26, 2023
However, the government has defended the bill on the basis that Ireland’s old 1989 law on incitement to hatred has failed to secure a significant amount of prosecutions during its lifetime, showing a need to “update” the legislation in this area.