Hate speech vs. freedom of speech in the age of social media

The social media firestorm following the shooting death of Colten Boushie, 22, has prompted questions of what constitutes hate speech in the digital age.

The racist and hateful statements in some comment sections have prompted Premier Brad Wall to speak out, writing on his Facebook page "racism has no place in Saskatchewan" last weekend. The RCMP have stated they are actively investigating all social media posts that could be considered hate speech.

• Should racist and sexist comments be banned from social media?
• Sask. councillor regrets social media post about Colten Boushie shooting death, says wife

Ken Norman is a professor at the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan. He said that for a comment to be considered hate speech, certain elements must be at play in the statement.

"There has to be some intention to engage in an extreme form of vilification or detestation, in the words of the Supreme Court," he said."There has to be some prospect that somebody might act on this, that it has to be a call for somebody to do something."

Norman addedour law does not allow people to say the most violent kinds of racist things without the law stepping up andthat posts on social media can constitute hate speech as they are public statements.

"RCMP I think are rightly looking into this and should take very seriously this kind of level of hatred," he said.

Balancing with freedom of speech

Norman said hate speech has been a difficult thing to define when balancing it withfreedom of speech.

"I think there's a balance that necessarily has to be put in place. After all free speech is an important and vital democratic value. So people have to be given some leeway to say hurtful things," he said.

He said our law draws an important line statingyou cannot dehumanize an identifiable group of people with comments that promote violence.

Norman said social media postings of hate speech have not really been tested by the courts yet, and there have not been many convictions in Canada under the hate-crime provision. He added that the premier rightly indicated that these laws are on the books for a reasonand they should be enforced.

• Colten Boushie shooting death teaching Sask. the importance of tolerance: Premier Brad Wall

"This is an issue for all of us to consider with regard to what the limits of speech need to be if we're to live together as neighbours," Norman said.