As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly obvious that governments, corporations, academic institutions and even cultural institutions are taking it upon themselves to arbitrate speech in our communities. The trouble is, not only is there a growing disagreement over what constitutes hate speech, there appears to be a troubling determination to limit freedom of belief and the sharing of the gospel. Because of this, many are outwardly proclaiming that the Bible contains “hate speech” and therefore demanding that limitations be placed on what we may say in the public square.
Throughout Western democratic nations, freedom of opinion, expression and religion have been the cornerstone of human rights for centuries. However, with the advent of social media has come the burgeoning problem of how to deal with content which is discriminatory, hateful and abusive. This is a veritable minefield of political, legal and cultural ramifications since many nations have enshrined freedom of speech in legislation. Secondarily, the term “hate speech” is somewhat subjective. Certain phrases may not be offensive in some cultures or countries but may be in others. But if those issues didn’t cause enough headaches, now we have governments and institutions decrying the supposed problem of misinformation which, as evidenced during the COVID-era, simply meant any information not approved by government.
At this point, it would be helpful for me to introduce you to GARM – Global Alliance for Responsible Media. According to its website, GARM is “a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising. GARM was launched at Cannes in the summer of 2019 and has been working hard to highlight the changes needed for advertisers to feel more confident about advertising on social media. As of November 2019, GARM is a flagship project of the World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture.” Although this goal may appear to be benevolent, what we have come to know over the last few years is that whenever the World Economic Forum is involved in a project, it pays to be wary.
According to the World Economic Forum, the initiative seeks to collaborate with “publishers and platforms to do more to address harmful and misleading media environments; and to develop and deliver against a concrete set of actions, processes and protocols for protecting brands.” This includes focusing on challenges such as hate speech, bullying, disinformation, use of personal data and child exploitation. According to their categorization of risk factors in advertising, the following is considered high risk when it comes to hate speech and acts of aggression: “Depiction or portrayal of hateful, denigrating, or inciting content focused on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ability, nationality, religion, caste, victims and survivors of violent acts and their kin, immigration status or serious disease sufferers, in a noneducational, informational, or scientific context.
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