Whilst ‘hate speech’ has no single agreed definition it is most commonly understood as “hostile, and malicious language targeted at a person or group because of their actual or perceived innate characteristics” (Siegel, 2020). These attributes and protected characteristics, may include race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disability.
The scope of Hate Speech also encompasses ‘offensive speech, digital hostility and online abuse’ therefore for researchers, prosecutors and victims it is a type of negative online behaviour that is often conflated with other types. Given this knowledge and the rapidly evolving nature of dialect, emojis and the online sphere, it makes it challenging to distinguish case-studies due to subjectivity and context-dependence.
Online hate can be spread through many types of media, including videos, images and text and often takes “the form of derogatory, demonising and dehumanising statements, threats, pejorative terms and slurs” (Stop Hate UK, 2023). Despite its classification difficulties, online hate speech and case-specific elements of online abuse are a possible legal offence.
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