8 - Epilogue

Summary

Chapter 8 pulls together the various analyses and practical recommendations we have made concerning the two concepts of hate speech and deals with potential objections and lingering worries. Section 8.2 focuses on the ordinary concept hate speech and confronts possible objections to our normative conceptualisation. This section also summarises the many recommendations we made concerning how Meta (Facebook, Instagram) should amend and revise its community standard and authoritative internal policy on hate speech, and tries to allay residual doubts the company might have about these recommendations. Section 8.3 turns to consider the legal concept hate speech and deals with potential objections to our limited formal definition of the concept and our analyses of grey area laws including those that appear to fall between hate speech laws and hate crime provisions, and also denialism laws. In addition, we reiterate our guidance on how states can develop a coherent body of hate speech laws in the light of both national perspectives and international norms against hate speech, and offer some reasons why states should place special weight on the latter.