PUBLIC DISCOURSES OF HATE SPEECH: Awareness, Policies and Prevention
Channel: International United Nations Watch
Date: 2021-03-29

The level of awareness concerning hate speech recognition remains low, and measures aimed at preventing hate speech fall short on both social and traditional media. In this interview, we discuss about the public discourses circulating on the internet, e.g. social media users’ offensive comments under news articles. Traditional stereotypes used in daily language as well as discourses exhibited by media outlets in their representations of political events are discussed.
For divided societies like Cyprus, joint initiatives involving civil society, authorities and law enforcement agencies are recommended, to tackle hate speech and discriminatory discourses about specific groups of people, with three main nexuses of hate speech: intercommunal, inter-alterity and inter-gender.

Dr. Julie Alev Dilmaç is an assistant professor of sociology and member of the Center of Philosophy, Epistemology and Politics (PHILéPOL), Paris Descartes University. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Paris Descartes University. She is also a member of the International Association of French-speaking Sociologists (AISLF) and the co-responsible for the Working Group 18 “Becoming and Being a Sociologist”.
Dr. Dilmaç has written extensively on deviance related to the digital era, including cyber-humiliation in France, Turkey and the U.K., harassment on social media but also the impact of surveillance technology on society. Moreover, her academic interests include cultural studies, such as honor killings, the figure of martyrs, interculturality and migration.
She is the author of “L’honneur c’est dire “non”: Place d’un principe dans la société contemporaine”, published in 2020 by Les Éditions du Croquant.

Dr. Özker Kocadal is an assistant professor of international relations at Cyprus International University. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter. His research focuses on peaceful resolution of intrastate conflicts, particularly mediation and peacebuilding, as well as international migration and politics of surveillance technologies.