Sean Lyons: Netsafe Chief Online Safety Officer on the rise in targeted online hate speech

Online hate speech in New Zealand is becoming more targeted and our system can't keep pace. 

Netsafe's latest survey shows since 2018, the proportion of ethnicity-based hate speech has risen from 18% to 36%, becoming the most common reason people are targeted. 

Political-based hate has also increased to 25%. 

Netsafe Chief Online Safety Officer Sean Lyons told Andrew Dickens regulation is a really important part of dealing with it. 

He says that when people clearly understand where the laws sit and there’s a framework to deal with that harmful content, then the platforms can better deal with it. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
NETS safe for warning that online hate speech is increasingly
becoming an issue. So they've got new data that shows
that twelve percent of Keiwis have been victim of online
hate speech in the last year, and thirty one percent
have witnessed it against someone else. It's bad enough in itself,
but to make matters worse, the hate speech is apparently
becoming more closely tied to race an identity. And we've
got the NETS Chief Online Safety Officer Sean Lyons with

(00:40):
us this morning and wanting to you, Sean morning. Hasn't
the online hate speech always been racially targeted?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
No, I mean there's hate speech across a number of
different mechanisms, a lot of inherent characteristics that people have
what we're seeing as a concentration in the last few
years around ethnicity and around political and or alignment.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, where is this hate speech happening? What platform?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's happening on a whole range of platforms. It's one
of the things that there's probably shocking and saddening to
most people any place where people communicate now unfortunately that
there will be individuals that want to use that platform
to harm and spread hate hate speech about other people.
So it doesn't it's not a particular place. It's really
anywhere that two people can communicate. You're probably at some

(01:31):
point going to see.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
This, okay, So what can we do about it? Because
actually legislating against hate speech is awfully difficult. The Aussies
are thinking about it after Bundi now and they're already
running into difficulties. Is it possible to regulate hate speech?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I think? I think regulation is a really important part
of it. What we do see is where there is
clear regulation, where people understand where the laws fit, then
there is a framework to deal with that harmful content.
The platforms can better deal with it, but it's not
regulation on their own. Platforms do need to be a
part of it. The places where that that content is

(02:08):
then to have more and better regulation. But we also
need education for individuals, and probably the thing that we
forget is we need a place that people can actually
speak help. These are not things that people can necessarily
fix on their own. They need support and help to
be able to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
So and I thank you for your time. Sean Lyons
is the net Safety for Online Safety Office.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
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