'I received death threats, but tougher hate speech laws are not the answer'

Guest post by Gigi Foster, Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales

Gigi Foster is a Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales, Co-Founder and Director of Australians for Science and Freedom, and Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute.

As an expert frequently called on by the media, Gigi had a high profile during the Covid era, appearing on TV panels and in news columns making the argument that lockdowns were a “mass sacrificial event” that would cause more harm than good.

Many now agree that Gigi has been vindicated, but during those heated times, Gigi copped a lot of abuse for her views, both in the media and personally via the phone and emails. “People called me a ‘Death Cult Warrior, a ‘Granny Killer’. I got voicemails telling me I should die,” she previously told me for Umbrella News.

While researching for an article onVictoria’s proposed new hate speech laws, I wondered what Gigi, who has been on the receiving end of multiple mass-hate-pile-ons, thought about them. Gigi’s response was so comprehensive and well thought out that I wanted to share it with you in full, and Gigi agreed. Enjoy.

Professor Gigi Foster. Image: Brownstone Institute

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The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 was drawn up at a time (more than 20 years ago) when race and religion were seen as primary carriers of socially mediated identity. People identified themselves socially in groups described by their religious beliefs and/or their race, and these were groups that endured over generations, into which one was born and typically stayed. The groups we think of when we try to define “genocide” are often defined by race and/or religion. 

The 2001 Act reflected a societal desire to dissuade the vilification or denigration of groups that carried a good chunk of people’s personal identity for the bulk of their lives and into future generations – and hence were deeply important to their self-concepts.

Today, while many people still define themselves socially along racial and/or religious lines, we also see a cultural encouragement to use many other features of one’s demographics and choices as pillars of one’s identity – things like sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and so on. These are things that historically didn’t matter as much as race or religion to people’s socially mediated group identity. 

Men and women are both needed to propel a whole group into the future; all self-sustaining groups (of whatever race or religion), if large enough, will contain some individuals who are disabled, gay, and so on. These demographic characteristics simply do not define whole self-sustaining social groups that deliver enduring identity to their members and their members’ progeny in the way that race and religion do.  

Victoria is contemplating the redefinition of hate speech along lines that are not linked to the group-based generation of enduring social identity, but rather to particular nominated demographics or other personal characteristics that typically vary a lot, individual to individual, within a self-sustaining group.

Having these characteristics in common does not and cannot, therefore, define “a people” – whereas a people can be, and often is, defined by race or by religion (or by ethnicity, for that matter, which perhaps should have been included in the 2001 Act).

What Victoria is now contemplating is the redefinition of hate speech along these new lines that are not linked to the group-based generation of enduring social identity, but rather to particular nominated demographics or other personal characteristics that typically vary a lot, individual to individual, within a self-sustaining group. One might throw eye colour or height in there too, or age, or whether one is partial to cats.  

To my eye, this proposed extension is likely to chill speech due to fear of governmental retaliation, make our society less fun and less reflective about the human condition, and also encourage what I see as a negative social trend towards constructing personal identity based on characteristics unrelated to one’s social lineage. This decouples our modern society from our past and invites a shallowness in thinking about oneself and others that I view as damaging to the human spirit.

Although it’s true that I personally have been the target of quite a lot of hate, I welcome people’s views about me and I’ve never interpreted their comments as being hateful towards my sex, my nationality, my sexual orientation or anything else – even when some commenters expressly referred to my nationality (“Go back to where you came from”), which did sting a bit – because the group I identify with far more strongly than any other is not a race or a religion or even a nation but humanity, in all its wondrous and diverse glory.

[Rebekah’s note: Gigi was born in the U.S. and emigrated to Australia in 2003. She became a naturalised Australian citizen a few years later and since then has held both a U.S. and an Australian passport.]

This shows that the direction of hate is to a large extent in the eye of the beholder, which also demonstrates one of the dangers of Victoria’s proposed new hate speech laws. It will be easier for someone to claim offence under the new laws when that person has one or more of the “protected” traits, by interpreting comments they receive as hateful towards them and others with that characteristic.  

Everyone has a race and a religion (even “no religion” is a religious category), whereas only some people have a disability or an unusual gender identity or sexual orientation. This implies an unfair (unjust) incidence of the “justice” purportedly meted out by the proposed new law, not to mention the many “He said, she said” style disputes that may follow, tying up our courts that have so many other pressing matters to attend to.

I feel we’re best off as a whole people in Australia limiting our hate speech laws to protecting the enduring sources of historically important group identity, and otherwise vigorously defending our right to express our views without worrying that some government official will come along and interpret our words as a violation of an expansive censorship law masquerading as a law about protecting people.

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Gigi’s recent publications include ‘The Great Covid Panic’ and ‘Do lockdowns and border closures serve the greater good?’ See Gigi’s blogs on Brownstone Institute and follow her work with Australians for Science and Freedom. 

Consultation on the Victorian Government’s proposed hate speech laws is open until 5pm AEST Friday 11 October. Visit the Free Speech Union website to use their custom tool.

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