The head of the United Nations is pressuring governments to obliterate all online speech that is allegedly “hateful.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement for the June 18 “Day for Countering Hate Speech,” asserting that nations “have an obligation … to prevent and combat incitement to hatred,” especially on “digital platforms.” Guterres totally ignored his own organization’s virulent persecution of Israel and promotion of anti-Semitic jihadi propaganda. Instead, he claimed that anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic speech online illustrates a need for censorship that violates American Constitutional protections.
Guterres insisted on extreme suppression of hate speech without defining his terms. “Hate speech is a marker of discrimination, abuse, violence, conflict and even crimes against humanity,” he declared. “We have seen this play out from Nazi Germany to Rwanda, Bosnia and beyond. There is no acceptable level of hate speech; we must all work to eradicate it completely.” Leftists often label opinions they dislike as “hate speech.”
Guterres fear-mongered about “the power of digital platforms and tools that enable [hate speech] to spread across borders and cultures.”
The UN secretary-general went on to use woke terminology in listing groups who can supposedly combat hate speech online, including “minority communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth.” He promised that the UN “is currently preparing Global Principles for Information Integrity to guide decision makers around these issues.”
While paying lip service to freedom of speech, Guterres seemed to argue for oppressive government censorship. “States have an obligation under international law to prevent and combat incitement to hatred and to promote diversity, mutual understanding and solidarity,” he alleged. “They must step up and implement these commitments.”
He later added, “Governments, local authorities, religious, corporate and community leaders have a duty to invest in measures to promote tolerance, diversity and inclusivity, and to challenge hate speech in all its forms.”
But the UN certainly is not an objective arbiter and is particularly hypocritical on the topic of anti-Semitism.
The UN came under fire recently for blacklistingthe Israel Defense Forces, using Hamas-issued statistics to smear Israel’s military as “harming children.” The UN has also been deep in scandal after Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accused at least a dozen UN employees of actively participating in the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis. Those accused were part of the UN agency UNRWA, which is reportedly “terrorism-infested,” according to international human rights lawyer Hillel Neuer. UN Relief Chief Martin Griffiths even claimed Hamas is “not a terrorist group.” All the evidence points to the fact that that Guterres and the UN are thoroughly hypocritical and cannot be trusted to determine objectively what “hate speech” is and whether it should be censored.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.