Singer Olamide once said in the lyrics of his song Eyan Mayweather that "Freedom of speech dey I no go dull you, but freedom after speech, I can't assure you," meaning in truth there's freedom of speech; that's free speech. However, freedom after speech, such as hate speech, is what he can't assure, and to be factual, that's the reality of the world today and how things ought to be. And we can't even understand the questions in this prompt better when we become aware that free speech and unrestricted speech aren't really the same thing. So below I'd state my take on the subject matter.
Free speech is when everyone has the right to express themselves the way they like, and it's a good thing for the society, however having free speech doesn't mean you should say things that can provoke or offend someone else, and that's probably where the Hate speech comes in, because in our world today alot of people out of the fact that they believe they've free speech, they'll begin to say things that are reasonable just because they believe it's their right to speak anything. But then that shouldn't be the case and many society have even make sure to set a limit towards that, so that people won't say things that's provoke or cause harm to others.
We've seen people whose words are against a particular religion, nationality or skin colour, those are the speeches, but should we criminalise every hate speech or words that are offensive? In my opinion no and that's because when we do that we're creating a weapon that can destroy our society, imagine when everyone pick offense in other people's words and those people get persecuted for it, we might end of having a society where everyone is being bails, because each person keep finding offense in their speech. So that's why I'm of the opinion that we should vet the effects of such expressions and the intention behind it before we reach a conclusion, because some words might be spoken from the place of ignorance, although in truth ignorance of the law is indeed no excuse.
But then, before we can say something is an hate speech and criminalise it, I think such should have caused harm to an individual, maybe it's through intimation, or defamation, not all harm are physical, and when you cause someone emotional harm through your speech, you should be punished, if it's has a law that back it up, I remember the lady that recently fake information about Opay fintech, that cause their bank to lose customers, she was charged to that, although she apologised after, but can the apology restore the damage it has caused? No, many people saw her defamatory post against the fintech, but only few days her apology, meaning the damage can't be restored.
Overall I think what we should do is find a way to not make every expression become a mean to persecute people, instead we should find a way to differentiate between offensive words that are just offensive and those that are not only offensive, but also caused real damage and can be traced into the law to have such people face the consequences of their actions. It's our responsibility as individuals to be a good neighbour to everyone around us and that's includes in our speech, no one is perfect and If you ain't please with what they do, hold your opinion to yourself, rather than hurt them with it.
All photos are generated using ChatGpt.