Those of us who are free speech advocates are fond of pushing the line that ‘words don’t hurt’. Unless someone acts on words they have zero real world effect. For example I can read a copy of Mein Kampf and feel no desire to don jackboots and march into Poland or read Das Kapital and not want to storm the Winter Palace or set up my own Gulag. I can also read the more ethically challenging parts of Torah and not want to stone adulterers..

Words themselves have no agency, it’s people that turn words into actions. The only time words become dangerous is when when one set of words is permitted but other words that run counter to the permitted words are prohibited. The Nazis are a really good example of this as only the government’s permitted speech was allowed and all counter-speech was punished. I sometimes wonder whether history would have been different had the Nazis NOT been able to dominate Germany’s media environment and control all radio, press, publishing and film-making and if they could have got away with what they did if Germany had had a free and open media world?

Thankfully the vast majority of people do not look at words and automatically act. I see a whole host of bad stuff that people have written down every day, but it does not make me want to do bad stuff.

The Left has been very active in promoting the idea that expressing opinions that some may find offensive or insulting ends up with Pogroms and horrors. It’s why we in the UK have highly oppressive ‘hate speech’ legislation that prohibits what British subjects can say.

However a chink in the armour of the Left’s claims has appeared in the USA. According to the Reclaim the Net organisation a report into the real life effects of alleged ‘hate speech’ has found that bad speech has little effect on real life. Saying ‘I hate X’ doesn’t often end up with ‘X being physically harmed’. I received this story from Reclaim the Net via email and it is not yet on their website, so unusually, I will put the whole story below.

If the story and the sources of the story are correct then this is a major blow to those who claim that ‘hate speech’ ends up with real world tragedies. Even one of my least favourite US Presidents, Barack Obama has recognised that suppression of speech is worse than having bad speech countered when he said: “The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech.”

Here’s the Reclaim the Net article in full:

Online so-called “hate speech” does not lead to an increase in real-world hate crimes, according to an unpublished federal report. The report was sent to Congress by the Department of Commerce in January, but is yet to appear on any government website.

The report, which was obtained by Breitbart News, was prepared by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration(NTIA), which is under the Department of Commerce. It’s purpose was to revise the findings of a similar report by NTIA from 1993 titled “The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.”

“The evidence does not show that during the last decade, a time of expansive growth of electronic communications, particularly on the Internet and mobile devices as well as social media, there has been a rise in hate crime incidents,” the report states.

The report alleges that research into extremism fails to present data showing “any causal relationship between increased social media use and increased violence.”

The report also cautions against efforts to crackdown on online speech over the baseless concerns about hate crimes. “We caution that efforts to control or monitor online speech, even for the worthy goal of reducing crime, present serious First Amendment concerns and run counter to our nation’s dedication to free expression. President Barack Obama said, “The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech.””

NTIA also condemns big tech undermining free speech under the guise of fighting hate speech.

“Given that all the major social media platforms have rules against hate speech and, in fact, employ sophisticated algorithmic artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to enforce these often vague and contradictory rules in a manner also used by tyrannous regimes, it is appropriate to ask what they gain from it. Certainly, as this Report shows, the platforms have no reasonable expectation that their censorship will end hate crimes or even diminish it, as no empirical evidence exists linking increased hate speech with hate crimes.

“Further, this censorship poses real dangers to our political system. Under the hate speech prohibitions and other censorship rules, the platforms have removed content that many consider seriously engaged with pressing political and social issues.”

The revision of the NTIA’s 1993 report was requested under the Trump administration. However, it was during the reign of the 116th Congress, where Republicans had a small majority in the Senate, and Democrats controlled the House with a majority of 35 seats. So, it is rather baffling that the report has not been made public.

Sources familiar with the drafting of the report allege that the report is being suppressed by establishment politicians who have much to gain from the “hate crimes” panic. The conclusions of the report contradict the mainstream media’s narrative of increased real-world hate crimes inspired by online hate speech.

“Reports like this are typically made public,” said a source who worked closely with the NTIA on the report. “I don’t know why this report isn’t up on a government website yet. It’s already been submitted to Congress, it’s not a private thing anymore. I suspect the Civil Rights Division might have something to do with it.”

The Civil Rights Division, which is part of the DoJ, is responsible for prosecuting hate crimes. The source claimed that it opposed the updated report, adding that the division is leading the “efforts to drum up hysteria” over white supremacy extremism