Discussion 2 Reply

Hey all,

Hate speech is something that is prevalent in our day-to-day lives. We come across it on social media, in the news, etc. While it is pretty obvious that hate speech affects everyone, it is tough to understand how it might relate to engineering and sustainability.

To bridge the two concepts, one can look towards CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a company’s commitment to managing the social, environmental and economic effects of its operations responsibly and in line with public expectations. Assume if the company was an engineering firm, it’s services and sales would be highly affected by any form of hate speech originating from the company.

Furthermore, the company would not be sustainable, as it would be hard to attract customers or even create a sense of goodwill amongst the public if hate speech weren’t controlled.

Hence, I firmly believe that hate speech can very much be related to engineering and sustainability in a number of cases. As hate speech, engineering and sustainability are all very wide-ranging terms, it is important to always look at each case/situation in an isolated matter.

Hi Sid, :wave:

I find it difficult to believe that everyone encounters hate speech so prevalently in our every day lives. I certainly believe that not everyone experiences hate speech. Could you elaborate on the level of severity of hate speech that you’re depicting?

Hi all,

Yes, I believe hate language in social media is related to engineering and sustainability. Using the SDGs to help support my view, specifically good health and well-being (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), and reduced inequalities (SDG 10).

The ease of internet access has allowed people to freely speak their minds, whether that be a friendly status update on a vacation, tweeting about their favourite celebrity, or posting a YouTube video on yodeling. However, this freedom of communications allows people to freely post about whatever and whomever. This introduces the topic of hate language. A language which attacks a person or group based on their race, gender, religion, etc. Each of the aspects of hate speech relates to the SDGs, with SDG 10 and SDG 5 being the main victims of hate speech and SDG 3 being the major side-effect of the hate language – only negative health and well-being.

For support, I bring up an article about a Grade 10 student, from Virginia, who took their own life due to the effects of cyberbullying. In this case, fake social media accounts were created, creating a negative image of the girl, eventually leading to the girl’s death. This is an extreme case of cyberbullying, but cyberbullying is a specific application of hate language on social media – negatively impacting peoples lives from the comfort of their own computer screen.

Hey Jared, :wave:

Indeed the age of social media has our brains tapped into the net for everything we do.

I noticed that you used the term “hate language”. Does this differ from “hate speech”? Are aggressive comments that you don’t agree with considered hate language? What about comments or jokes that consists of racial or homophobic slangs?

Regarding SDG 10, I believe the large majority of goals for reducing inequalities involve equal opportunities and eliminate financial bias towards gender, race, and sex, etc. with the exception of 10.2.

Could you elaborate on how hate speech could threaten inclusiveness? It is evident that not all people can get along. An individual certain is not obligated to partake in a group. People who are hateful and produce hate speeches can be inclusive towards other hateful individuals, regardless of their “age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status”.