Military Regime re-start agitations against "hate speech"

The illegal and treasonous military regime is once again re-starting it's agitation against social media and the "crime" of "hate speech".

And as we've seen recently with their Public Emergency Decree gone wrong (so wrong that even once upon a regime supporter, Croz Walshe, now "needs time to think"), hate speech will mean anything they want it to mean.

For those who think they're getting déjà vu, these feelings are not misplaced.

The idea that hate speech that limits your freedom of expression was first planted in the minds of the regime by another coup supporter, Shaista Shameem, who paradoxically now see's fit to use blogs to grab back her "freedom of expression".

What this means essentially is that all "hate speech" defined communications on social media will go underground because as we've continued to stress, the illegal and treasonous regime "can't stop the signal".

Fiji hate speech flourishing on social media
Monday, August 15, 2011

The dangers of social media continues to hit home with the emergence of groups setting up discriminatory and deragotary pages on social network sites such as facebook.

FBC News today came across sites set up for anti-Labasa and anti-Suva sentiments, which seems to have started from the soccer rivalry between the two districts.

Found on the popular website, Facebook, the group welcomes members to post comments and pictures that make deragotary references of people living in or coming from the two districts.

Vulgar and physical threats and comments are being made by members of the two sites against each other.

Police are now investigating the issue - after FBC News brought the matter to their attention.

Spokesperson, Theresa Ralogaivau says comments on the page are in breach of Fiji's laws.

"We've viewed the page. It contains a lot of hate speech and discriminatory speech. We are referring this matter to the Cyber Crime unit which deals with these types of offences."

Police have warned people using social media networks to be careful they don't break the laws of Fiji or use speech that could be a threat to public peace.

Report by: Edwin Nand