India Calls For Multi-Stakeholder Engagement To Tackle Hate Speech Online

Voicing concern over the use of social media by terrorists to radicalise young people, India has called for a multi-stakeholder engagement, including lasting commitment from technology companies on higher standards of content regulation, to address challenges of hate speech online.

India watches with concern the groundswell of anti-Semitism, racism, intolerance and xenophobia in a world interconnected through technology, said India's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador K Nagaraj Naidu.

"Social media has given people a platform to spew hate speech and radical beliefs to other disaffected people, amplifying what are otherwise fringe opinions. Some have turned hatred into violence," Mr Naidu said.

He said terrorists, openly or under the garb of anonymity, radicalise young people using social media, luring them into their nefarious designs. "Such acts continue with impunity," he said. He stressed on the need for a multilateral and multi-stakeholder engagement to address challenges of hate speech online.

"Lasting commitment from technology companies to abide by higher standards of regulations regarding content is one such issue that we need to grapple with," he said.

Mr Naidu told the General Assembly that the Jewish people have for more than two millennia faced discrimination and hatred based on their identity, asserting that pervasive anti-Semitism often co-exists with other forms of deep-rooted malaise towards others.

"Anti-Semitism which relies on the idea that certain physical and intellectual differences exist between groups and these differences are biological, permanent, and irreversible has no place on this planet," he said.

Underlining India's close and historical cultural links with Jews, he said anti-Semitism has rarely been witnessed in India and the only known instance of an attack on a Jewish place of worship in the country was when Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists attacked Mumbai in November 2008, killing 165 people including six people at the Chabad House.

"Even here, the act of bravery of an Indian nanny saving a two-year-old child after the brutal killing of both his parents by the terrorists, serves as beacon of hope and inspiration," he said, referring to Sandra Samuel who saved "Baby Moshe", son of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, as terrorists ransacked the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai.