Teach Your Children to Respond to Online Hate Speech
The main thing holding me back from letting my 8-year-old son join all of his friends in popular multiplayer online games is not the fear that he is going to give out personal information to creeps. The point is, I don’t want him to be exposed to the hate speech that is so prevalent on the Internet.
My child and I regularly talk about race and racism and how to be an ally of people of color. We talk about different religions and what it means to be trans, and what words should be said to women with respect and what should not. I try not to close topics, especially when it comes to how we relate to people and how we communicate with others.
My son asked me what the swear words were and what they meant, and I told him – along with a few common sense guidelines on when you could probably use them and when you definitely shouldn’t . (In response, he tells me which of his friends scolds the most. I see you, John.)
But a few “damn it” among friends on the football field is different from the continued normalization of racial or ethnic abuse. However, I also understand that just as I need to educate my child so that he can act independently in the physical world, I also need him to learn how to behave correctly on the Internet. (And I also realize that having the extra time to figure out how to generally approach this is a privilege that not everyone enjoys.)
However, before I’m ready to let him chat with random players, he needs to be able to recognize and respond to hate speech. Common Sense Media recently tweeted this helpful 1-minute video to get parents thinking about how they can create expectations about hate speech in their children:
Help your kids identify hate speech
“Hatred” is defined as offensive or threatening language or letter that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Children can find it difficult to distinguish bullying from hate speech. Caroline Knorr, parenting editor for Common Sense Media, writes for The Washington Post that we can help them differentiate this as follows:
If someone is trying to offend someone or knows that they are hurting someone and does it repeatedly on the Internet, that is cyberbullying. When someone expresses vicious views about the group or its attributes, it is hate speech.
You can ask them if they have ever heard anything similar to hate speech and how they felt – or how they think they would feel if they were the target of such words.
Don’t share it
Emphasize the importance of never sharing hate speech. First of all, it is insulting and wrong. But it could also potentially be traced back to them and get them in trouble. Children are impulsive and emotional, they make decisions and crave acceptance, which can lead to rather poor choices.
Teach them this online mantra: When in doubt, don’t share.
Report and block
When using any new website, social media, or online game your child uses, make sure they also know how to report and block the offending user. Talk to them about how “reporting” and “locking” go hand in hand. Posting protects others from incitement to hatred, and blocking protects them from seeing more such statements in person in the future.
Hate speech, while often legal under the First Amendment, when it does not threaten a specific person, usually violates the website’s terms of service. And it’s pretty easy to report hate speech on most social media websites while keeping the reporter’s anonymity so your child doesn’t have to worry about getting unwanted attention.
Blocking is also a fairly straightforward process, but it can be more difficult when the person using the hate speech is someone the child knows in real life. If so, talk to them about how they can navigate the situation so that they feel socially safe.
If they feel very brave, invite them to talk about it.
We all want to raise kids who stand up to bullies, but the truth is, it’s hard – for both kids and adults. But you can encourage them to use their voice for good if they feel comfortable and safe. I often tell my son, “Our words are powerful.” Our words can hurt people, or we can use them to help others, and I look for examples of this in my daily life.
If your child wants to challenge someone for using hate speech, but he does not know what to say, tell him that he can always turn to you for help in developing an answer.
Checked periodically
As with any important topic, hate speech is not a one-time conversation. It is important to regularly share all of the ways they interact with others on the Internet, especially with regard to bullying or abusive communication. Ask your children if anyone has said anything that has bothered them lately, or if they have any questions about a particular word or phrase they have heard or read.
If you’ve never heard this before, this conversation is a great opportunity for you to study it together to determine if it is a new, harmless slang term or something potentially offensive and inappropriate.