Cornish René, Tranter Kieran
School of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
Int J Semiot Law. 2022;35(6):2267-2301. doi: 10.1007/s11196-022-09937-y. Epub 2022 Oct 30.
Social media is changing the way humans create and exchange information. Not all social media communications are, however, civil: the 'dark side' of social media cultivates various 'anti-social' exchanges including hate speech. Parallel accelerating social media use has been an increase in decision-makers having to consider the legalities of dismissing employees for social media misconduct. This paper through an analysis of first instance South African employee dismissal decisions, identifies an economy of hate within South African workplaces. In 30% of social media misconduct decisions (120/400), employees were dismissed for circulating racialised hate speech. This hate speech took three forms. First was the use of animality discourse and animal metaphors to dehumanise colleagues and employers. Second, employees used words that had specific racist connotations within South Africa. Third, there was the direct deployment of signs or symbols connected with South Africa's racialised past.
社交媒体正在改变人类创造和交流信息的方式。然而，并非所有社交媒体通信都是文明的：社交媒体的“阴暗面”滋生了各种“反社会”交流，包括仇恨言论。与此同时，社交媒体使用的加速增长使得决策者在考虑因社交媒体不当行为解雇员工时不得不考虑法律问题。本文通过对南非初审员工解雇决定的分析，识别出南非工作场所存在的仇恨经济。在30%的社交媒体不当行为决定（120/400）中，员工因传播带有种族色彩的仇恨言论而被解雇。这种仇恨言论有三种形式。第一种是使用动物性话语和动物隐喻来贬低同事和雇主的人性。第二种是员工使用在南非具有特定种族主义含义的词汇。第三种是直接使用与南非种族化历史相关的标志或符号。
