serious disease”, adding, “We define attacks as violent or dehumanizing speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing and calls for exclusion or segregation. We also prohibit the use of harmful stereotypes, which we define as dehumanizing comparisons that have historically been used to attack, intimidate or exclude specific groups, and that are often linked with offline violence.”95 Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) explicitly requires states to prohibit by law advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence .96 A similar prohibition is contained in Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).97 The direct and public incitement to commit genocide is also prohibited under the Genocide Convention.98 Similarly, under Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to be free from incitement to discrimination.99 The right to equality and non-discrimination is a critical component of international human rights law, constituting a “basic and general principle relating to the protection of human rights”,100 and individuals who have their right to equality infringed must have access to an effective remedy. The Toronto Declaration is a civil society-led statement based on international human rights law which outlines principles for the application of this essential right to the arena of machine learning and artificial intelligence. 101 The Declaration affirms: “Companies and private sector actors designing and implementing machine learning systems should take action to ensure individuals and groups have access to meaningful, effective remedy and redress. This may include, for example, creating clear, independent, visible processes for redress following adverse individual or societal effects, and designating roles in the entity responsible for the timely remedy of such issues subject to accessible and effective appeal and judicial review.”102 The Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence – noting the high threshold for defining restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and for the application of Article 20 of the ICCPR – posits a six-part threshold test to guide states’ implementation of this prohibition. The six factors that need to be assessed when determining if an expression amounts to advocacy of hatred are: i) Context, ii) Speaker’s position or status, iii) Intent, iv) Content and form, v) Extent of the speech act, and vi) Likelihood, including imminence, of harm.103 Advocacy of hatred is more than just the expression of ideas or opinions that are hateful towards members of a particular group. It requires a clear showing of intent to incite others to discriminate, be hostile (experience intense and irrational emotions of opprobrium, enmity and detestation) toward, or commit violence against, the group in question. When certain expression constitutes advocacy of hatred, States have an obligation to prohibit it (though not necessarily to criminalize) through a law that is formulated precisely to allow individuals to modify their behaviour in accordance to it. The law and its application must also comply with the ICCPR’s provisions on the right to freedom of expression, and in particular must meet the requirements of necessity and proportionality, in compliance with the three-part test in Article 19(3) of the ICCPR. As various human rights bodies have pointed out, restricting expression in isolation is an ineffective means to combat discrimination, and therefore effective protection and social inclusion of marginalized groups requires broader interventions from the state and other stakeholders. As proposed by the Rabat Plan of Action, tackling the root causes of intolerance requires a much broader set of policy measures, including education on pluralism and diversity, and policies empowering minorities and indigenous people to exercise their right to freedom of expression.104 95 Meta, Hate Speech Policy, https://transparency.fb.com/de-de/policies/community-standards/hate-speech/ 96 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 20.2. 97 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Article 4. 98 The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, art. III (c). 99 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights 100 United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 18, UN Doc. RI/GEN/1/Rev.9 Vol. I (1989), para. 1 Amnesty International and Access Now, “The Toronto Declaration: Protecting the rights to equality and non-discrimination in machine learning systems”, 17 May 2018, POL 30/8447/2018. 101 102 Amnesty International and Access Now, “The Toronto Declaration” (previously cited), para. 53. 103 Rabat Plan of Action (previously cited), para. 29. 104 Rabat Plan of Action (previously cited), para. 37. THE SOCIAL ATROCITY META AND THE RIGHT TO REMEDY FOR THE ROHINGYA Amnesty International 24