Hate Speech in the Time of COVID-19

This brief provides an overview of the academic literature on hate speech in order to offer analytical tools for critically assessing the rise in hate speech incidents during the current COVID-19 pandemic. We focus, first, on how hate speech is generally defined and understood, showing that there is no consensus in this area. We then examine arguments for and against the regulation of hate speech, before moving on to analyse the key triggers and causes of hate speech. We focus especially on crises which, like the current COVID-19 pandemic, may provide fertile ground for the increase in hate speech incidents.