Defining Online Hate Speech under Indonesia Legal
System: Implication For Sustainable of Justice
V Prahassacitta
Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Bina Nusantara, Jakarta, Indonesia
vidya.prahassacitta@binus.ac.id
ABSTRACT
Online hate speech relates to sustainable development, therefore this research has
two objectives. First, to define legal concepts of hate speech under Indonesia
legal system. Second, to recognize whether the legal concept of hate speech
supports Indonesia’s sustainable development goals. Then, as normative legal
research, secondary data collected through a literature study from legal data
sources, including legislation and twenty court decisions from year 2004 until
early 2018. Using analytical and historical approaches, the data is categorized
and analysed to meet with the research objectives. The result concludes that
because of anti-hate speech provisions determinate to promote peace and
stability, thus the definitions of hate speech beyond to promote hatred against the
particular group based on their identity or characteristics. This obstructs not only
freedom of speech, but also the sustainable development goals.
Keywords: Speech, Indonesia, Sustainable
1. INTRODUCTION
In September 2015, United Nation has adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable
development goals and since that Indonesia has embraced the sustainable development goals.
Parts of the goals are to end poverty and hunger in all forms as well as to ensure dignity and
equality for every people. Accordingly, to John Rawls’s theory, right is prior to the good
means that individual basic rights including political liberty and freedom of speech shall be
exercised first prior social and economic advantages [1]. Then to actualizing the goals,
equality shall be opened to all, which in John Rawls perfective requires some changes or tools
to improve certain group’s to achieve that social and economic prospects [2].
An obstruction to reach that goal is hate speech, an issue that becomes enormous issues in
this Internet and social media eras. Hate speech is a familiar concept but it is complicated to
describe. It is an ordinary concept that uses by people within a range of other social, cultural,
political and economic domains. It generally explains as a harmful speech that attacks people
on the based of their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and
gender identity. The kind of speech is forbidden because such speech implicates issues of
harm, dignity, security, and democracy. On the other hand, legal scholars have a specific
concept of it based on the characteristic of hate speech that relates to a particular body of law
and legal regime [3]. Subsequently, the definitions of hate speech bias between both ordinary
and legal concepts.
The concept of hate speech remains question under Indonesia legal system. Indonesia
penal policy declares that promoting hates speech is categorized as a crime. There are three
WoMELA-GG 2019, January 26-28, Medan, Indonesia
Copyright © 2019 EAI
DOI 10.4108/eai.26-1-2019.2283212