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#4: Hate Speech in Music

The chapter mentions that two-part fighting-words doctrine that "excluded from constitutional protection (1) speech which by its 'very utterance' tends to inflict injury upon the sensibilities of listeners," (Tedford and Herbeck 209). The use of the word "listeners" made me question how this is related to music. The torches in Charlottesville sparked many companies to take their own action against racism by removing certain content, as we already spoke about in class with GoDaddy removing the Daily Stormer. More than just text-based content was ignited by this flame, though. Music streaming services, specifically Spotify, removed roughly 29 bands labeled as racist by the Southern Poverty Law Center (The Atlantic). Spotify technically doesn't need a justification for removing content they want because the freedom of speech is intended for protecting against encroachment by the federal government, not necessarily corporations. Still, Spotify provided a reason,"illegal content or material that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality or the like is not tolerated by us." (The Atlantic). This statement raises many questions for me. Many white rappers use the 'n' word in their music, is that enough to be considered racist and removed? Are they mainly going to focus on pro-Nazi music because white supremacy has a growing following lately? Many songs also include homophobic and misogynistic material, will this be more censored? I think it will be interesting to see if any other content is regulated by music streaming services and what the guidelines are in the future.


Sources:
Kornhaber, Spencer. “Getting Hate Speech Off Music-Streaming Services.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 17 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/spotify-and-other-music-services-kick-off-racist-bands/537213/.
Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of Speech in the United States. 8th ed. Strata Publishing, INC., 2017.

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  1. AnonymousOctober 12, 2017 at 1:11 AM

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  2. AnonymousOctober 12, 2017 at 1:14 AM

    You bring up some interestings questions regarding freedom of expression in art. This goes back to one of our first discussions in class, concerning what is included in our concept of "speech" and what is excluded. The categories included in speech were political, commercial, and art, which aren't mutually exclusive themselves as they tend to bleed into one another. Things like obscenity are normally regarded as a lower tier of speech unworthy of First Amendment protection, but that changss in the context of art: visual or auditory AKA music. I think the same argument applies to fighting words as well in that fighting words, language that takes the form of art are more tolerated. I've heard plenty of good hip hop/rap music at social events that definitely had what I would consider to be potentially harmful to the public, but were totally okay to be played. Additionally, I think one of the bigger issues with justifying censorship of (in this case) music simply on the basis of making someone a little uncomfortable is that you're at risk of chilling other forms of speech. At the end of the day, do we really trust policy makers/jurors to determine what is art? It's a small word charged with massive cultural and contextual meanings, so trying to find a satisfying definition for it seems rather unrealistic.

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