Online Discrimination Based on COVID-19: A Language and Law Perspective

This chapter attempts to unpack the language of cyber discrimination based on COVID-19, drawing on the frameworks of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. It discusses how language realises hate through its construction and speech act functions in the evolving social and geopolitical contexts of the pandemic and identifies discursive strategies which serve to attack and negatively represent the ‘other’. Targets were chosen primarily based on their ethnic, regional, national and religious affiliations as well as contact with the virus. In addition, implicit and explicit blame for being irresponsible, and thus spreading the virus, emerges as a justification for hate speech. The chapter also discusses the legal implications of COVID-19-related cyber discrimination, by examining examples from a court case which illustrate what could be deemed incitement to cause harm; and how a grassroots movement led to the convictions that were needed to address the social divisions.