Hate speech and social cohesion. Will new laws stop hate?

Federal Parliament will be recalled next week to debate and pass new hate speech laws in the wake of the Bondi massacre. But will it target all hate speech?? Get Author he asks.

His be hailed as “The toughest hate laws Australia has ever seen” in response to the devastating mass shooting at Bondi Beach in December 2025.

Combating Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 Penalties for hate crimes will be increased, new offenses aimed at inciting hatred will be created, and bans on banned Nazi symbols will be expanded. Will it also target people like: Wissam HaddadWho was found guilty of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act in sermons published online in July 2025?

Bondi after hate speech

In the immediate aftermath of the Bondi attack, the digital landscape became even uglier. Deakin University Research tracking online discourse reveals increased anti-Semitic content, particularly one that blames all Jews for Israel’s actions.

As of December 16, anti-Muslim posts made up 18.4% of all Bondi-related content (about 1 in 5 posts), and the number of anti-Muslim posts on Reddit rose to 3,091 on December 15, from 530 the previous day. Conspiracy theories, particularly false flag allegations, have played a significant role in fueling both anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred.

Online hate prevails

While some hate speech occurs offline, the majority is transmitted online. in Australia, e-Safety Commissioner investigation shows 18% of adults have personally experienced online hate By 2022, a sharp increase from 14% in 2019. 2025 report The Commissioner found that the highest categories of online hate were based on politics, age and gender, followed by appearance, race, nationality and religion. (Most likely appearance falls under the gender category.)

Considering that political views are the number one basis for online hate at 23%, the importance of political leaders setting the right tone cannot be underestimated.

As eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant puts it: “No Australian living in our society today should have to endure hateful abuse because of who they are.”

Women and LGBTIQ+ Groups

Just a year and a half ago, in April 2024, Joel Cauchi stabbed and killed six people, five women and one man, at Bondi Junction shopping centre, in what NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb described as an attack “clearly” aimed at women.

a while investigation later found There is no conclusive evidence that Cauchi is part of the incel community, his actions He was celebrated online by incels who revere him as a “saint”. According to GNET research, incel forum users posted comments such as “Australian whores deserved it.”

The connection between digital hatred and physical violence is not correlation but causation. Studies from Germany It found that increases in attacks on refugees, including arson and assault, followed increases in anti-refugee Facebook posts by far-right parties.

A. 2021 global survey It found that 73% of female journalists had experienced some form of online violence. Critically, 20% of female journalists said they had been attacked or harassed offline in connection with online hate.

Likewise, a 2019 eSafety Commissioner report It found that LGBTIQ groups, along with indigenous people, were among the biggest targets of hate speech in the country, well above the national average.

But Independent MP Allegra Spending recommended Australian Jewish Association states that hate speech laws include protections for LGBTIQ+ groups attacked himposts: “Please do not use the killing of Jewish people at the Hanukkah event to push your ‘LGBTQIA’ laws, which are already rejected by both sides of politics.”

The elephant in the room

The truth is, none of this matters unless we force social media platforms to stop acting as conduits of hate. All the legislation, education, and counter-rhetoric in the world is meaningless when algorithms designed to maximize engagement actively fuel hatred.

Common feature of violent extremism: Angry young men

Platforms don’t care about radicalization of content – they care if it generates clicks.

As the capabilities of artificial intelligence increase, so will its capacity to produce and spread hatred on an industrial scale. We can pass all the laws we want, create all the community resilience programs we can fund,

But until we organize the architecture that turns whispers of hate into roars,

and until we truly hold the platforms that profit from the split accountable with measures that actually harm their profits, we are not solving the problem, we are simply managing the symptoms of the disease as it metastasizes.

Antisemitism Act. Same shirt. Different stairs. Years of imprisonment.

Al has over twenty years of international experience in international organisations, including UN agencies, and holds a postgraduate qualification in international relations from Oxbridge. They have contributed to numerous publications, including Al Jazeera and The Guardian.

Al is known by Michael West Media.