Ireland Government’s Hate Speech Bill Promotes ‘Thought Crime Legislation’

Elon Musk calls bill a ‘massive attack on freedom of speech’

U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for a Shamrock presentation and reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington on March. 17, 2023. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Irish authorities are pushing forward a bill that will make it a crime to disseminate and possess content deemed to be hateful—a development Elon Musk warns is a threat to free speech in the country.

The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 (pdf) seeks to “amend the law relating to the prohibition of incitement to violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of certain characteristics (referred to as protected characteristics) of the person or the group of persons and to provide for an offence of condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.”