Diversity and Inclusion in Anti-Disinformation Work
Combating misinformation and disinformation is vital to countering White supremacy among Asian Americans and other communities that speak languages other than English
By Emily Chi
In the days following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, many tech platforms and private companies stepped up to take more drastic actions to ban accounts and moderate harmful content. But even in attempts to combat White supremacy and nationalism, tech companies’ scopes remained White-centric.
Unfortunately, we saw plenty of Asian faces and flags among the violent White supremacists and Confederate flags during the insurrection. It is a jarring reminder that some Asian American communities are active and eager supporters of harmful alt-right rhetoric and organizing efforts. Yet, tech platforms’ efforts to understand and dismantle disinformation and its dissemination channels in non-English and POC communities have fallen short compared to their robust (and well-publicized) actions against mainstream and mostly White alt-right spaces.
Disinformation and its negative offline effects are not limited to the English-speaking and White American world. Disinformation campaigns targeted Black and Latinx communities throughout the 2020 campaign cycle to discourage voter turnout. Manipulation on platforms like Facebook have shaken the political climate of entire countries like the Philippines and proliferation of disinformation on social media has facilitated increasing anti-Blackness racism in Asian and Latinx American communities. While some platforms have taken some steps to flag and/or label potential disinformation, they continue to host, monetize, and enable the sharing of such content. Community organizers and advocates do not believe that labeling does enough to stop the harmful effects of such content. Platforms must do more to prevent the active spread of harmful content, including enforcing their own terms and conditions by banning and taking down flagged disinformation. Even though entities like Facebook publicly committed to bolstering security and content moderation efforts during the election cycle, some researchers believe that enforcement was not as effective or vigilant on non-English content such as Asian language videos (even after they had been flagged by users as featuring problematic content).
Not only is it critical that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube use translators to understand and moderate content in Asian languages better, they must also engage with Asian American partner organizations to understand the history and cultural characteristics and barriers that are particular to the spread of disinformation in our communities.
Strategies to combat disinformation in Asian American communities must be targeted to address the unique characteristics of disinformation of each community. For example, many Asian Americans are especially prone to disinformation related to China and communication nodes often revolve around friends and family, rather than larger platform groups, but the channels and resources that Korean Americans use may be very different from the preferred platforms or trusted public figures in Vietnamese American and Indian American communities. Moreover, the collective history and memory of Asian Americans can make them more sensitive to institutions like large tech companies and government entities. Chinese commentary has already sided with Trump, comparing account banning to Chinese government censorship.
Organizers and advocates have been studying, documenting, and creating resources to understand and dismantle these patterns. Partnering with these groups is essential to better understand, foster trust, and more effectively target and deconstruct the unique challenges of Asian American communities. Platforms must go beyond superficial language translation to prioritize the deeper concerns, values, and user experience needs of all users. Content moderation, digital literacy, and anti-disinformation education efforts can only be successful when they include and honor the diversity of the users.
Tech companies and social media platforms must take stronger steps to keep their promises to Asian American communities. Otherwise, they will continue to perpetuate harm not just to Asian American users, but to American society and democracy. Human rights activists are already taking action to remind platforms that their obligations to remove harmful, false, and discriminatory content extend beyond the U.S. border; and the same scrutiny that has been used to ban President Trump’s account must be applied to content and accounts overseas. Similarly, platforms must apply their renewed commitments to online safety to Asian American and other minority community and ethnic language content. While the Trump presidency has come to an end, the Asian American community will continue to face disinformation threats on issues like COVID-19, voting, the census, affirmative action, and ongoing alt-right conspiracy theories.
Emily Chi is the Assistant Director of Technology, Telecommunications and Media at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. Learn more about our telecommunications, technology and media diversity program.
