Social media has become “weaponised” for hate speech
As the newsfeed supplants the newspaper as the public’s main source for news, hate speech has begun to flourish in ways not previously seen
The following is an account of the second panel of the Media and Mass Atrocity roundtable which detailed the prevalence and impact of hate speech on social media compared to the traditional mass media, such as newspapers and radio in times of mass atrocity.
Panellists included: Alan Davis from the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, Frank Chalk from the Montreal Institute of Genocide and Human Right Rights Studies, and Theo Dolan from Peacetech Lab.
Alan Davis:
Appearing in a pre-recording Skype conversation, David presented the results of a study into the use of hate speech in Myanmar. He explained how his team gathered and analyzed hate speech within Myanmar and found that most of what they analzyed was directed towards the country’s Muslim population.
Though signs are being placed around the country saying, “muslims are not allowed here” Davis said that he and his team found the majority of hate speech was being spread on social media, such as Facebook. Little hate is being incited on radio, television, and especially newspapers.
Davis said the hate speech stemmed from a variety of issues, not least of all the country’s history, having evolved from a closed state, a military junta to a developing democracy.
The country has many ethnicities—Davis noted 136—and a large army.
After decades of isolation and vicious military rule, Davis said the country had become a “pressure cooker.” When the conditions became just right —it exploded.
As ideas that had been repressed for decades became openly expressed, violence ensued.
With no real tradition of a free press, there was little means to facilitate debate. The timing of the violence coincided with the proliferation of cheap smart phones, thereby granting the public with access to social media which was then used to spread hatred.
Understanding the growth of hate-speech in Myanmar is complicated. But the international community, Davis argued, has made little effort to actually understand it. An unfortunate reality, he argued, given all that was learned the Rwanda genocide and the ethnic wars in Yugoslavia.
Frank Chalk
For his presentation, Chalk posed the question whether hate propaganda really matters and whether it can truly incite violence.
Determining whether hate speech leads to voilence is difficult, he said. If it isn’t directly noticed, it can be next to impossible to prove.
If you can’t notice “A going to B and then to C,” it’s hard to intervene and try to stop the spread of violence by jamming radio signals or knocking down transistor towers.
“Hate speech propaganda reinforces ideology,” said Chalk. But even that, he argued, can be hard to prove.
Theo Dolan
Dolan joined the panel via Skype from Nairobi and spoke directly on the use of hate speech in South Sudan.
Since civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013, more than 50,000 people have been killed and 2.3 million people displaced.
“The atrocities continue today,” he said. “The country is in ruins. Peace is in shambles.”
Though the UN predicts South Sudan is on the brink of genocide, Dolan argues that the country is already in the midst of one.
He explained that while radio was used for inciting hate in Rwanda, social media is being used in South Sudan.
He said the people of South Sudan are susceptible to fake news and that what is missing is an understanding of what hate language looks like.
Peace tech labs, the organisation where Dolan works, monitors hate speech on Facebook and other social media sites. If the lab finds hate speech, they contact the relevant social media platform and ask them to take it down.
Dolan said the majority of the hate speech he sees is on Facebook, which poses a difficulty because Facebook doesn’t actively monitor what people post. Individuals, or organisations usually have to flag hate speech and contact Facebook in order for it to be taken down.
It’s a flawed system that needs to be fixed.
“If there is no existing method for early response — how can we create one to prevent violence?”
