commbox Extremism & Hate Speech

Extremism & Hate Speech

Filter

429

Sort by:

Direction:

Download (0)

Hate Speech 2020

Tina Gogoladze

Media Development Foundation (MDF) (2021), 32 pp.

Download (1)

Online Caste-Hate Speech: Pervasive Discrimination and Humiliation on Social Media

Damni Kain, Shivangi Narayan, Torsha Sarkar, Gurshabad Grover

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) (2021), 32 pp.

"In India, religious texts, social customs, rituals, and everyday cultural practices legitimise the use of hate speech against marginalised caste groups. Notions of "purity" of “upper-caste” groups, and conversely of "pollution" of “lower-caste” groups, have made the latter subject to discri ... mination, violence and dehumanisation. These dynamics invariably manifest online, with social media platforms becoming sites of caste discrimination and humiliation. This report explores two research questions. First, what are the specific contours of caste-hate speech and abuse online? Semi-structured interviews with 12 scholars and activists belonging to Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) groups show that marginalised groups regularly face hate and harassment based on their caste. In addition to the overt hate, DBA individuals and groups are often targeted with abuse for availing reservations – a constitutionally mandated right. More covert forms of hate and abuse are also prevalent: trolls mix caste names and words from different languages together so that their comments appear meaningless to individuals who are not keenly aware of the local context. Such hateful expression often emerges as a reaction from “upper-caste” groups to DBA resistance and social justice movements. Our respondents reported that the hateful expression can sometimes silence caste-marginalised groups and individuals, exclude them from conversations, and adversely impact their physical and mental well-being. The second question we explore is how popular social media platforms and online spaces moderate caste-hate speech and abuse. We analysed the community guidelines, policies and transparency reports of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Clubhouse. We find that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube incorporated "caste" as a protected characteristic in their hate speech and harassment policies only in the last two or three years – many years after they entered Indian and South Asian markets – showing a disregard for the regional contexts of their users. Even after these policy changes, many platforms – whose forms for reporting harmful content list gender and race – still do not list caste. Social media companies should radically increase their investment and capacity in understanding regional contexts and languages; they must focus on the dynamics of casteist hate and abuse. They will need to collaborate with a diverse set of DBA activists to ensure that their community guidelines effectively tackle overt, covert and hyper -local forms of caste-hate speech and abuse, and that their implementation and reporting processes match these policy commitments." (Eexecutive summary) more

Download (0)

Hate Network: Hate Speech on Social Media Platforms in the Palestinian Context and its Impact on Their Digital Rights

Nijmeh Ali

Arab Center for Social Media Advancement (2021), 46 pp.

Download (4)

A Lexicon of Hateful and Inflammatory Speech in the Central African Republic
Top Insights

Nicola Barrach-Yousefi et al.

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; United States Institute of Peace (USIP); Association Jeunesse en Marche pour le Développement en Centrafrique (AJEMADEC) (2021), 38 pp.

"Since 2014, PeaceTech Lab has undertaken research and worked with local partners in 13 countries to understand the dynamics of hate speech and the connection between the proliferation of hateful narratives online and violent events offline. This research and the resulting lexicons seek to identify ... more

External Link (26)

Online Intimidation: Controlling the Narrative in the Balkans. Annual Digital Rights Report 2021

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) (2021), 64 pp.

"From August 2020 until August this summer, we recorded almost 800 cases of digital rights violations in eight countries of south-eastern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Violations took place not just on TikTok, but also on F ... more

Download (1)

Right-Wing Extremism on the Internet: 2020-2021 Report

Flemming Ipsen, Franziska Böndgen et al.

Mainz: jugendschutz.net (2021), 31 pp.

Download (0)

Counter-Terrorism, Social Media and the Regulation of Extremist Content

Levi J. West

In: Counter-Terrorism: The Ethical Issues

Seumas Miller, Adam Henschke, Jonas Feltes (eds.)

Edward Elgar Publishing (2021), pp. 116-128

"As highlighted above, the development and refinement of counter-terrorism policies and practices by social media and technology companies has come about as a function of the evolving nature of terrorist and extremist entities’ exploitation of said platforms. The challenges highlighted above, name ... more

External Link (29)

A Taxonomy for the Classification of Post-Organisational Violent Extremist & Terrorist Content

Jacob Davey, Comerford Milo, Jakob Guhl et al.

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) (2021), 26 pp.

"Across the case studies we identified three broad categories for the classification of content, which will be unpacked in greater detail in the following section: 1. Instructional material which contains guidance on operational aspects of terrorist and violent extremist activity. This includes guid ... more

Download (1)

Addressing Hate Speech on Social Media: Contemporary Challenges

Jonathan Bright, Antonella Perini, Anne Ploin, Reja Wyss

Paris: UNESCO (2021), 10 pp.

"This discussion paper seeks to give an overview of the key aspects that need to be taken into consideration to address the occurrence of hate speech on social media, be it through concrete regulations by social media companies, counter efforts and legislations or preventive educational measures. Th ... more

Download (0)

The "Hate Speech" Policies of Major Platforms During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ana Laura Pérez

Montevideo: UNESCO Office Montevideo and Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean (2021), 32 pp.

"This document reports an increase in so-called “hate speech” posts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although dissimilar, such an increase can be observed in the transparency reports of the different platforms and the surge in content moderation since M ... more

Download (1)

Hateful Speech and Conflict in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia: A Lexicon of Hateful and Inflammatory Words and Phrases

Nicola Barrach-Yousefi et al.

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Centre for the Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD); Destiny Ethiopia Project (2021), 56 pp.

"The list of terms included in this lexicon, as well as their proposed meaning and contextualization, are not static. Instead, the lexicon is a ‘snapshot’ (in time and space) of how hateful language is used, perceived, and understood by those who contributed to the research process in Ethiopia b ... more

External Link (26)

The Road Ahead: Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation

Samantha Bradshaw, Lisa-Maria Neudert

Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (2021), 27 pp.

"Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) bring a wide range of skill sets to the problem of digital disinformation. Some organizations focus on digital media literacy and education; others engage in advocacy and policy work. Another segment has developed expertise in fact-checking and verification. Other ... organizations have developed refined technical skills for extracting and analyzing data from social media platforms. This research yielded several clear observations about the state of CSO responses to disinformation and, in turn, suggests several recommendations for paths forward. • Prioritize Skill Diffusion and Knowledge Transfer. Civil society organizations seeking funding for counter-disinformation initiatives should emphasize the importance of skill diffusion and knowledge-transfer initiatives. The siloed nature of disinformation research points to a growing need to blend technical expertise with deep cultural and political knowledge. • CSO researchers lack sufficient access to social media data. Survey respondents identified insufficient access to data as a challenge. Sometimes data are not made available to CSOs; in other instances, data are made available in formats that are not workable for meaningful research purposes. Unequal access to the data that private companies do provide can exacerbate regional inequities, and the nature of data sharing by social media platforms can unduly shape the space for inquiry by civil society and other researchers. Funders, platforms, and other key actors should develop approaches that provide more consistent, inclusive data access to CSOs. • Duplicative programming hampers innovation. CSOs drawing on similar tools, approaches, and techniques to meet similar goals pointed to three main factors preventing more specialized, innovative initiatives: lack of coordination, lack of specific expertise, and lack of flexible funding. Community building and collaboration among relevant organizations deserve more investment, as do initiatives that partner larger, established organizations with smaller or growing ones, or pool efforts, skill sets, and expertise to encourage diverse research by design rather than by coincidence. • Relationships with tech platforms vary across regions. Surveyed CSOs often held simultaneously skeptical and positive opinions about their relationships with social media companies. Some receive preferential access to data and even funding for their work (raising concerns about independence), while others report a lack of responsiveness from company representatives. In the Global South and Eastern Europe, many CSOs expressed concern that platforms failed to meaningfully engage with them on issues of critical concern. • More flexible funding and more diverse research are both necessary. To encourage greater platform accountability across varied geographic contexts, CSOs and their funders should draw on the perspectives of specific, under-analyzed communities." (Executive summary, page 3-4) more

External Link (21)

Radicalism Online: An Analysis of the Meanings, Ideas, and Values of Violent Extremism in Central Asia

Bishkek: Internews; Centre for Religious Studies of Kyrgyzstan (2021), 136 pp.

"In an effort to help prevent violent extremism in Central Asia, the Research Centre for Religious Studies of Kyrgyzstan conducted an analysis of values, narratives, and online messages created and distributed by banned extremist groups in five countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmeni ... stan, and Uzbekistan. The study included over 1.6 million messages containing religious rhetoric and provides insight into the meanings of the messages and the channels for dissemination, as well as the impact of the messages on the target audience. This was followed by a field study of 4,005 respondents in the 18-35 age range. In addition, the survey also sought to identify the media preferences of young people in the region. Using the findings, the Centre developed communication strategies for each country that recommended how media, NGOs, state authorities, and religious leaders could, with a focus on young people, contribute to promoting peace. Although less than 1% of the analyzed messages containing religious rhetoric had what would be considered dangerous content, those particular messages often resonated with users’ values and interests, especially young people. The messages promoting violence used specific, complex terms that were geared to people who were already followers of radical ideas rather than the average user. The intent of the messages was to deepen the commitment of followers rather than recruit new followers. Administrators of violent extremist channels have developed multi-channel access strategies for potential recipients (through various platforms, chat rooms, personal messages, and reposts), thwarting the blocking measures used by Central Asian governments. The messaging by extremist groups promotes: purity of faith, mutual support to fellow believers, fighting against infidels and apostates, rejection of secular power and its decisions, ambition to create a caliphate, and anti-Semitism. The main target audience of distributors of extremist content is young people aged 18-30 who are dissatisfied with the current political environment and who share a strong sense of injustice. Those aged 18-21 showing the strongest support for the influence of religion on politics. Level of education is also a risk factor: young people with less education tend to engage more with the content." (Publisher description) more

Google Scholar (33)

WorldCat (27)

Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists
Top Insights

Julia Ebner

London et al.: Bloomsbury (2020), viii, 348 pp.

"By day, Julia Ebner works at a counter-extremism think tank, monitoring radical groups from the outside. But two years ago, she began to feel she was only seeing half the picture; she needed to get inside the groups to truly understand them. She decided to go undercover in her spare hours – late ... more

Google Scholar (18)

WorldCat (18)

Hasskrieger: Der neue globale Rechtsextremismus

Karolin Schwarz

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2020), 224 pp.

External Link (35)

Analysis of Ethiopia’s Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation No.1185/2020

Kampala: CIPESA (2020), 4 pp.

"Although the Proclamation has good intentions of curbing hate speech in Ethiopia, it fundamentally restricts freedom of expression online and the right to information. Further, the proclamation has a chilling effect on online and offline rights, which could lead to self-censorship. For instance, jo ... more

External Link (32)

Google Scholar (34)

WorldCat (34)

ISIS Propaganda: A Full-Spectrum Extremist Message

Stephane J. Baele, Katharine A. Boyd, Travis G. Coan (eds.)

New York: Oxford University Press (2020), xii, 287 pp.

"This book offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the Islamic State's use of propaganda. Combining a range of different theoretical perspectives from across the social sciences, and using rigorous methods, the authors trace the origins of the Islamic State's message, laying bare the strateg ... more

Download (1)

Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity
Key Guidance

Daniel Arnaudo, Bret Barrowman, Julia Brothers, Lisa Reppell, Victoria Scott, Amy Studdart, Kip Wainscott, Vera Zakem

Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS); USAID (2020), [345 pp.]

"This resource combines the collective wisdom of organizations on the front lines of combatting disinformation globally. This living project provides an outline of what’s being done to address the challenge in key areas and provides a searchable database of the organizations around the world engag ... more

External Link (33)

Google Scholar (34)

WorldCat (31)

Social Media and Disinformation in War Propaganda: How Afghan Government and the Taliban Use Twitter

Hazrat M. Bahar

Media Asia, volume 47, issue 1-2 (2020), pp. 34-46

"This study examines disinformation and propaganda in war in the age of information particularly through social media. It analyzes Twitter's posts of the Afghan government and the Taliban, from January to March 2018. For understanding disinformation, 952 tweets of both parties were crosschecked with ... more

Download (1)

Hate Speech, Information Disorder, and Conflict: Research Review

Sahana Udupa, Iginio Gagliardone, Alexandra Deem, Laura Csuka

SSRC (2020), 17 pp.

A Lexicon of Hateful and Inflammatory Speech in the Central African Republic Top Insights

Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists Top Insights

Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity Key Guidance

A Lexicon of Hateful and Inflammatory Speech in the Central African Republic
Top Insights

Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists
Top Insights

Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity
Key Guidance