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Social Media and Conflict in Yemen: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms

Jacqueline Lacroix

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Development Transformations; Peace Track Initiative (2019), 31 pp.

"Conflict in Yemen plays out along various fault lines—regional, sectarian, class, political, tribal, and ethnic—which are reflected in the hateful language employed on and offline to incite violence. The sectarian aspect of conflict in Yemen is relatively new, as prior to 2011, “religious coe ... xistence and intermingling was taken for granted by most Yemenis and seen as a normal feature of everyday life.” But with the outbreak of conflict after the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, “sectarian discourse has become more heated, reorganizing Yemeni society along sectarian lines and rearranging people’s relationships to one another on a non-nationalist basis.” Furthermore, the social and political dynamics in Yemen have fostered a permissive environment for hate speech. According to information gathered from a community meeting held in Sana’a in 2015, “many leaders have normalized and legitimized antagonistic, exclusionary rhetoric to consolidate their power and dehumanize their enemies.” In terms of access to online networks, despite a weak telecommunications sector relative to other Middle Eastern countries, an estimated 90 percent of the Yemeni population has access to the internet through mobile phones and, as of 2015, 93 percent of internet users are on Facebook and 92 percent utilize WhatsApp. The heavy saturation of these online communications networks highlights a growing need to understand and address the hate speech being spread within Yemen’s complex context. PeaceTech Lab’s work on hateful speech aims to identify and contextualize the particular terms and phrases that have the potential to lead to violence. This project identifies relevant terms through on-the-ground information gathering and examines their origins, context, and usages in a particular country environment. To successfully monitor and counter hateful speech, we must first identify specific terms and the social and political context that makes them offensive, inflammatory, and potentially dangerous. The research also seeks to identify alternative terms that might be used to mitigate or replace this language and thereby contribute to building peace. Finally, this report is intended as a resource for individuals and organizations involved in monitoring and combatting hateful speech as well as those involved in conflict prevention and mitigation so that their work can be more effective." (Introduction) more

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Volkes Stimme? Zur Sprache des Rechtspopulismus

Thomas Niehr, Jana Reissen-Kosch

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2019), 175 pp.

Google Scholar (110)

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Social Media in Africa: An Emerging Force for Autocrats and Activists

Geoffrey York

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 415-430

"The most extreme damage inflicted by social media can be seen in South Sudan. As documented in the chapter by Theo Dolan, social media in South Sudan has contributed to hatred and conflict among ethnic groups. Many investigators, including UN investigators, have warned that South Sudan's social med ... ia are triggering violence against ethnic groups. Since the beginning of the civil war in late 2013, social media has fuelled waves of hate speech that have provoked deadly violence and ethnic conflict in South Sudan, including massacres and other atrocities. In that sense, social media has become a new variation of the "hate radio" phenomenon that flourished in Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide … Social media is also emerging as a powerful way to harass and intimidate the opponents of a regime or a political party. In this sense, it adds another weapon to the arsenal of a powerful regime that already has multiple weapons at its disposal. A regime can mobilize its supporters to use social media in a targeted way against its foes, or it can use its financial resources to create a fake army of fictional users on social media. In either case, it is tilting the playing field against its enemies. A targeted attack through social media can be more effective than the telephone threats or messages often deployed in the past. The use of social media can be more intimidating because it belittles the targeted person in front of a much bigger audience. The presence of this audience means that the attack is more damaging, more difficult to ignore and has the potential to mobilize large numbers of people against the victim … While social media is often used for anti-democratic purposes in Africa's authoritarian states, it has also been used as a force for reform, accountability and justice. It has helped to safeguard the fairness of elections. It has allowed greater scrutiny of potential threats, such as vote-rigging or violence, allowing citizens to be alerted when there is still a chance to prevent the worst abuses. It has put a spotlight on corruption and political wrongdoing, allowing activists to mobilize pressure on governments to resolve these long-neglected problems. In some cases, as it did in the Arab Spring, social media has played a role in toppling an authoritarian state. When an election was called in the small West African state of Gambia, where the dictator Yahya Jammeh had ruled for 22 years, opposition candidates had little access to state-controlled media. So the main opposition party created more than a dozen WhatsApp groups, allowing it to communicate with voters. Other forms of social media also proliferated. A leading independent group, the Gambia Youth and Women's Forum, discussed election issues on a public Facebook group with 55,000 members. The government blocked access to WhatsApp and eventually extended the shutdown to the entire internet, but Gambians used virtual private network (VPN) technology to bypass the shutdown. The opposition won the election and Jammeh was forced to flee the country." (Pages 419-423) more

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Information Flows and Radicalization Leading to Violent Extremism in Central Asia

Search for Common Ground; Internews (2019), 77 pp.

"The study is comprised of three main parts: a desk study of available and accessible material – reports, documents and media material; a qualitative study comprising over 200 interviews with ordinary people, experts, and persons with direct experience with radicalization leading to violent extrem ... ism (RVE); and a quantitative component consisting of national surveys of people’s information consumption habits. For the desk study, the effort was made to gain as broad a picture as possible, that is, to cover all five countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However, predictably and unfortunately, Uzbekistan and especially Turkmenistan proved difficult cases to study in full. For both the qualitative and quantitative field research activities, for several reasons, only the first three countries were included. As a result, this study is able to report most robustly on these three countries and propose observations regarding Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan only to a limited extent. Based on the desk study, the drivers of extremist sympathies as established in existing research have been political grievances (injustice from state structures; identity-based discrimination; oppressive political regimes, etc), economic difficulties (unemployment; indebtedness; poverty; and desire for quick and greater income) and ideological motivations (resentment of false values; striving for the singularly just and true life; for reward in a perceived afterlife). To these push and pull factors are added a range of enabling factors, such as migration, young age, gender (women), and means of communication. All these drivers of RVE need to be treated with caution, as stressed by various authors and suggested by evidence gained in field research. A general observation, gained from the desk research and supported by evidence in both qualitative and quantitative field studies, was the difference among the countries in degree of control over the information space, or the degree of hegemony over public discourse. Of the three most fully studied countries, hegemonic discourse was the strongest in Tajikistan, followed by Kazakhstan, and the least in Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan, analyzed to a limited extent, would be closer to the extreme of Tajikistan, whereas Turkmenistan was too closed to make reasonably robust observations." (Page 3) more

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Social Media and Conflict in Iraq: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms

Dina Obaid et al.

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Better World Organization; Iraqi Alfourdus Organization; Iraqi Network for Social Media; Youth Without Borders (2019), 36 pp.

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Social Media and Conflict in Libya: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms

Jacqueline Lacroix

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Development Transformations; Elbiro Foundation (2019), 36 pp.

"PeaceTech Lab’s work on hate speech aims to identify and contextualize the particular types of language that are likely to cause violence. This project identifies relevant terms through on-theground information gathering and examines their origins, background context, and use in a particular coun ... more

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"Fake News," Dangerous Speech and Mass Violence: Challenges for Social Media in the Developing World

Stephanie MacLellan

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 483-500

"The cases discussed in this chapter have demonstrated how disinformation and rhetoric that is spread through social media in the developing world often meets the Benesch criteria for dangerous speech. It comes from influential sources, which can include family and friends who share it. It plays on ... more

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Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond
Deep Insights

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), x, 637 pp.

"The book includes an extensive section on the echoes of Rwanda, which looks at the cases of Darfur, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, and South Sudan, while the impact of social media as a new actor is examined through chapters on social media use by the Islamic State and in Syria and in other ... more

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Network of Hatred: How Right-Wing Extremists Use Social Media to Court Young People

Alexandra Beyersdörfer, Flemming Ipsen, Steffen Eisentraut et al.

Mainz: jugendschutz.net (2019), 20 pp.

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Social Media, Discrimination and Intolerance in South Africa: A Lexicon of Hateful Terms

Will Ferroggiaro

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Media Monitoring Africa (2019), 36 pp.

"South Africa’s upcoming general election marks 25 years of multi-racial democracy: a milestone which has us reflecting on how far the country has come - and how far it has to go. Despite real and lasting achievements, problems of massive economic inequalities, disparities in land ownership, and h ... more

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Social Media and Conflict in South Sudan II: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms 2017-2018

Will Ferroggiaro

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab (2019), 36 pp.

"This report — Social Media and Conflict in South Sudan II: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms 2017-2018 — follows on its predecessor which was released in December 2016 after three years of civil war in South Sudan. It identifies key terms being used in the conflict, as well as new terms, context, ... more

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Direito à comunicação no Brasil 2018

São Paulo: Intervozes (2019), 80 pp.

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Facebooking in Myanmar: From Hate Speech to Fake News to Partisan Political Communication

Nyi Nyi Kyaw

Singapore: ISEAS (2019), 10 pp.

"Facebook is the Internet in Myanmar, and it presents both opportunities for and challenges to the government, the opposition, and the people in a country that is in transition. Facebook has gained notoriety as a platform for hate speech and fake news in Myanmar over the past seven years. Facebook h ... more

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The relationship between influential actors’ language and violence: A Kenyan case study using artificial intelligence

Chris Mahony, Eduardo Albrecht, Murat Sensoy

London; Oxford: Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development (2019), 79 pp.

"Scholarly work addressing the drivers of violent conflict predominantly focus on macro-level factors, often surrounding social group-specific grievances relating to access to power, justice, security, services, land, and resources. Recent work identifies these factors of risk and their heightened r ... more

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"Hate Speech: Was tun?": Online-Weiterbildungsangebot für Fachkräfte und interessierte Userinnen und User

jugendschutz.net (2019), 6 pp.

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Reporting Hate Speech, Terrorism & Violence: Guidelines for Journalists and Media Workers in South East Asia

Norwich: Public Media Alliance (2019), 14 pp.

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Putting Faith in Hate: When Religion is the Source or Target of Hate Speech

Richard Moon

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2018), ix, 161 pp.

"Richard Moon examines the application of hate speech laws when religion is either the source or target of such speech. Moon describes the various legal restrictions on hate speech, religious insult, and blasphemy in Canada, Europe and elsewhere, and uses cases from different jurisdictions to illust ... more

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Youth and Radicalization in Mombasa, Kenya: A Lexicon of Violent Extremist Language on Social Media

Lauren Van Metre

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Media Monitoring Africa (2018), 36 pp.

"Though it’s well-known that extremist groups like al-Shabaab use social media to spread fear and recruit susceptible youth, there’s very little evidence-based research that details how at-risk youth use social media and how language is weaponized online by extremists to radicalize and recruit t ... more

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The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online

Whitney Phillips

Data & Society Research Institute (2018), 128 pp.

"Part One, 'In Their Own Words: Trolling, Meme Culture, and Journalists’ Reflections on the 2016 US Presidential Election,' provides a historical overview of the relationship between the news media and far-right manipulators during the 2016 US presidential election. Part Two, 'At a Certain Point Y ... more

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Freedom of Expression and Religious Hate Speech in Europe

Erica Howard

London; New York: Routledge (2018), xv, 191 pp.

"In recent years, the Danish cartoons affair, the Charlie Hebdo murders and the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris have resulted in increasingly strident anti-Islamic speeches by politicians. This raises questions about the limits to freedom of expression and whether this freedom can and should ... more

Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond Deep Insights

Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond
Deep Insights