When hate speech becomes a weapon — Out-of-control anger in the free world！

Figure 1: Image from The Conversation (Komesaroff et al., 2023).

Introduction

Now we have various types of social media platforms such as facebook, youtube, Instagram, WeChat, etc., which allow us to post our comments, posts, etc. online anytime and anywhere. Social media gives each of us the opportunity to become the initiator and disseminator of a new topic. We like to post things or make remarks on social media because humans need social interaction, feedback and recognition from others (Justin, 2023). But behind this social media network is a dangerous side: Hate Speech.

• Hate Speech: Derogatory and discriminatory language used by an individual or a group in words, actions or words against an individual or group such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.

Have you seen comments like this when we are scrolling through social media?
“My computer is being so gay!” or “My computer is being such a homosexual!” 

Or comments like this
“hang faggots from the gallows!” or “Blacks are inherently inferior, lecherous, predisposed to criminal activities, and should not be allowed to move into respectable areas.” 

Do you know the meaning behind this joke?

Some even exist in a humorous way. For example, according to the article “The Psychology Behind Unfunny Jokes” published by Professor Thomas E. Ford (2016), an important point is that jokes are not just jokes (Ford, 2016). The conversation in the picture below is actually a satire on the status of women in society. Making similar remarks is actually to please the audience and attract more people to watch. The implicit message on social media is that the person who posted it was not intentional and it was just a joke (Ford, 2016). But is it really just a joke? I think everyone should have the answer in their hearts, it is not a joke! It looks like a joke, but it is actually making fun of the female group. According to the research data mentioned in the article by Professor Thomas E. Ford (2016), this seemingly joking speech will actually increase discrimination against women invisibly. Behind this person who posted this joke is actually to avoid criticism, so he chooses to use jokes in certain special occasions and environments as a means to conceal his true attitude and thoughts in his heart, which will lead to serious consequences (Ford, 2016).

The Impact of Online Hate Speech

In fact, verbal harm can lead to mental harm, causing certain long-term and continuous mental trauma, and this impact will accumulate little by little like poison (Sinpeng et al., 2021). In academia, the harm caused by hate speech is divided into two types, constitutively and causally (Maitra and McGowan 2012, 6).

Constitutively harms is to legitimize their hate speech, and causally harms is the direct result of hate speech, such as expanding hate behavior or speech against a certain group or individual, or even leading to violent behavior. (Sinpeng et al., 2021).

Figure 3:The image from the Centre (Tham & Ahmad, 2021)

Why didn’t the platform stop it in time? What are the existing blocking measures?

Now there are various business models on many social media platforms, and these business models are based on attracting the attention of target users. When faced with some hate speech in a humorous way, social media companies care more about commercial value rather than the impact of hate speech on society. Therefore, some hate speech will be more easily displayed in various ways on social media (Theil, 2023).

Now, as more and more people use social media, the number of people using social media has increased by about 260 million new users in the past year. Now the number of social media users in the world will reach about 5.24 billion at the beginning of 2025, accounting for about 64% of the world’s total population (Global Social Media Statistics — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights, n.d.). When each platform faces such a large number of users from various countries, with different cultural backgrounds and multiple languages, it is difficult to detect whether there is hate speech, so there are great differences in the handling of hate speech in various countries.

Figure 4: the screenshot from Global Social Media Statistics (Global Social Media Statistics — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights, n.d.)

Facebook is the third most used social media software (Global Social Media Statistics — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights, n.d.). However, when faced with different ethnic cultures and nearly 2,000 languages ​​in Asia-Pacific countries, Facebook page administrators cannot fully fulfill the important role of gatekeepers, because according to research, most page administrators are volunteers, but they do not understand or have not read Facebook’s community standards at all, and have not received good training, so they do not show their professionalism in this important role (Sinpeng et al., 2021).

You need to know the local culture and knowledge to understand the meaning. Many local words cannot be directly translated into English. For example, paninirang in the Philippines is translated as verbal defamation in English, but in the Philippines, paninirang is used to describe hate speech (Sinpeng et al., 2021). Therefore, social media platforms cannot directly detect comments or content related to hate speech. As a result, the system cannot delete some content related to hate speech, and this content continues to spread step by step over time.

Some European countries have very strict laws on hate speech. In December 2021, the European Commission expanded the EU list of hate speech to include hate speech and crime in accordance with the EU Movement Treaty, hoping that all member states will provide more protection for victims on this basis (Immenkamp & Zamfir, 2024). The EU has even passed a series of directives prohibiting discrimination for various reasons and has defined hate speech as a criminal offense (Immenkamp & Zamfir, 2024).

In Australia, civil legal channels are mainly used to deal with the spread of hate speech. In 1975, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was signed to provide relevant laws on dealing with hate speech. In particular, relevant criminal laws have been established in Western Australia. In 2011, a person was convicted of harassment and racial discrimination against Jews and sentenced to three years in prison (Shields & Forbes, 2023).

Faced with the diversity of cultural backgrounds and languages, Asian countries have actively established partnerships with local people, governments, social media platform companies and other stakeholders to bring together various stakeholders to jointly detect hate speech and other content (Combating Hate Speech: Lessons From Asia, 2024).

Why do tragic incidents still happen even though the platform has prevent them?

The time issue is that after the release of hate speech, when the algorithm cannot accurately detect the content of the relevant hate speech, it often takes a period of fermentation, from the initial release to being seen by others, and then being forwarded by related users. A series of operations will ferment the hate speech again and expand rapidly, which will affect some people or some groups. For example, on Chinese social media, a person named Hu Zhengzheng posted a victim’s experience on social media on April 3, 2022, and on April 4, a big V forwarded the public opinion fermentation. On April 5, the victim collapsed when facing hate speech again, and on April 6, the victim fell from the building. In just 4 days, the victim ended his life under the huge pressure of these remarks (Hu, 2024). This shows the speed of spreading speech on the Internet, and some hate speech can make people feel more painful than being cut by a knife, so that the victim chose to end his life when he had his own children and family. When the social network platform cannot quickly delete the relevant speech, its spread speed is unpredictable.

How to protect users’ freedom of speech while regulating hate speech?

Although freedom of speech is important, it is still necessary to draw a clear line between hate speech and user freedom of speech (Theil, 2023).

Failure to prevent hate speech may cause mental or actual harm to some groups and individuals. In many countries, it is illegal to make inciting violent remarks about sexual orientation, race, etc. Even now, many countries agree that hate speech that denigrates some groups should be banned because such speech causes some people to be unable to maintain a free and equal social status (Theil, 2023).

Historians have shown that some speech will cause some people not to regard some groups as having equal social status like themselves, and condone some brutal acts. For example, the massacre of indigenous people by colonists (Guo, n.d.). When faced with these inhumane hate speeches, I am afraid that it is also a kind of condoning of atrocities.

People can express their opinions, but they cannot express opinions or speech based on hurting others.

Figure 5:The screenshot from the United Nations (Hate Speech Versus Freedom of Speech | United Nations, 2019)

Let’s say no to hate speech

Figure 6:The image from The Religious for Peace(Tham & Ahmad, 2021)

1. Do not publish or forward related content

2. Search for relevant and correct content when facing harmful content. Do not remain silent, say no boldly, and then use correct information to support your views when facing safety

3. You can use challenging thinking and positive speech to reduce the content of hate speech

4. Report hate speech to relevant organizations for complaint

5. If there is an opportunity, you can organize the promotion of knowledge about what is hate speech and promote positive energy behavior

Ending hate speech requires everyone’s help

Social media has given everyone in the world a way to communicate, allowing us to communicate with family, friends and strangers anytime and anywhere, allowing us to show our own side, but at the same time, social media has also allowed some people to over-express themselves. Many people think that posting hate speech on social media at will, using some obscure terms that cannot be detected by the platform algorithm, and posting hate speech about race, gender, homosexuality, etc. at will. However, these hate speeches may mislead some groups, such as young people. When they encounter a large number of hate speech on the Internet during their learning stage of life, they may find it difficult to distinguish the truth from the false, and then follow the hate speech to do the wrong thing. Now social media platforms and some related policies and governments are constantly paying attention to and improving relevant regulations and laws, but it is far from enough at present (Sinpeng et al., 2021). For example, in some Southeast Asian countries, the language cannot even be translated into English correctly, so that the algorithm cannot detect whether it is hate speech, and manual review is still required in the end (Sinpeng et al., 2021). However, faced with a large amount of content on the platform, it is often impossible to stop it immediately. So in the end, I call on everyone to stop hate speech. Let us make good use of social media platforms to spread positive energy together!

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References

Combating Hate Speech: Lessons from Asia. (2024, September 04). UN Sustainable Development   Group. https://unsdg.un.org/

Ford, T. E. (2016, September 6). Psychology behind the unfunny consequences of jokes that denigrate. The Conversation. Retrieved April 6, 2025, from https://theconversation.com/psychology-behind-the-unfunny-consequences-of-jokes-that-denigrate-63855

Global Social Media Statistics — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights. (n.d.). DataReportal. Retrieved April 11, 2025, from https://datareportal.com/social-media-users

Guo, J. (n.d.). World in Paradox: Hate Speech vs. Speech Freedom. Annenberg School for Communication. Retrieved April 6, 2025, from https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/milton-wolf-seminar-media-and-diplomacy/blog/world-paradox-hate-speech-vs-speech-freedom

Hate speech versus freedom of speech | United Nations. (2019, May). the United Nations. Retrieved April 11, 2025, from https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/hate-speech-versus-freedom-of-speech

Hu, z. (2024, October 21). The gun goes off, you and I could be the next victims. rednote. https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/6714d5c30000000026035ceb?note_flow_source=wechat&xsec_token=CBn8Et7qlrG5wwfubCo2IhQ2EdqlOBrJkARhT0KZuBTMU=

Immenkamp, B., & Zamfir, I. (2024, September). Hate speech and hate crime: time to act? European Parliament. Retrieved April 6, 2025, from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2024/762389/EPRS_BRI(2024)762389_EN.pdf

Justin. (2023, July 9). Understanding the Urge to Express Opinions on Social Media. Medium. https://medium.com/illumination/understanding-the-urge-to-express-opinions-on-social-media-8b751ba95b31

Komesaroff, P., Jackson, L., James, P., & Gardner, S. M. (2023, September 4). How hate speech during the Voice campaign can harm personal wellbeing, as well as democracy. The Conversation. Retrieved April 11, 2025, from https://theconversation.com/how-hate-speech-during-the-voice-campaign-can-harm-personal-wellbeing-as-well-as-democracy-211730

Minorities and the Escalation of Hate Speech in the West: Causes and Solutions. (n.d.). Religions for peace. https://www.rfp.org/event/minorities-and-the-escalation-of-hate-speech-in-the-west-causes-and-solutions/

Shields, K., & Forbes, M. (2023, January). HATE SPEECH LEGISLATION IN THE ASIA PACIFIC: A COMPENDIUM. Asia Pacific Centre. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_8a7d451/APC-Speech-Compendium-Final.pdf?Expires=1744029698&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ&Signature=frdOMbhXFmiMQQN-qRSO-RjElcB8Uc1zwv03wEVU9GVC2stnB4GtCTmmkxrd~WyvqdASQ1pnrgnTDRAvm5UL0zMFSyMZLqc0~fpcQcgwpUQCVsifL

Sinpeng, A., Martin, F., Gelber, K., & Shields, K. (2021, July 5). Facebook: Regulating Hate Speech in the Asia Pacific. Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Retrieved April 6, 2025, from https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/25116.3/Facebook_hate_speech_Asia_report_final_5July2021.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Teen Voices: Hate Speech Online. (2019, September 16). YouTube. Retrieved April 11, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vUdWpwLv10

Tham, J. V., & Ahmad, K. (2021, July 16). Managing Online Hate Speech In Malaysia Requires Detecting It. THE CENTRE. https://www.centre.my/post/managing-online-hate-speech-in-malaysia-requires-detecting-itTheil, S. (2023, November 8). Hate speech regulation on social media: An intractable contemporary challenge. Research Outreach. Retrieved April 6, 2025, from https://researchoutreach.org/articles/hate-speech-regulation-social-media-intractable-contemporary-challenge/