Liking violenceA study of hate speech on Facebook in Sri Lanka

Targets

• Women, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, Christians and especially the evangelical Christian community, NGOs, rights activists, politicians from minority communities and even, tellingly, Buddhist priests who support religious harmony.

The report• 10 August 2013: A Muslim prayer centre, the

Masjid Deenul Islam on Swarna Chaithya Road in Grandpass, Colombo

• 15 June 2014: The violence in Aluthgama directed against the Muslim community

• 20 Facebook pages, including first 10 comments on key posts at the time of the study

Aluthgama

• In August 2014, the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon noted that he was “alarmed by the rising level of attacks in Sri Lanka against religious minorities…” and “concerned that Buddhist communities are being swept up by a rising tide of extremist sentiment against other groups.”

Why• better understand the content produced online in

support or defence of extremism,

• the patterns that form between extremist pages and voices therein,

• common characteristics of hate speech used to garner support for extremism,

• explore the identities of the groups or people behind the production of the content,

Working definitions• A powerful speaker with influence over an audience;

• An audience vulnerable to incitement;

• Content of the speech that may be taken as inflammatory or inciteful;

• A conducive social and historical context of the speech; and

• An influential means of disseminating the speech.

Key points• “Hate speech” on the Internet is a global concern

and with no kill-switch solution.

• The growth of content creation and consumption online, wider and deeper than any other media in the country and at an accelerated pace, has also resulted in low risk, low cost and high impact online spaces to spread hate, harm and hurt against specific communities, individuals or ideas.

Key points• Content predominantly in Sinhala

• Requires context to understand and address

• Age group is 24 - 35, on many pages as low as 18

• Fans are similar to each other - a high degree of homophily / echo chambers / the world filtered through news-feeds of friends

Key points

• Platform level algorithmic frameworks to identify and block hateful and harmful content often fail, simply because they flag too many false positives (content erroneously flagged as hate speech) or allow so much of hate speech to pass through (in Sinhala) that their core purpose rendered irrelevant.

Key points• Even the most offensive anti-Muslim sentiments

and statements have a growing audience and following in web based social media

• Social media content has a greater ‘virality’ and a ‘long-tail’

• Content is largely visual in nature, appealing to (and possibly created by) a demographic as young as 18 (who are still in school)

Key points• Anti-Muslim hate speech is generally, qualitatively

more vicious than anti-LTTE sentiments even at the height of war

• Numbers of those joining these groups shows no discernible decline

• High level of sophistication and planning around content production and online virality suggests individual pages could be part of larger, strategic group efforts

Key points

• SM content augments rumours, a dominant form of discourse under authoritarian regimes.

• Facebook content is perceived as more trustworthy, independent (filtered through ‘friends’).

Some examplesFrom the Bodu Bala Sena communities / networks on Facebook

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• Education

• Present content as being educational, professing to provide true facts and figures where other forms of media do not.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• ‘Denialism’

• Claims that certain events either did not happen or have been exaggerated.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• Building Group Solidarity

• Calls to protect the group, and in particular the most vulnerable within the group, women and children.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• Hero Narrative

• Bolstering members' self-esteem by giving them opportunities to think of themselves as heroes in defence of their group.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• Nationalism / Patriotism

• Portraying hate mongers as defenders of their nation, and by positioning groups they consider to be outsiders as the enemy.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• Scare Tactics

• This occurs primarily through describing the situation Sinhala Buddhists are in portraying them as a very small group with only Sri Lanka to live in. A sense of urgency.

Leitmotifs of hate speech

• ‘Othering’

• Portraying the ‘Other’ in ways that emphasise difference - making them seem strange, even inhuman.

Addressing the issue• Two key challenges present themselves in relation to

hate speech (Benesch):

1. To identify unlawful speech, and especially to distinguish it from political speech, which constitutes the exercise of a human right, and which is essential for democratic functioning at all times…

2. To find best practices for limiting the dangerousness of such speech, without curbing the exercise of freedom of expression

Addressing the issue

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Pakistan, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka

Recommendations

• counter-messaging: Buddhists Questioning the Bodu Bala Sena, Not In Our Name initiative, Mixed Riced initiative, Rally for Unity page on Facebook

• if you can understand network dynamics, you can act in a timely manner to curtail negativity

Recommendations

• more sustained monitoring of SM hate speech trends, so as to create early warning mechanisms that alert relevant authorities and civil society stakeholders around heightened tensions online that could explode into, or exacerbate, real world violence

Recommendations

• digital media literacy campaigns for children, youth, parents, teachers, community leaders, clergy

Recommendations

• editorial policies that also, on principle, disallow defamatory and inflammatory content from the institution’s articles, columns and broadcasts

Recommendations

• ‘Anti-Hate Speech Pledge’ for politicians and political parties, Dr. Tarlach McGonagle’s work on addressing online hate speech in Europe (expanded to corporate entities, civil society institutions)

Observations

• The issue is not the non-existence of relevant legal frameworks, but their non-application or selective application.

• Correlation however isn’t causation: Imagined violence has not yet, with same ferocity, translated into real violence.

Observations• The growth of hate speech online in Sri Lanka does

not guarantee another pogrom.

• It does however pose a range of other challenges to government and governance around social, ethnic, cultural and religious co-existence, diversity and, ultimately, to the very core of debates around how we see and organise ourselves post-war.

• Ideational justification key foundation for real world violence

Thank youwww.cpalanka.org | bit.ly/hatespeechsl