37% Hate Speech On Facebook Is About Islamophobia, Followed By Fake News, Castiest Slurs In India

Digital hatred is growing leaps and bounds across social media platforms. Fake news, Islamophobia and xenophobia encapsulate most part of hate speech on social media across the world and India is no exception.

A South Asian American human rights and technology research did an analysis of hate speech and disinformation on the social networking site Facebook India. Their findings revealed that the highest proportion of hate speech in India is linked to Islamophobia.

This is followed by false news -16 per cent, and content that can be classified as casteist and gender/sexuality-related hate speech, each accounting for 13 per cent of the hate speech content.

AFP

The report by the US-based Equality Labs titled ¡®Facebook India: Towards The Tipping Point of Violence Caste and Religious Hate Speech¡¯ says that homophobic content is extremely widespread on Facebook that it had to be tracked as independent category. ¡°Homophobic content is foundational to the hate speech echo chamber in Facebook India¡­ (It) is often the most violent, most threatening, and most gruesome,¡± the report reads.

A report by Indian Express based on the study says that the firm analysed over 1,000 posts in six Indian languages over a period of four months.

The study points at failure of content moderation process by Facebook, stating that 93 per cent of hate speech reported are still up on the social media platform. It also says that Facebook¡¯s hiring policies do not include those ¡°with an understanding of issues of caste, religious, gender and queer minorities.¡±

¡°We recognize, respect, and seek to protect the rights of minorities and communities that are often marginalized, both in India and around the world. We have clear rules against hate speech, which we define as attacks against people on the basis of their protected characteristics, including caste, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. We take this extremely seriously and remove this content as soon as we become aware of it. To do this, we have invested in staff in India, including content reviewers, with local language capabilities and an understanding of the country¡¯s longstanding historical and social tensions. We¡¯ve also made significant progress in proactively detecting hate speech on our services before anyone reports it to us, to help us get to potentially harmful content faster," said a Facebook spokesperson, in response to the report.