- Palpable rise in racist hate speech online
- Counter speech against racism: Only 14 percent respond with active denunciations
- eco is a member of the Task Force for Combatting Hate Speech Online
Racist hate speech on social media is no longer a collection of isolated incidents. According to a recent representative survey carried out by the polling institute YouGov on behalf of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, over a third of the population have encountered racist hate speech online. In the group of 18 – 24 year olds, this applies to well over half of users (62%). Of those, 7% of respondents reported personally having been a target of hate speech.
The current statistics of the eco Complaints Office confirm these figures, with a huge jump in the number of complaints being made related to racism and right-wing radicalism. Compared to 2014, the Complaints Office recorded an over 150 percent surge in justified complaints related to racism in 2015.
“The enormous growth in hate speech shows that we have to take this problem seriously. We need effective mechanisms to combat the spread of racist thought online. At the same time, we can see that people are becoming aware of the issue and are prepared to actively do something about it. The reporting of suspect posts to a complaints office or directly to the platform operator is an important first step towards fighting such content, right up to prosecuting the authors,” says Oliver Süme, eco Director of Policy and Law. According to the eco survey, over 30 percent already make use of these reporting options.
Counter Speech against Hate Speech: Only 14 percent respond with active denunciations
Another possible antidote to hate speech could be the idea of “counter speech”. This is the strategy of aiming to neutralize hate speech with counter-arguments and counter posts. The current eco survey, however, shows that only 14 percent of participants would react to racist online posts with their own comments. Almost half (45%) of respondents said that they completely ignore hate speech online.
eco is a member of the Task Force for Combatting Hate Speech Online
The German government, in cooperation with providers, civil society organizations and providers of Internet services such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, has set up a task force to deal with illegal hate speech online. eco is also a member of the task force.
The impact of the various initiatives taken by politics, business and civil society still needs to be intensified. According to the survey, only 23% of respondents knew of the efforts being made to combat hate speech.
An infographic with a summary of the survey’s results can be downloaded here (PDF).
More information on the Complaints Office can be found here.
