Social Media’s Fake News and Hate Speech Fuel Racism in Europe
A Black children. Photo: X/ @AquiEuropa
August 25, 2024 Hour: 9:49 am
In Spain, most hate messages target people from North Africa and contain Islamophobic rhetoric.
Racist misinformation spreads quickly on social media, fueled by extremists who criminalize immigration and falsely attribute murders and other crimes to foreigners, as has recently happened in Spain and the United Kingdom.
RELATED:
Anti-Racism Protesters Take to Streets in UK After Days of Unrest
The murder of a child a week ago in a Spanish town and the multiple stabbings that resulted in the deaths of three girls in the British town of Southport at the end of July triggered a wave of unfounded accusations against foreign populations.
This highlights “the serious consequences of misinformation and hate speech on social media,” said Maria Tejada, co-author of the research study “The Rise of Xenophobia in Europe.”
In the British case, it is not true that the alleged perpetrator was a terrorist infiltrator who arrived by boat in the country, as was claimed on social media, but rather a 17-year-old boy born in Wales to Rwandan parents. However, the unrest spilled over from the internet onto the streets of the UK, with hundreds arrested during riots instigated by far-right activists.
In light of these events, Tejada laments “the leap” this represents, as it is a clear example that, far from decreasing, hate speech is increasing and “is no longer confined to closed circles on social media but is now on the streets and impacting our reality.”
Dehumanizing the Different
According to the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, most hate messages on social media target people from North Africa (33.7 percent) and contain Islamophobic rhetoric (26.2 percent), which affects the Moroccan population, the second-largest foreign nationality in Spain.
More than half of hate speech on social media is used to severely dehumanize or degrade the victim (53.7 percent); 28.2 percent present immigrants as a threat; and in 21.6 percent of cases, there is incitement to expulsion, the study adds.
“Social media acts as an echo chamber… But these groups reinforce themselves by communicating only with like-minded people, which creates the false sense that they are the majority and feel legitimized to take to the streets to impose their views,” Tejera said, citing the assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 as an example.
Social media “facilitates the spread of hate speech from minority groups to the streets, leading to discussions on issues like immigration, which they place on the agenda,” and this is a precursor to outbreaks of violence like those in Britain.
It’s a violence that could have occurred in Spain, where the arrival of irregular immigrants from Africa is increasing daily, following the recent murder of Mateo, an 11-year-old boy, while he was playing on a soccer field in the town of Mocejon. But “it was stopped in time due to the quick resolution of the crime and the arrest of a suspect who was not an immigrant,” Tejada explains.
In this case, numerous messages on social media baselessly claimed that the criminal was a Maghrebi immigrant. The child’s family called for society to “reflect” and “put an end to hate, xenophobia, homophobia, and any kind of violence.”
An Old and International Problem
Tejada emphasizes that the phenomenon is international and must be addressed globally, although those countries with stronger anti-immigration parties are more susceptible to episodes of violence. And according to Manuel Rodenas, president of the Association of Lawyers Against Hate Crimes, the situation surrounding Mateo’s murder “is nothing new,” but rather “a problem that has been present for a long time.”
“We live in a highly polarized society where certain values, such as respect for diversity and for people, are diluted or have disappeared altogether. When these values are not widespread in society, hate speech and hate crimes arise,” he said, adding that this is not a phenomenon generated on social media and confined to the virtual realm, but that this space “feeds off” the real world in a vicious cycle.
For all these reasons, he supports the Spanish Prosecutor’s request to find mechanisms to end anonymity on social media, as “the authorship of a message is very easy to hide” in digital environments and it is necessary “to properly defend the victims.”
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
