Since its earliest days, the internet has been hailed as a uniquely open marketplace of ideas, and it has become an essential means for people to access information and services. The downside of this is that, alongside its many valuable resources, the internet also offers a host of offensive materials – including hateful content – that attempt to inflame public opinion against certain groups and to turn people against one another.
Hate Speech is more than just harsh words. It can be any form of expression intended to humiliate, harass or incite hatred against a person or a group of people. Racially, ethnically or even religiously, hate appears frequently on popular social media such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Because of the nature of social media, online hate speech can reach a large number of people and is viewed as seriously as any other Hate Crime. Arrests can be made and the person posting it could end up with a criminal record or even imprisonment.
Cyberbullying is often similar to traditional bullying, with some notable distinctions. Victims of cyberbullying may not know the identity of their bully, or why the bully is targeting them, based on the online nature of the interaction. The harassment can have wide-reaching effects on the victim, as the content used to harass the victim can be spread and shared easily among many people and often remains accessible long after the initial incident. Online hate directly affects their self-esteem and self-worth and has very real impacts on their mental wellbeing with many reporting high rates of anxiety and depression. Online hate may cause direct and indirect effects on individuals' psychological wellbeing, short and long term, with the amount of damage significantly bigger in case of victimisation, compared to mere witnessing. More specifically, victims of online hate may show low self-esteem, sleeping disorders, increased anxiety and feelings of fear and insecurity. They may feel lonely or isolated.
About online hate by famous people:-
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the problem of using artificial intelligence to identify online hate speech. He said he was optimistic that in five to 10 years, “We will have AI tools that can get into some of the linguistic nuances of different types of content to be more accurate in flagging content for our systems, but today we’re not just there on that.”
Andre Oboler, the CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, has noted, "The longer the content stays available, the more damage it can inflict on the victims and empower the perpetrators. If you remove the content at an early stage you can limit the exposure. This is just like cleaning litter, it doesn't stop people from littering but if you do not take care of the problem it just piles up and further exacerbates."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that online harassment “has no place on Twitter”. Dorsey explained that Twitter is "the place for news and social commentary" and that it will "never will be a platform that shows people only part of what's happening or part of what's being said."
My Experience: I myself didn’t experience any online hate but I saw it happening to other people many times. I started using Instagram for only a few months and I have already started seeing so many hate comments or hate speech being used by others. Once I saw a hate comment and then I reported it. After reporting it, Instagram removed that comment. I hope that everyone knows their responsibility and they should report if any cybercrime happens.
Tsering Lamo
My name is Tsering Lamo and I'm from Ladakh. I study at Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore. My hobbies are drawing and listening to music