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Social Media in Africa: An Emerging Force for Autocrats and Activists

Geoffrey York

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 415-430

"The most extreme damage inflicted by social media can be seen in South Sudan. As documented in the chapter by Theo Dolan, social media in South Sudan has contributed to hatred and conflict among ethnic groups. Many investigators, including UN investigators, have warned that South Sudan's social med ... ia are triggering violence against ethnic groups. Since the beginning of the civil war in late 2013, social media has fuelled waves of hate speech that have provoked deadly violence and ethnic conflict in South Sudan, including massacres and other atrocities. In that sense, social media has become a new variation of the "hate radio" phenomenon that flourished in Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide … Social media is also emerging as a powerful way to harass and intimidate the opponents of a regime or a political party. In this sense, it adds another weapon to the arsenal of a powerful regime that already has multiple weapons at its disposal. A regime can mobilize its supporters to use social media in a targeted way against its foes, or it can use its financial resources to create a fake army of fictional users on social media. In either case, it is tilting the playing field against its enemies. A targeted attack through social media can be more effective than the telephone threats or messages often deployed in the past. The use of social media can be more intimidating because it belittles the targeted person in front of a much bigger audience. The presence of this audience means that the attack is more damaging, more difficult to ignore and has the potential to mobilize large numbers of people against the victim … While social media is often used for anti-democratic purposes in Africa's authoritarian states, it has also been used as a force for reform, accountability and justice. It has helped to safeguard the fairness of elections. It has allowed greater scrutiny of potential threats, such as vote-rigging or violence, allowing citizens to be alerted when there is still a chance to prevent the worst abuses. It has put a spotlight on corruption and political wrongdoing, allowing activists to mobilize pressure on governments to resolve these long-neglected problems. In some cases, as it did in the Arab Spring, social media has played a role in toppling an authoritarian state. When an election was called in the small West African state of Gambia, where the dictator Yahya Jammeh had ruled for 22 years, opposition candidates had little access to state-controlled media. So the main opposition party created more than a dozen WhatsApp groups, allowing it to communicate with voters. Other forms of social media also proliferated. A leading independent group, the Gambia Youth and Women's Forum, discussed election issues on a public Facebook group with 55,000 members. The government blocked access to WhatsApp and eventually extended the shutdown to the entire internet, but Gambians used virtual private network (VPN) technology to bypass the shutdown. The opposition won the election and Jammeh was forced to flee the country." (Pages 419-423) more

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Counter-Narratives: Myanmar's Digital Media Activists

Sarah Oh

In: Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change

Lisa Brooten, Jane Madlyn McElhone, Gayathry Venkiteswaran (eds.)

Singapore: ISEAS (2019), pp. 377-386

"In the months before Myanmar's national elections in November 2015, Khin Oo says she began to engage directly with Facebook users to dispel rumours and misinformation that, in her view, propagated hate and inflamed intercommunal tensions. She posted "right speech" and "right information" by comment ... more

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"Fake News," Dangerous Speech and Mass Violence: Challenges for Social Media in the Developing World

Stephanie MacLellan

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 483-500

"The cases discussed in this chapter have demonstrated how disinformation and rhetoric that is spread through social media in the developing world often meets the Benesch criteria for dangerous speech. It comes from influential sources, which can include family and friends who share it. It plays on ... more

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Network of Hatred: How Right-Wing Extremists Use Social Media to Court Young People

Alexandra Beyersdörfer, Flemming Ipsen, Steffen Eisentraut et al.

Mainz: jugendschutz.net (2019), 20 pp.

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"Hate Speech: Was tun?": Online-Weiterbildungsangebot für Fachkräfte und interessierte Userinnen und User

jugendschutz.net (2019), 6 pp.

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Jenseits der "Big three": Alternative Plattformen für Hassrede online

sCAN-Projektkonsortium (2019), 16 pp.

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Facebook India. Towards the Tipping Point of Violence: Caste and Religious Hate Speech

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Abishek Kumar, Priya Nair, Josh Greely

Equality Labs (2019), 65 pp.

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Free Speech in the Digital Age

Susan J. Brison, Katharine Gelber (eds.)

New York: Oxford University Press (2019), xvi, 259 pp.

"This collection of thirteen new essays is the first to examine, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, how the new technologies and global reach of the internet are changing the theory and practice of free speech. The rapid expansion of online communication, as well as the changing roles of gov ... more

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The relationship between influential actors’ language and violence: A Kenyan case study using artificial intelligence

Chris Mahony, Eduardo Albrecht, Murat Sensoy

London; Oxford: Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development (2019), 79 pp.

"Scholarly work addressing the drivers of violent conflict predominantly focus on macro-level factors, often surrounding social group-specific grievances relating to access to power, justice, security, services, land, and resources. Recent work identifies these factors of risk and their heightened r ... more

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From Preachers to Comedians: Ideal Types of Hate Speakers in Brazil

Liriam Sponholz, Rogério Christofoletti

Global Media and Communication, volume 15, issue 1 (2019), pp. 67-84

"This article attempts to develop a theoretical framework in order to understand how the media system has been enabling public figures to use hate speech to enhance their media prominence. The current scenario in Brazil, shaped by a high concentration of (private) media ownership, an economic crisis ... more

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Freedom of Expression and Religious Hate Speech in Europe

Erica Howard

London; New York: Routledge (2018), xv, 191 pp.

"In recent years, the Danish cartoons affair, the Charlie Hebdo murders and the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris have resulted in increasingly strident anti-Islamic speeches by politicians. This raises questions about the limits to freedom of expression and whether this freedom can and should ... more

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Putting Faith in Hate: When Religion is the Source or Target of Hate Speech

Richard Moon

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2018), ix, 161 pp.

"Richard Moon examines the application of hate speech laws when religion is either the source or target of such speech. Moon describes the various legal restrictions on hate speech, religious insult, and blasphemy in Canada, Europe and elsewhere, and uses cases from different jurisdictions to illust ... more

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The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action

Robin Andersen, Robin Purnaka L. de Silva (eds.)

London: Routledge (2018), xxiv, 572 pp.

"In this moment of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the representations of global disasters are increasingly common media themes around the world. The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action explores the interconnections between media, old and new, and the humanitarian challenges that ... more

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The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online

Whitney Phillips

Data & Society Research Institute (2018), 128 pp.

"Part One, 'In Their Own Words: Trolling, Meme Culture, and Journalists’ Reflections on the 2016 US Presidential Election,' provides a historical overview of the relationship between the news media and far-right manipulators during the 2016 US presidential election. Part Two, 'At a Certain Point Y ... more

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Violent Extremism in Central Asia 2018: A Preliminary Survey of Groups, Digital Dimensions and State Responses

Ottawa; Bishkek: SecDev; Civil Initiative on Internet Policy (CIIP) (2018), 45 pp.

"Over the past decade, radicalisation to violent extremism (VE) has become a matter of pressing public and political concern in Central Asia. Between 2000 and 5000 Central Asians responded to calls to join jihad in Syria and Afghanistan, most of them radicalised while foreign workers in the labour c ... more

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Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics

Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts

New York, NY: Oxford University Press (2018), ix, 462 pp.

"Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage o ... more

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Social Media and Conflict in Cameroon: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms

Nicola Barrach-Yousefi

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Local Youth Corner Cameroon (2018), 43 pp.

"PeaceTech Lab undertook extensive research to understand the role that online hate speech plays in the ongoing crisis. Rooted in a series of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with expert insights from local Cameroonians, Social Media and Conflict in Cameroon, published in October 2018 ... more

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Social Media and Conflict in Nigeria: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms

Will Ferroggiaro

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab (2018), 40 pp.

"PeaceTech Lab developed a Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms in Nigeria, combining cutting-edge social media analysis with in-country expertise to identify both the terms likely to incite violence and their social and political context. The Lexicon, published in April 2018, also identifies alternative la ... more

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Youth and Radicalization in Mombasa, Kenya: A Lexicon of Violent Extremist Language on Social Media

Lauren Van Metre

Washington, DC: PeaceTech Lab; Media Monitoring Africa (2018), 36 pp.

"Though it’s well-known that extremist groups like al-Shabaab use social media to spread fear and recruit susceptible youth, there’s very little evidence-based research that details how at-risk youth use social media and how language is weaponized online by extremists to radicalize and recruit t ... more

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Hate Ontology

Platforms, Experts, Tools: Specialised Cyber-Activists Network (sCAN); International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (Licra) (2018), 33 pp.