Hate speechTo curb hate speech on social media, we need to look beyond Facebook, Twitter: Experts

Published 5 July 2017

Germany has passed a new controversial law which requires social media companies quickly to delete hate speech or face heavy fines. The debate over the new law has focused on the most common social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube. Experts say that placing Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube at the center of the debate over hate speech on social media websites is understandable, but it could undermine monitoring less widely known social media players. Some of these smaller players may present more problematic hate speech issues than their bigger rivals.

Germany has passed a new controversial law which requires social media companies quickly to delete hate speech or face heavy fines. The debate over the new law has focused on the most common social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.     

Experts say that placing Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube at the center of the debate over hate speech on social media websites is understandable, but it could undermine monitoring less widely known social media players. Some of these smaller players may present more problematic hate speech issues than their bigger rivals.  

“The debate certainly needs to extend beyond Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube,” Alexander Tsesis, a law professor at Loyola University, who specializes on freedom of expression and hate speech issues, told DW.

“I think the focus on Facebook and Twitter to the exclusion of sites like Reddit, 4chan, or 8chan is extremely problematic,” says Caitlin Carlson, a social media scholar at Seattle University.

“Sites like these are home to some of the most offensive and vitriolic hate speech online and therefore should be considered alongside larger platforms,” she told DW.

Websites like 4chan or 8chan – they are also called image boards, where users can post messages anonymously - are small relative to Facebook or Twitter.

But Reddit, which describes itself as the front page of the internet, is quite popular among social media users.

Alexa, a traffic analytics firm, says Reddit is the eighth-most popular social media platform, right behind Facebook, which is ranked third, and ahead of Twitter which is ranked the eleventh most popular website globally.

DW reports that during and after the November 2016 presidential election, Reddit had become famous for its large alt-right wing forum, called The_Donald, which supported Donald Trump. As was the case with other pro-Trump platforms, Reddit played an important role in mainstreaming baseless and bizarre conspiracy stories, like the Pizzagate story which alleged that Hillary Clinton was running a child pornography network from a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, or a story about Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) being members of a satanic cult. After Reddit ran with stories such as these, smaller alt-right platforms like 4chan and 8chan picked them up, and helped spread the stories.