Is Social Media a Threat to Democracy? Issue Six: Intolerance, exclusion of disadvantaged or marginalized voices, public humiliation, and hate speech Much has been written about the anonymity and distance that gives social media its promise and power to promote speech, for example, in repressive contexts such as the Arab Spring, in cases involving whistle-blowers, and in allowing individuals to speak freely about gender, representation, and identity. However, as Figure 2 shows, it is also the case that such design enables hate speech by individuals, public humiliation, and racial and sexual harassment. In Myanmar, where there is much instability and violence within the country, major portions of the content on Facebook—a significant source of news for locals—are said to be divisive and hateful.38 BuzzFeed has documented that the issue extends to the political elite. Rappler has found similar evidence in the Philippines.39 With respect to disadvantaged or minority voices, demeaning hashtag labels have become an organizing mechanism to target a certain group, e.g., “snowflake” for liberals in America; “libtard” (liberal+retard) or “sickular” (slur for secularist); “presstitutes” in the Philippines and India are commonly used hashtag slurs to troll those who speak unfavorably of the populist governments. The profusion of such content, and the relative lack of grievance and redress options, can result in significant norm-shifting over time as to what is acceptable and allowable. Constant online abuse can lead members of frequently targeted groups—women and minorities—to self-censor or opt out of participating in public. Figure 2: % of users reporting negative experiences on social media 50 Data from Statista 43% 40 30 22% 21% 20 17% 16% 10% 10 9% 1% 0 Unwanted contact Treated mean Trolling Online harrassment Hate speech Discrimination Cyberbullying Terrorism recruiting Type of Negative Experience The Institute for War and Peace Reporting found 565 cases of hate speech on social and broadcast media in Myanmar from August to October last year, with just over half targeted to Muslims and Rohingya. Yi Shu Ng, Facebook finds it tough figuring out real hate speech from puns, Mashable, Published May 29, 2017, http://mashable. com/2017/05/29/facebook-myanmar-hate-speech/#M9iVt2v_jkqi 38 © Copyright The Omidyar Group 2017. All rights reserved. and Hein Ko Soe, Hitting back against hate speech, Frontier Myanmar, Published September 16, 2016, https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/hitting-back-against-hate-speech. 39 See http://mashable.com/2017/05/29/facebook-myanmar-hatespeech/#80bBOVXA9kqB PAGE 13