Article
Understanding the rise in online hate speech in Portugal and Spain: a gap between occurrence and reporting
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1Hate speech is verbal aggression directed toward an individual or group because of attributes traditionally indicative of social vulnerability. According to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), racism and xenophobia are the main motivation for hate-based threats in the EU with almost 2000 reported cases, out of 3370, between 2016-2020. Official Portuguese and Spanish data show migrants as the most frequent victims.
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2Hate speech becomes a more complex and nuanced phenomenon in online contexts. When people are online, they tend to display high levels of disinhibition, deceptive behaviour, lack of empathy, and moral disengagement regarding their own misbehaviour. Indeed, a study from 2021 by Casa do Brasil de Lisboa showed that the main context in which respondents perceived hate speech against immigrants in Portugal is online (32%).
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3Hate speech is hard to detect and measure. Available data usually focus on hate crimes in general. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, for instance, reported 7,203 hate incidents in 2020, but more may have occurred without even being documented.
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4The gap between the occurrence and reporting of hate speech may be explained by legal factors. In fact, the lack of legal consensus on whether hate speech is a crime and the perceived inefficacy of existing control mechanisms in social media represent the main reason (> 40%) for not reporting, according to the EU-MIDIS II, 2016.
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5Aside from legal factors, there are also social motives for this gap. The lack of reporting from bystanders (e.g., because they do not know how to do so or fear retaliation), the diversity of targets and content of hate speech, and the legitimisation of this behaviour by opinion makers increase the difficulty of detecting and, thus, countering hate speech.
