Study shows social media platforms have been derelict in policing hate speech

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 | 2 a.m.

A new report on social media and racism presents an open-and-shut case that the online platforms are fueling the spread of antisemitism and helping stoke the hatred that is tearing our society apart.

Conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in the United States and United Kingdom, the study involved flagging 714 posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok that clearly violated the platforms’ user policies.

The researchers document that fewer than 1 in 6 of those offensive posts were removed.

That’s an 84% failure rate. And more alarming yet, the 714 posts drew a massive amount of sharing, getting 7.3 million impressions.

These were posts that included Nazi, neo-Nazi and white supremacist content. As reported by The Guardian, the companies were “particularly poor at acting on antisemitic conspiracy theories, including tropes about ‘Jewish puppeteers,’ the Rothschild family and George Soros, as well as misinformation connecting Jewish people to the pandemic. Holocaust denial was also often left unchecked, with 80% of posts denying or downplaying the murder of 6 million Jews receiving no enforcement action whatsoever.”

Facebook had the worst response rate, deleting just 10.9% of offensive posts, and Twitter wasn’t far behind. Not one of the five platforms removed even a quarter of the posts.

Nor was this something the companies could blame on algorithms or automation, as the study revealed that reported violations were met with silence and users were allowed to maintain their accounts even though human moderators were alerted.

The companies responded to the report with pure lip service, offering statements saying in essence that they’d made progress in addressing hateful messages but that more work was needed.

But it’s obvious these companies are not doing nearly enough to control a monster they created with their irresponsibility — one that is spreading social viruses and actively destabilizing cultures worldwide.

These platforms get rich being a collective hate machine promulgating bigotry and helping to organize the far-right violent organizations we’re seeing today — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and many, many more.

For all of social media’s promises to address racism, they fully realize that nothing drives their user engagement — the engine of their profits — like hatred. The tagging algorithms essential to social media inevitably reward extreme fringe players. Thus, encouraging antisemitism and other forms of bigotry is part of their business model, and the involvement of hate groups and spread of conspiracy theories are inevitable consequences.

As long as these platforms feel their only responsibility is to make money, they will do so at any cost, even if that means creating a more perfectly hateful union.

The report urged federal lawmakers to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from lawsuits if its users post racist material, to allow anyone who is harmed by online hate posts to sue the companies for monetary damages. Also, the report suggests modeling federal policy on a German law that establishes significant financial penalties for companies that fail to swiftly remove hateful content, including Holocaust denial and racist tropes.

“This would create an economic disincentive to inaction,” the researchers write.

Other recommendations are aimed at the companies themselves, including hiring and training more moderators to remove offensive content, closing user accounts of violators and banning racist hashtags.

Titled “Failure to Protect,” the report offers sobering yet important reading that illuminates the problem and points the way forward. We encourage our readers to take a look at it, including Nevada’s elected leaders.

See the report at ​​counterhate.com/failuretoprotect.