{"id":5903,"date":"2019-05-20T13:37:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T11:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2019-05-20T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T11:37:29","slug":"islamophobia-endurance-in-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/2019\/05\/20\/islamophobia-endurance-in-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Islamophobia endurance in Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>, and\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0moved to remove or reduce the spread of anti-vaccination content after recent public outcry. The platforms largely eradicated\u00a0ISIS terrorists and made inroads to remove white supremacists<\/a>\u00a0from their services, and worked to keep them off. But through all this, anti-Muslim content has been allowed to fester across social media.<\/p>\n

For years, Muslims endured racial slurs, dehumanizing photos, threats of violence, and targeted harassment campaigns, which continue to spread and generate significant engagement on social media platforms even though it’s prohibited by most terms of service. This is happening amid\u00a0increasing violence against Muslims in the US<\/a>\u00a0and attacks on places of worship worldwide, including last week’s murder of 50 people at\u00a0two mosques in New Zealand<\/a>\u00a0by a man police say was\u00a0steeped in white supremacist internet meme culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Researchers say Facebook is the primary mainstream platform where extremists organize and anti-Muslim content is deliberately spread.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maarten Schenk, editor of the fact-checking site\u00a0Lead Stories<\/a>\u00a0and the developer of\u00a0Trendolizer<\/a>, a tool that can be used to track the virality of fake news, recently\u00a0wrote about a network of 70 Macedonian websites<\/a>\u00a0publishing disinformation for profit. Of the top 10 stories on the websites, eight had the word \u201cMuslim\u201d in the title, Schenk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these stories are old or sensationalized or even completely not true. Yet they keep reappearing over and over again,\u201d he said. \u201cThere clearly is a big \u2018demand\u2019 for such articles if you see how many people are willing to like and share them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trend has been going on for years. In 2017,\u00a0BuzzFeed News reported on the website True Trumpers<\/a>\u00a0that used false anti-Muslim headlines to generate engagement on Facebook and, in turn, financial profit.<\/p>\n

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Islamophobia as a political tool<\/h3>\n

Politicians have also used anti-Muslim rhetoric to bolster their popularity among voters, which then takes off on social media.<\/p>\n

Politicians have also used anti-Muslim rhetoric to bolster their popularity among voters, which then takes off on social media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In April 2018, a BuzzFeed News analysis found that\u00a0Republican officials routinely spread anti-Muslim sentiments<\/a>\u00a0to their constituents across 49 states. People who dislike Muslims\u00a0often belong to other extremist communities<\/a>\u00a0and online anti-Muslim propaganda has\u00a0made its way from Europe to President Trump\u2019s Twitter feed<\/a>.\u00a0Hoaxes about Muslims often live on<\/a>\u00a0even after being debunked. In 2016,\u00a0conservative commentator Allen West<\/a>\u2019s popular Facebook page shared a meme stating that Trump\u2019s former defense secretary, James Mattis, was chosen for the job in order to \u201cexterminate\u201d Muslims.<\/p>\n

Researchers of extremism say the horrifying attack in New Zealand should be the catalyzing moment that makes platforms like Facebook and others put more focus on removing anti-Muslim hate speech from their platforms. But they aren\u2019t optimistic about it happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIslamophobia happens to be something that made these companies lots and lots of money,\u201d said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University whose research includes online harassment. She said this type of content generates engagement, which in turn keeps people on the platform and available to see ads.<\/p>\n

A change of direction<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In an emailed statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the company has been taking down content specific to the attack \u2014 it said it had\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a01.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours \u2014 but addressed questions about anti-Muslim hate speech by linking to\u00a0a blog post from 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the attack happened, teams from across Facebook have been working around the clock to respond to reports and block content, proactively identify content which violates our standards and to support first responders and law enforcement,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe are adding each video we find to an internal database which enables us to detect and automatically remove copies of the videos when uploaded again. We urge people to report all instances to us so our systems can block the video from being shared again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Megan Squire is an Elon University computer science professor who has been collecting data about extremist behavior on 15 different platforms since 2016. She told BuzzFeed News that platforms typically move to take down anti-Muslim hate speech after a reporter asks Facebook about a group of pages. But larger structural issues are not addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, their ultimate decision is a good decision, the problem is that it comes from a place of corporate ass-covering instead of a strong ideological position,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n

This is true for anti-Muslim hate speech and other bigoted speech on social media platforms, none of which happens in isolation, Phillips said. When Infowars was de-platformed, it was companies responding to news of the day. The same is happening with anti-vaccination disinformation across Facebook, YouTube, and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trickiest aspect of this story is how good for business hate is for social media platforms,\u201d said Phillips.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Structural problems in journalism also contribute by focusing on the shooter instead of their victims. \u201cI think that there\u2019s not a lot of sympathetic portrayals of individual Muslim people and so the ideas about Islamophobia get to be these abstract concepts that don\u2019t connect to individual people,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n

Squire said changes Facebook recently\u00a0made to how groups on the platform function<\/a>provided a way for people who spread hateful content \u201cto hide in plain sight\u201d and could make the problem even worse.<\/p>\n

The Facebook algorithm, for example, recommends related groups that can point people to extremism. Even after the New Zealand attack, the company allowed groups with names like \u201cWar against Islam\u201d and \u201cBikers Against Radical Islam Europe\u201d to exist. They have memberships in the thousands.<\/p>\n

Groups are also frequently created with fake identities or through pages, making it difficult to track their origin \u2014 and if the groups are “closed” or “secret,” only members can see inside them. That also means they’re generally poorly moderated \u2014 groups are tasked with policing themselves and there’s no way on Facebook to report an entire group, only the content within it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that because of the changes Facebook made, that platform is one of the most safest places for them to coordinate online,\u201d she said. \u201cThey know that by using the social media platforms they can spread their message and they figured out how to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Squire says she\u2019s able to find anti-Muslim groups on Facebook easily, and is currently tracking about 200 of them. Some try to name themselves in such a way that plays into freedom of speech arguments, but other groups will spread anti-Muslim hate speech without fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll name their groups something like \u2018Infidels against radical Islam,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSo they claim that they\u2019re not against all Islam but they\u2019re pumping out the same propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We have spoken with @Google<\/a>, @Twitter<\/a> and @facebook<\/a> and urged them to remove the video of the New Zealand attacks. If you see it, report it so they can take it down. https:\/\/t.co\/FmfFNmDmC3<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Muslim Advocates (@MuslimAdvocates) March 15, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n