Hashtag Responds to "Social Resentment" and Becomes a Hate Speech's Platform
الصفحة الرئيسية > تقارير الرصد الإعلامي > Hashtag Responds to "Social Resentment"...
The "Iraqi Media House" during the past hours monitored a hate speech circulated by Iraqi social media in a social debate about a fashion show organized in Al-Anbar province.
On August 18, 2019, the city of Habbaniyah in Al-Anbar province hosted a show of women's costumes and music tracks in the presence of artists and extensive media coverage and received widespread approval by the public.
Within hours of the fashion show, an anonymous statement posted on the social media sites called "Sheiks, scientists and young people of Fallujah" included a denunciation of the fashion show, which described as "scandalous". It also included a veiled threat to the director of the tourist city of Habbaniyah, "Moayad Mashwah" and one of the organizers of the fashion show "Enas Al-Tamimi", where it contained a threat of tribal actions, and demanded the statement to dismiss the director of the tourist city and wrote the words "before it is too late".
Although the anonymous statement was circulated on social media sites, the media covered the news that talked about the statement without any inquiry about its source and who are the signatories.
In contrast, pages on social media sites criticized the statement, which denounced the fashion show, after that, many activists launched a hashtag on social media to criticize the statement. the hashtag was # Qudsiyah_ Fallujah (Fallujah sanctity), the public opinion interacted with the hashtag to become the most prominent trend on the pages and bloggers Iraqis in Facebook and Twitter.
In a negative phenomenon, the hashtag was used to publish dozens of publications with the content of a public hate speech targeting the city of Fallujah, clerics and clans there, in spite of that, the statement still unknown and no one has claimed responsibility for it.
Notes:
1- Publications included a hate speech without discrimination, targeted the city of Fallujah, clerics, clan elders, and its inhabitants.
2- Publications included insults and hate phrases such as "Fallujah, city of prostitutes," "Fallujah, cancer of Iraq," "capital of terrorism," "sons of the former regime," "Baathists."
3- Images of hate speech directed against individuals and groups were included.
4- Publications included previous debates that were popular during the war against ISIS and before, which provoke hate speech and exploited the images of Iraqi soldiers.
5- On the other hand, it was noted that there were dozens of positive and responsible publications that criticized the phenomenon without hate statements, and others that questioned the authenticity of the statement and called for investigating its truth.
Recommendations:
1- The media and the activists on social media sites should investigate the facts and data attributed to religious and social groups before issuing their judgments. In this regard, the "Iraqi Media House" recalls its 29th report titled "The Cyber Armies".. Fabricated News taking over "Facebook", on the dangers of spreading fake news and its impact on community peace and security.
2- Public pages and active bloggers on social media should exercise caution when launching hashtags on important events and preventing their conversion from some people, whether intentionally or not, into platforms for hate speech threatening the social fabric, which negatively reflects on the basic purpose of launching the hashtag, which is solidarity or condemnation of political and social phenomena.
The Iraqi Media House, in this regard, recalls its 30th report titled "The Hatred Dictionary... Terms that impact the Social Peace in Iraq", a statistic about hate terms that have been circulating for years in the statements of politicians, clerics and individuals and their impact on social peace and security And monitor the phrases received during the past hours on social networking sites on the fashion show in Al- Anbar.
