Hate is for the haters. Much of the thrill of posting toxic messages can come from the attention and social approval a poster gets from like-minded people.
To inform university responses to online harassment affecting graduate students, artist-researchers created original artworks in response to interviews with their peers who experienced online hate.
Most young people regard reining in the big social media platforms as only part of the solution to the ‘relentless stream’ of abuse and shaming they experience online
Luc Cousineau, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Online personalities like Andrew Tate are using social media to amplify their misogynist and anti-woman rhetoric. Social media companies deplatforming them can cut them off from followers and revenue.
Anyone who has trawled through an internet forum will have seen how anonymity can change people. What happens when young people are thrown into the mix?
Regulating online hate speech can have unintended consequences, such as reinforcing right-wing narratives and further marginalizing vulnerable communities.
Justin Trudeau has a reputation as a youthful progressive outside of Canada, but among right-wing Canadians online, he’s despised — and he’s been confronted with hostility on the campaign trail.
We found LGBTIQ+ groups are exposed to an unacceptable level of discrimination and intimidation, including death threats, targeting of Muslims and threats of stoning or beheading.
‘Zoombombing’ trolls have started to infiltrate virtual meetings - bombarding unsuspecting victims with racist and sexist speech and in some cases, pornographic imagery.
Children’s identity development through play is now being worked out online – so adults must consider what this means, and support learning in reflectiveness, relatedness and agency.