Hate speech can be abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Social media is a forum where people naturally go to vent their frustrations. The people we are communicating with are in extremely difficult situations and social media can often feel like the only space where they can regain some control. Given the context we are working in and the people we are working with, this tendency to vent is often amplified. We need to keep this in mind and apply nuanced scrutiny when moderating offensive comments, to help us remove hate speech, but make sure that users’ right to voice their views and experiences are preserved.
Hate speech in Signpost’s spaces generally falls into one of three categories:
| Category #1 | Category #2 | Category #3 |
|
Comments from our target audience directed at other members of the community. |
Comments from our target audience directed at Governments, NGOs, Countries. |
Comments from host populations directed at our target audience (usually racist in nature). |
Handling Offensive Comments
| 1. Comments from Our Target Audience to Other Members of the Community. |
Signpost is here to help people in crisis. Generally, we should almost never ban someone from our target audience from our page, as this means they will no longer have access to our information. Instead, we should use the following approach when moderating offensive comments:
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If a member of our target audience makes an offensive comment towards another member of the community, delete the comment immediately. Our space is a place where people are free to ask questions without being bullied, criticized, etc.
- For example: “We have deleted your comment. Refugee.Info is an information service used by people across race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, and we do not allow discriminatory comments on our page. If you post a comment that is discriminatory or hateful again you will be banned from the site.”
- If this is a one-off we need not ban the poster from the page, unless the comment is particularly hateful/offensive/disturbing or likely to cause or lead to violence - (speak to your manager if you think this may be the case).
- If someone repeatedly (more than 3 times) posts offensive comments towards others on the page, then we must delete the comments and ban the poster.
| 2. Comments from Our Target Audience to Governments, NGOs, Countries |
This category of offensive comments is the most frequent type we attract, yet we rarely delete comments such as these - as social media is a space for free speech. Being seen to censor people would severely impact our credibility and reputation. It is important that we distinguish between abusive comments and people simply expressing their frustrations.
For example, a comment such as "Damn you Greece, you are profiting whilst refugees die in these camps," would not be considered offensive by our moderation standards, as it does not attack a social group, or specific person/organization. A comment like this should not be deleted.
Offensive comments directed at Governments/NGOs/European countries should only be deleted if:
- The comment is particularly profane or offensive (speak to speak to your manager if you are unsure).
- Someone makes a serious allegation of misconduct (eg. sexual abuse, corruption) about an NGO or an individual working at an NGO. (If this happens, screenshot the comment before deleting it and pass to your manager).
| 3. Comments from Non-Refugees Directed at Refugees |
Comments from non-refugees in Signpost pages are often racist in nature. We have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy on comments like this. Any offensive comments from non-refugees must be immediately deleted and the commenter must then be banned from the page. Be particularly vigilant with comments in host populations’ languages. Comments in these languages are not from our core audience and so have a higher risk of containing offense and abuse.
If you come across a message in a different language:
- Translate the message to see what the content of it is.
- If it is offensive, delete the comment and ban the commenter.