Women Become The Main Target Of Online Hate Speech In The European Union

Women are the main targets of online hate speech. (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - A European Union report on Wednesday, November 29 stated that women were the main targets of online hate speech. This includes language of harassment, harassment, and incitement of sexual violence.

This should encourage the European Union and social media platforms to pay attention to protected characteristics such as gender and ethnicity when moderating content. This was said by the European Union Human Rights Agency (FRA) in its report.

The study was conducted on YouTube, Telegram, Reddit, and X - formerly known as Twitter - in four EU countries between January and June 2022. The results show that women are the main targets on all platforms and countries involved. Other groups affected include people of African, Roman, and Jewish descent.

The number of hate posts targeting women is nearly three times that targeting people of African descent in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy and Sweden, the four countries covered by the report.

"The hate volume that we identify on social media clearly shows that the European Union, its Member States, and online platforms can step up their efforts to create a safer online space for all parties," FRA director Michael O'Flaherty said in a statement.

Under the European Union's Digital Services Act, which took effect last year, forcing major technology platforms and search engines to make more effort to deal with malicious and illegal content or face fines.

In October, the European Commission opened an official investigation into Facebook's parent Meta, TikTok, and X's efforts to remove harmful content from their platforms.

Tech giants are facing growing scrutiny recently, with a surge in malicious content and disinformation after the Israel-Hamas war. FRA said it could not access data from Facebook and Instagram for this study.