By 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media
Published onPage last updated on
This piece was originally published by APC member organisation 7amleh.
7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has published the results of the Index of Racism and Incitement in Israeli Social Networks during the year 2020, which showed an increase in violent discourse against Palestinians and Arabs by 16% compared to 2019. The results indicated the spread of about 574,000 conversations that included violent speech towards Palestinians and Arabs, with 1 out of every 10 posts about Palestinians and Arabs containing violent speech. With 495,000 violent posts published in 2020, an increase of 79,000 posts was visible in comparison to the previous year.
The results this year showed that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, racist discourse towards Palestinians and Arabs increased by 21%, with hate speech constituting 29% and incitement 7% of these posts. The most prominent platform used to spread racism and incitement during the previous year was Twitter with 61% of all violent posts. This is an increase by more than double compared to 2019. Facebook on the other hand fell to second place with a rate of 19%, which is a decrease of 20% compared to 2019. This research was conducted through Vigo from "Yifat Group".
The Index of Racism and Incitement in Israeli Social Networks is an annual report issued by 7amleh, which monitors the intersection of the use of racist and violent speech against Arabs and Palestinians throughout the year.
