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Introduction: How to Avoid Online Hate Speech

Rhetoric and Rage brings to you our first blog post, as we dive into the online harms of political incivility and hate speech. Over the next few weeks, we will tackle themes such as increasing global polarization, hate speech towards women, and rising cases of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment in the UK. As a project based at the University of Glasgow, we will be using our knowledge of politics, international relations, and social media communications to seek out possible explanations and solutions to this ever-present problem. 

This introduction post will list strategies to avoid hate speech online by using different social media affordances. The best defense against hate speech is to not see or interact with it, especially in the world of algorithms that promotes whatever is most popular to keep people glued to the site, for better or worse. These tips may help with avoiding exposure altogether and keep online incivility from spreading to vulnerable communities and malleable minds:

1. Mute hateful words from appearing on social media account timelines. 

Almost all social media will have the option to mute or block specific words or phrases from appearing on your timeline. This will generally be found in settings, under the ‘Privacy’ menu, then under the ‘Hidden Words’ or ‘Muted Words’ tab. Instagram, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter) all have this affordance available for users. Facebook, however, will only allow users to block words from appearing on your own personal page, so it’s a bit trickier to cut out specific words.  

2. Unfollow, report, and/or block accounts that raise the risk of exposure to online incivility. 

All social media gives users the ability to unfollow, report, or block other accounts. This is the most effective way to avoid users who may be posting or promoting hate speech online. Rather than interacting with these accounts and boosting their views and engagement, the best thing to do is a simple unfollow and block.  

3. Set your accounts to ‘Private.’  

The final piece of advice that we will give is to turn online accounts to private, an affordance that is also available across platforms. This will help you to avoid harassment from strangers and bots, preventing hateful comments from arising on your page and ensuring that only trusted family and friends have a look into your accounts. 

 

We hope that these tips will be helpful as we continue the next few weeks, looking deeper into various forms of hate speech and building a space to discuss what can be done to combat it.

-R&R  


If you or anyone you know have been a victim to hate speech, contact the Stop Hate UK Line 24-hours a day on 0800 138 1625.

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