Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all have something in common. They are extremely powerful social media networks that have millions of active users among people who can post updates, images and stay connected across the globe. At the end of 2013, Facebook had 1.23 billion active monthly users and 757 million daily users. But within this online space there are also growing numbers of virtual communities and hate groups who are using these platforms to share a violent, Islamophobic and racist narrative which attempts to create a hostile virtual environment. After the tragic death of the British MP Jo Cox earlier this year, murdered by a man with a far-right background before the high-profile Brexit vote in the UK, signs of a spike in offline anti-Muslim hostility in the UK have also been reported. At the same time, Islamophobic reactions have led to a hostile atmosphere for Muslims elsewhere, both online and offline. For example, Germany, which welcomed thousands of refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere in 2015, has begun to see a pattern of online racist abuse and hate speech emerge on Facebook. The CEO and founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, who met with German chancellor Angela Merkel recently, has stated that “hate speech has no place on Facebook and in our community… until recently in Germany I don't think we were doing a good enough job, and I think we will continue needing to do a better and better job.” As an academic and someone with a public Twitter profile but not a Facebook account, I wanted to examine the role of hate crimes and Islamophobia on Facebook. The research I conducted examined 100 different Facebook pages, posts and comments and found 494 specific instances of online hate speech directed against Muslim communities. For me, the findings revealed some interesting parallels, with Muslims being demonised and vilified online and Facebook user posts manifesting negative attitudes, discrimination, stereotypes, physical threats and online harassment which all had the potential to incite racial, religious hate, violence or prejudicial action because they disparage or intimidate individuals or the groups to which they belong. In particular the types of abuse I recorded led me to five forms of Islamophobic hate, which can be categorised as follows: Muslims being deemed as terrorists; Muslims being seen as rapists; Muslim women seen as security threats; there being a war between Muslims and “us”; and Muslims should be deported from Western countries. Among these categories the most frequent abuse depicted Muslim women as security threats due to their clothing (76 instances), followed by the belief that Muslims should be deported (62 instances). The view of Muslims as terrorists was the third most common (58 instances) belief, with a war against Muslims (53 instances) and Muslims as rapists (45 instances) the next most often repeated comments. The study also found that offensive phrases such as “muzrats,” “Pakis,” “paedos,” “rapists,” “dirty,”, “scum” and “filthy” were among the 20 most commonly used to describe Muslims during online tirades. These shocking comments intensified following high-profile events in the UK, among them the Rotherham abuse case, the Trojan Horse scandal and the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby. While the details of these cases may not be important to international readers, they all triggered Islamophobic abuse on social networks. There was also an increase in abuse across the globe, with the US and Australia seeing a large increase in inflammatory comments posted on pages like Ban Islam in Australia and Ban Islam in America in the aftermath. Men were found to be much more likely to post abuse, with 80 per cent of all comments coming from male users of the sites. Interestingly, global events as well as regional and local events all had an impact upon people's attitudes and responses online. Facebook has now signed up to a new European Union code of conduct which commits it to review and remove online hate speech from its European sites within 24 hours. Clearly, within this climate it is important to analyse these new hate communities by monitoring their activities because the material they post online could potentially have a damaging impact on community cohesion. Moreover, as a result of recent figures showing an increase in online anti-Muslim abuse in the UK, there is a need to address the issue about Islamophobia on social media. My study attempted to examine how Muslims were being viewed on one social media platform, namely Facebook. Based on this research, it is clear that Muslims are being stereotyped and actual offline violence is being promoted as a means to target Muslim communities. The worry I have is that these online groups and communities will use this support to foster an offline extremist counter-narrative. It should also be noted here that whilst there is no dearth of online material that could cause offence, this does not equate to its necessarily being illegal in the UK. Often the notion of freedom of speech and expression is used by those who post such material who say that it is their constitutional right to do so, but at the same time such a right needs to be balanced with people's right to freedom from intimidation and abuse. From the evidence established above, Islamophobia on Facebook is more prevalent than previously thought and is being used by groups and individuals in the UK and other countries to inflame religious and racial hatred. The writer is an associate professor of criminology and expert on issues related to Islamophobia, cyber-hate, security and counter-terrorism.
