An Assessment of Hate Speech, Social Media and Violence in Ethiopia: The Case of Facebook and Youtube
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Date
2021-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research aimed at assessing hate speech, social media and violence in the Ethiopia: The
case of Facebook and YouTube. The study tries to explore hate speech, social media and
violence landscape, mainly categorizing the context of hate speech and violent incident scenarios
into two major phenomenon. Firstly, the periods from 2014 up to the reform was considered as a
time of social movement or protest, particularly protest by Qeerroos of Oromo, Fannos of
Amhara, and Ejjettos of Sidama ethnic groups. In these periods, hate speech rhetoric was
against the EPRDF regime-led by TPLF. The second phenomenon, which came after the reform,
hate speech context seems to have changed to ethnic and religious aspects. Because in the name
of freedom of speech, some politicians started to misuse, and employ social media platform,
particularly Facebook and YouTube to express hate speech rhetoric, and disseminate rumor as
well as disinformation messages. Moreover, to achieve the thesis‟ objective, the researcher
employed explanatory and narrative qualitative research design. Most importantly, data has
been collected through interview, Focus group Discussion from politicians, senior officials of
Oromia communication Bureau as well as Addis Standard experts and journalists.
Based on the data analyzed, the finding of the study indicated that multi-faceted factors which
can be categorized as underlying and triggering factors incited violent incident in Ethiopian
politics. The underlying factors include historical grievances, the injustice system, institutional
ineffectiveness, lack of common understanding and national consensus. Moreover, the rumor
message dispersed online, misuse of social media platforms, mainly Facebook and YouTube,
some political activist‟s and insurrectionist group‟s irresponsible characteristics of expressing
hate speech rhetoric content to others on social media as well as perpetrators‟ political culture
of taking little death and exaggerating online has triggered violence in Ethiopian political
system. Hence, information gathered from the participant informants indicated that violent
incidents were mainly exacerbated due to these underlying, and fueling violence instigative
factors.
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Keywords
Hate speech, social media, violence, Ethiopia