 Hello, let's talk about politics and governance. Let's tackle today head speech on social media. We welcome our two guests, Darren Nieliker from Bournemouth University and Marta Perez Escolar from the Universidad Loyola, Andalusia. And they will talk about xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants in the UK and in Spain, specifically within right-wing community pages. So in this episode, we dive into challenges of content moderation and how addressing underlying societal conditions might be the key to combating head speech. Darren and Marta, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Darren, I'll start with you. It might be quite obvious. But tell us about the importance of studying head speech on social media and its impact on democratic societies. Well, head speech has been recognized as a serious problem in many democratic societies. And the problem is that it emerges out of these sort of enclaves online. And so in us looking at Reddit, it's not 4chan, 8chan. It's not one of these sites where we know the alt-right and extreme right congregate. But it's a midway space in social media between the more moderate Twitter and Facebook and the normal spaces for the hard right. And when they are demonizing refugees, migrants, which are often used as a term that has no real definition, it's just outsiders to a country, that can become normalized. And the more that that content is repeated and shared, the more people may accept. But this is an accepted view. And the alt-right itself talks about the Overton window, this sort of space of which there are acceptable views that can be held and can be shared. And they like to say that they are extending the Overton window. They are moving it towards being less accepting of outsiders. And I think in some ways they are right. And that's why it's important to study this. What were still with you, Darren? What were your expectations, yours and Marta's expectations that prompted this investigation? Well, the thing they wanted to understand was not just whether hate speech exists and what terminologies use, but also how it's thematically organized. So how is an anti-immigrant or migrant statement constructed? What are the key reasons why they argue that we should be concerned about migrants and refugees? Why are they a danger to our society? What's the way in which, as we say in academic language, how are they framed? Who are they as people? How do they interact with our society? And that was the bit we wanted to get a better understanding of, because these themes can then move out, be discussed further, become headlines in the mainstream media. Of course, it's a great kickoff for what's coming. So Marta, tell us about the findings. Well, we have identified three important frames expressed in online conversations. Reddit, Facebook, and for a coaches. For a coaches is supposed to be an online forum for talking about the things related to cars. And in this online conversation, as I say, we have identified three important frames that represent different types of hate speech against immigrants. And these speeches, ideas, or expression can be easily translated into a real-life situation. And we think that for this reason, it's important to first detect them and then to identify tools, materials, and other things to combat them. So the first frame describes immigrants as leeches. In this case, immigrants are described as taking jobs away from British workers, for example, or taking advantage of Spanish public service. And these comments relating to this frame are mixed. Some promote hostility by framing immigrants as competitors for resources who are advantaged by the system. But other comments do include pejorative terms. The second important frame involves arguing that immigrants do not possess the same values as the British or Spanish. And so they will not follow established norm and laws of society. And they have, since they have different values and their lack of loyalty to the national position, then has potential criminals. And the last one, the third common frame explores the notion of the clash of civilization. This frame is a key feature of Islamophobic discourses and strong Islamophobic attitudes. OK, about these three frames that you mentioned, Darren, I'm curious to know more about potential policy implications of these findings, of these three frames. What can you tell us about that? I think the first area is the debate about free speech. And it seems that we have a quite polarized debate where there is a position where speech has to be censured and certain views should not be expressed and hate speech is against the values of our society. And then there is a debate that, well, free speech is a right that everyone has. Everyone should be able to express our views. And I think this debate has become very polarized, as I said, but also very politicized. Some parties will promote one side, other parties promote the other side. And this is one thing that needs to be really discussed in society about what is acceptable. Should we be able to say the sort of language that all refugees are potential criminals, all refugees are potentially a threat to our values and our systems and that they don't belong within our cultures. And using, as some of the arguments do, that one person who is a migrant who commits a crime is representative of them all. And so, yeah, it's those sorts of things around free speech that should be discussed. And I think a further one about education generally and the way that people learn about migrants. And if we have an atmosphere where migrants are being constantly demonized and treated as the other and described as a threat, this is a problem. All of us probably descend from migrants. We may go back sort of centuries, literally, but we all descend from, we've all moved somewhere. And I think that sense of, you know, our land and our borders and protection has been something that has built up in societies. It calmed down a little, but now it seems to be getting much more potent in people's minds that we need to protect things. And so that education about a, what migrants bring to a society, but also, you know, our own backgrounds, our own histories could make people think slightly differently about these migrants. And also a little more empathetic about where they come from. I think another one is breaking that down. You know, this group, this idea of migrants being this homogenous blob of people, you know, that have no identities, but there's also different reasons why people move. You know, so are they migrants because of climate change? Are they migrants because of war, which makes them refugees? Are they migrants because of persecution, which makes them asylum seekers? You know, all these differences are often lost even in mainstream media reporting sometimes. And so having that broader set of definitions of what is a migrant, I think is important. And so through communication policy, perhaps, definitely through the tone in which politicians talk and also through education and greater understanding of our histories and past, we can do something to redress some of this, as well as then, you know, that question about what we do about free speech and how should social media platforms behave and deal with content properly, as opposed to claiming to, but not doing so? Absolutely. So you have given us from your research three key frames and Darren, you've given us three potential policy implications for the future. Marta, let's look at the future now. So how can we, in terms of research, how can we keep framing this hate speech you mentioned before? So new social media platforms to look at, new geographies, or perhaps debating what is acceptable or not to say, educate the audiences, as Darren said, aiming for politicians, lawmakers. So tell us what's ahead of us now. Yeah, well, given the debates around immigration in both countries, it is useful to continue to detect how media also frame migrants or refugees, which are different kinds of perspective, and contribute to expanding hate speech. It will be also interesting to know how much this kind of speech is infected by political discourses. In fact, due to high profile cases where politicians have been accused of using a figurative language when they portray migrants or refugees, we think detecting how supporters of the most extreme parties in Spain and UK construct arguments that may filter into online discourses or media. So for us, these are the two maybe ways to propose new part-letter studies. Okay, and either to explore the topic that we talked about, these frames that we talked about, and also to support future research, Marta, could you recommend some additional materials, some additional content for our listeners to access? Yeah, sure. Some public institution like United Nations launched in June 2019 a report in response to the alarming trends of growing xenophobia and intolerance. The report is on the website of the United Nation. It's called United Nation Strategy and Plan of Action on Haterspeech. There is another important report published in 2017 by the Council of Europe. The name is Taking Action Against Haterspeech and also other organized institutions Ofcom, for example, also explored the impact of online hate speech relating to people with different protective characteristics. The Alan Turin Institute, that is the UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence created a hub for online hate research. So mainly these are also the main materials publication that we encourage people to read, to just check carefully and if they want to know more about the consequences, the implication of hate speech. Perfect. And for those who are watching us on our website, let's talk about Politics and Governance website. If you scroll down below the video of our talk, you can find the materials that Marta has shared with us. In this conversation, we have focused very, very clearly, structurally on what were your expectations, the keyframes that you identified online, the three main tips for policy implications and look ahead. Darren, I'm going to ask you for a wrap up of all this. So in conclusion, Darren, what key message or takeaway would you like our audience to remember from this discussion? Well, I think firstly, the hate speech we see online is part of our society. People believe and have these beliefs and have these opinions. And so it's part of who we are and it's something that we need to deal with. And the more they're repeated, the more normalized they become. And normalization can lead to acceptance and then can lead to discrimination and extreme cases can lead to violence against those people, against refugees, migrants, or people who are perceived to possibly be migrants and refugees. And so we are, the narratives need to change both the political level in the media, but also within society more broadly through our education, within households, within schools, within colleges and universities, to really sort of talk about refugees, talk about the issues, but also talk about hate speech. And to get more people to think, would I say this in public? Would I say this that I'm going to say online? Would I express this in public? And I think that could go some way to making people think twice about what they're saying. Darren, Marta, thank you very much. Thank you. For our listeners that are watching us on YouTube, you can find, as I said before, all the resources and materials of this conversation on the Let's Talk About Politics and Governance website, both the recommended materials and the article in which this conversation was based on. You can also listen to this episode, wherever you get your podcast. You can subscribe to our newsletter if you scroll down. And you can follow us on Twitter at Kojitatiu LTA.