REGULATING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A WAY OF CHECKING HATE SPEECH IN NIGERIA

REGULATING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A WAY OF CHECKING HATE SPEECH IN NIGERIA

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The emergence of globalization has made the world a global village as proposed by Marshall McLuhan. This therefore necessitated the creation of information communication technologies (ICT) to facilitate the globalization of the world. This consequently, brought about the conception of social media platforms to further connect people all over the world via, information. Social media as a product of global revolution, and an end product of globalization has in turn, brought about social and political changes in the world. It is important to point out here that social media is not a new concept. There have been a good number of social media platforms before Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. Some of these platforms include Classmates, Sixdegrees, and Ryze. Meanwhile, the 21stcentury has witnessed the evolution of new forms of social media networks powered by the internet, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, internet service among others.

“The emergence of these new forms of social media revolutionised many aspects of human communication. Thus, social media have become a natural part of the everyday lives of people all over the world” (Ajayi & Adesote, 2015: 48). Allen (2012) and Scholz (2008) have argued that “social media applications are not new and that their origins can be traced to years earlier than 2005. They further added that Blogs were already around at the end of the 1990’s, the wiki technology was suggested by Ward Cunningham in 1994 and first released in 1995; social networking sites already existed in 1995 and Google was founded in 1999” (Cited in Fuchs, 2014:34). This implies that social media is not as new as people have been made to understand.

With the evolving of the Internet applications, came the invention of social media to further foster socialization and connectivity of individuals from one end of the world to another. However, “the use of social media has gone beyond connecting with friends and family, entertaining, or mere socializing. It was and is still being used as a tool to disseminate information that has in turn led to political changes in the world. The emergence of social media is a phenomenon that has transformed the interaction, communication and sharing of information between people throughout the world in the 21st century” (Ajayi & Adesote, 2015).

In recent times, many countries in Africa have also experienced growth in the use of Social Media in politics and this also led to an increase in hate speech due to increase availability of the internet. “Social Media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are amongst the most visited websites in Nigeria. Due to their participatory, interactive, and cost-effective nature, they have become veritable instruments for carrying out hate speech propaganda ” (Ajayi & Adesote, 2015:48).

However, regardless of the positive effects of social media, it has been observed that the social media has aided unreliable source of information, fake news as well as bad mouthing especially during election periods. Furthermore, the social media also promote hate speeches and violence which eventually affect the peace of the community.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Hate speech on social media hardly remains unnoticed. Contents involving hateful messages vary and could target anyone irrespective of their status, identity, location and so forth. Even when hate speech is not materialized into a hate-motivated crime, the damage is done – victims are being labeled, marginalized and exposed to negative stereotyping. The overall consequences of online hate can be the dehumanization of individuals or groups of individuals. The need for proper strategies to tackle hate speech on social media is unquestionable. The core focus of the thesis is to identify central problems that have contributed to the formation of the existing reality. To unravel the contributing factors, a holistic analysis of both international human rights principles regarding hate speech and the practical application of those standards is necessary.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major aim of this study is on the regulating of social media as a way of checking hate speech in Nigeria.

The specific objectives are;

1. To have an overview of hate speech and its effect on individuals.
2. To determine the reasons why hate speech is rampant.
3. To determine the major obstacles in regulating hate speech on social media.
4. To make recommendations on the subject matter

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What are the reasons why hate speech is rampant?
2. What are the major obstacles in regulating hate speech on social media?

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