FACEBOOK AND PROPAGATION OF HATE LANGUAGE/SPEECH IN OWERRI MUNICIPAL

Abstract

The study set out to explore Facebook as a transmission instrument for hate language /hate speech campaigns. The rationale was to examine if Facebook influence Owerri-based users' exposure to hate language /hate speech. The objectives are among others, to determine the extent to which Facebook users in Owerri are exposed to hate language /hate speech and examine whether Facebook influences exposure to hate language /hate speech among users in Owerri. The study adopted the survey research design and the questionnaire was the tool that was utilized to collect data from 400 Facebook users. Following the data analysis, it was found that Facebook significantly influences exposure to hate language /hate speech and several factors/media influence Owerri residents' exposure to hate language /hate speech. It was recommended that while there are justifiable concerns about unchecked censorship by social media organizations, the overwhelming preference reported by these participants was for social media campaigns to increase their efforts to remove hate language from their sites. Thus, the need for censoring social media sites by owners of this social media network is eminent, as this goes a long way to reduce the all-growing strength of hate language on social media.