The communicative features of online hate in temporary social networks in Twitter and YouTube

In recent years, communicating with others online has grown exponentially and social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have now become popular forms of communication, especially among the youth. In social networking, communication mostly occurs within the public domain. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, stated that ‘privacy was no longer a social norm’ (Johnson, 2010). If you sign up to any social networking site, it is expected of you to share information within the public domain. Why else would you have a Facebook account? Zuckerberg goes on to state that ‘people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people...’ (The Guardian, 2010). One of the intriguing characteristics of social networking is anonymity; the ability to take on a different identity or hiding behind a screen name. Social media and anonymity allows individuals to hide their identity and post comments of misogynistic, homophobic, racial, etc. content. Online hate has gone viral (Foxman, 2013). The rapid spread of online intolerance has led many social platforms to update their usage policies in a bid to combat further spread of this scourge; some more proactive than others. According to Foxman (2013) online hate is seen as the ‘inevitable effluent of Internet freedom, rationalizing it as a problem ‘too big to address’, as thousands of comments are posted on the various platforms on a daily basis. It can be said that there is a blurred line when it comes to freedom of speech and online hate. Many studies in the field of computer-mediated communication and online hate focus on the effects (behavioural and psychological) it has on the victims, the motivation for the hate, the profiles of both the victims and the perpetrators, and so on. Few studies, however, look at the way in which language is used to convey online hate; what are the specific features used and how each platform is used. This study is important as it aims to identify the ways in which online hate manifests in online communication. Acknowledging the fact that no two platforms are the same, the study compares the threads around particular topics on Twitter and YouTube; paying close attention to the interaction among members who find themselves in these temporary networks. According to Hardaker (2010: 216) there are only a few The communicative features of online hate in temporary social networks in Twitter and YouTube