2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(1) Hate speech is disseminated by several means, including hateful street graffiti, hate-fuelled protests where symbols conveying hostile messages towards a group are worn, and sharing hateful speech on the internet. In recent years the instrumentalisation of the internet, and especially social media in this regard, have been apparent. Facebook is the most widely used social network worldwide. 11 With 2.3 billion active users, it has changed the way we access information — whether it be the way we interact with one another, the news or mobilisation for political change. 12 This has led to a social recession away from state-owned media outlets that may be inclined to convey politically biased information, to the more public or crowd-sourced information that Facebook can provide. 13 Facebook provides users the opportunity to express their opinions freely and connect with like-minded users through dedicated groups, enjoying a sense of togetherness and engaging in exchanges on any issue of public interest. By sharing media content and providing a platform for interactive discussion, Facebook implicitly contributes to shaping public discourse on issues of public interest and, thus, promotes the mobilisation of masses. While Facebook is often used for positive and inspiring mobilising purposes, it has also been widely instrumentalised in the spreading of hate speech. Some Facebook users may be more inclined to express their frustration and hatred against certain social groups online rather than in the physical world. The problem is that the online space may provide hate-fuelled speakers a platform to encourage and incite each another in a harmful way, towards becoming offline bullies. Online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have indirectly contributed to an increasing wave of harmful videos, hate-oriented groups and racist images encouraging violence against helpless minorities, 14 despite joints efforts to counter this phenomenon. 15 While users may assume that their harmful online activities and hateful messages do not amount to physical attacks against their victims in the street, a recent study revealed that there is a consistent link between ‘hate tweets’ targeting religious and ethnic minorities and physical violence towards them, suggesting that an increase in hate speech on social media does lead to increased crimes against minorities in the physical world. 16 At the peak of the Rohingya crisis — 2017–18 — there was much discussion of Facebook’s liability in being used as a platform to fuel online hate against the Rohingyas and incite physical violence against them. Before looking into Facebook’s role in spreading online hate during the very recent incidents in Myanmar and India, the article will turn to Japan in the 2000s. There, the internet already played a key role in the incitement of hate speech against an ethnic 11 12 13 14 15 16 According to Statista as of May 2020. See Statista (Web Page, May 2020) <https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-ofusers/>. Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, The Rise of Social Media (Report, Our World in Data 18 September 2019) <https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media>. Mike Friedrichsen and Yahya Kamalipour (eds), Digital Transformation in Journalism and News Media. Media Management, Media Convergence and Globalization (Springer International 2017) 221. Benesch (n 7) 19. In 2016, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft signed the European Union Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online, making a commitment to address hate speech on their platforms. See Matthew L Williams et al, ‘Hate in the Machine: Anti-Black and Anti-Muslim Social Media Posts as Predictors of Offline Racially and Religiously Aggravated Crime’ (2020) 60(1) The British Journal of Criminology 93. 8