With all of their benefits for connecting people online, social media platforms continued to manifest a dark underbelly of hate in 2020. Nearly 30 percent of Americans reported experiencing severe online hate and harassment, including sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing or sustained harassment, according to an ADL survey. Individuals from marginalized groups reported feeling less safe online this year than in the past. This was particularly evident on Facebook, where 77 percent of users reported being harassed – more than on any other platform. In response to
Facebook’s repeated failure to meaningfully address the vast proliferation of hate on its platforms, ADL, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense announced the #StopHateforProfit campaign calling on corporations to pause advertising on Facebook during the month of July 2020. By the end of the year, the campaign found some platforms turning a corner – with more and more social platforms announcing changes, such as Facebook’s decision to remove Holocaust denial from its servers, Twitter’s decision banning thousands of QAnon accounts, and YouTube’s banning of some extremist content, including white supremacists and the official channel of the stridently antisemitic Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan. But there’s still much more work to be done to prevent the spread of online hate.