Hatebase

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Hatebase is a joint project of the Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention and the Dark Data Project that is described on its website as an "online repository of structured, multilingual, usage-based hate speech". It uses text analysis of speech and written content (including radio transcripts, transcripts of spoken web content, tweets, and articles) and identification of hate speech patterns within it to predict potential regional violence. [1]

Contents

History

The introduction of Hatebase was announced on the Sentinel Project blog on March 25, 2013. [2] [3] The initiative is led by Timothy Quinn of the Dark Data Project. [4] [2]

Description

In an article for Foreign Policy , Joshua Keating described Hatebase as follows: "There are two main features to Hatebase. The first is a Wikipedia-like interface which allows users to identify hate speech terms by region and the group they refer to. This could have some value for researchers, but Hatebase's developers are especially excited by the second main feature, which allows users to identify instances when they've heard these terms used." [5] The example of the Rwandan genocide was cited in that article and also in an article about Hatebase on Maclean's : in the months leading up to the genocide, radio stations attempted to dehumanize Tutsis to Hutus by repeatedly referring to the Tutsis as cockroaches. [4]

The regional and multilingual focus of the site was deemed particularly useful for identifying words that could be construed as hate in some languages and contexts but that outsiders would not know of, such as the word "sakkiliya" in Sinhalese (the language in Sri Lanka) used to refer to a Tamil person as 'a very unhygienic or uncultured person' [6] or the reference to Tutsis as cockroaches by the Rwandan radio stations, that an outsider may simply consider evidence that the region was suffering from a literal cockroach infestation. [7] [5] This relates to the challenge of identifying subtly different uses of the same or similar words, one of which connotes hate and the other doesn't. [5] In the context of language that equates humans with pollution or stains, this is also called the human stain problem.

Another related challenge is to control for the ambient level of casual hate speech in society (such as YouTube comments): in some societies and contexts, hateful language may not be accompanied by or followed by violence, whereas in others, it might. For this reason, the evidence was only considered valuable in conjunction with other evidence about the risk and threat of violence, and the project concentrated its efforts on mapping hate speech in regions with a history of violence. [5]

API

Hatebase provided an Application programming interface, which is now retired, [1] and a PHP wrapper/SDK is available on GitHub. [8] Information about the API can be found at Programmable Web [9] and Mashape. [10]

Reception

The launch of Hatebase was covered in Wired Magazine [6] and the story was picked up and discussed on Slashdot. [11] Hatebase was also covered in Metro News , a Canadian publication. [7] It was also covered in the Canadian weekly Maclean's . [4]

Joshua Keating covered Hatebase in an article for Foreign Policy . [5] A week later, the magazine published a response letter by Gwyneth Sutherlin, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bradford, pointing out potential problems and limitations of the approach used by Hatebase. [12]

On September 10, 2019, TechCrunch published a feature about Hatebase called "Hatebase catalogues the world’s hate speech in real time so you don’t have to". [13]

Related Research Articles

Hate speech is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, colour, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation". Legal definitions of hate speech vary from country to country.

The Hutu, also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa.

The Tutsi, or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda</span> International court established by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to judge people responsible for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals at a cost of $1.3 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rwandan genocide</span> 1994 genocide in Rwanda

The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.

<span title="French-language text"><i lang="fr">Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines</i></span> Rwandan "Hate Radio" station that incited the 1994 Rwandan genocide

Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the Rwandan genocide that took place from April to July 1994, and has been described by some scholars as having been a de facto arm of the Hutu government.

<i>Kangura</i> Magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan Genocide

Kangura was a Kinyarwanda and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. The magazine was established in 1990, following the invasion of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and continued publishing up to the genocide. Edited by Hassan Ngeze, the magazine was a response to the RPF-sponsored Kanguka, adopting a similar informal style. "Kangura" was a Rwandan word meaning "wake others up", as opposed to "Kanguka", which meant "wake up". The journal was based in Gisenyi.

Hutu Power is a racial and ethnosupremacist ideology that asserts the ethnic superiority of Hutu, often in the context of being superior to Tutsi and Twa, and that therefore they are entitled to dominate and murder these two groups and other minorities. Espoused by Hutu extremists, widespread support for the ideology led to the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu who opposed the killings. Hutu Power political parties and movements included the Akazu, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic and its Impuzamugambi paramilitary militia, and the governing National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development and its Interahamwe paramilitary militia. The theory of Hutu people being superior is most common in Rwanda and Burundi, where they make up the majority of the population. Due to its sheer destructiveness, the ideology has been compared to historical Nazism in the Western world.

The Rwandan Revolution, also known as the Hutu Revolution, Social Revolution, or Wind of Destruction, was a period of ethnic violence in Rwanda from 1959 to 1961 between the Hutu and the Tutsi, two of the three ethnic groups in Rwanda. The revolution saw the country transition from a Belgian colony with a Tutsi monarchy to an independent Hutu-dominated republic.

Rwandan genocide denial is the assertion that the Rwandan genocide did not occur, specifically rejection of the scholarly consensus that Rwandan Tutsis were the victims of a genocide between 7 April and 15 July 1994. The perpetrators, a small minority of other Hutu, and a fringe of Western writers dispute that reality.

The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention is an international non-governmental organisation based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with approximately 60 members in North America. Its mission is "to prevent the crime of genocide worldwide through effective early warning and cooperation with victimized peoples to carry out non-violent prevention initiatives." The Sentinel Project was founded in 2008 by two students, Taneem Talukdar and Christopher Tuckwood, at the University of Waterloo. In 2009, the Sentinel Project's approach was selected as a finalist in Google's 10 to the 100th competition for innovative social application of technology. This organization has been recognized as one of four active anti-genocide organizations based in Canada and is a member of the International Alliance to End Genocide, and the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">USC Shoah Foundation</span> Nonprofit organization

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. It was established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, one year after completing his Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List. In January 2006, the foundation partnered with and relocated to the University of Southern California (USC) and was renamed the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. In March 2019, the institute opened their new global headquarters on USC's campus.

Thomas Kamilindi, author of Journalism in a Time of Hate Media, describes hate media as a form of violence, which helps to demonize and stigmatize people that belong to different groups. This type of media has had an influential role in the incitement of genocide, with its most infamous cases perhaps being Radio Televizija Srbije during wars in Yugoslavia, Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) during the Rwandan genocide and Nazi Germany’s Der Stürmer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valérie Bemeriki</span> Rwandan journalist and convicted war criminal

Valérie Bemeriki is a Rwandan convicted war criminal and radio entertainer. Bemeriki was one of the main animatrices of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kantano Habimana</span>

Kantano Habimana, commonly referred to as Kantano, was a presenter (animateur) on the Rwandan radio station RTLM, which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi. Like the station's other broadcasters, Habimana incited violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu on the air.

Violence during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 took a gender-specific form when, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.

Online hate speech is a type of speech that takes place online with the purpose of attacking a person or a group based on their race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and/or gender. Online hate speech is not easily defined, but can be recognized by the degrading or dehumanizing function it serves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incitement to genocide</span> Crime under international law

Incitement to genocide is a crime under international law which prohibits inciting (encouraging) the commission of genocide. An extreme form of hate speech, incitement to genocide is considered an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur, although charges have never been brought in an international court without mass violence having occurred. "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" was forbidden by the Genocide Convention in 1948. Incitement to genocide is often cloaked in metaphor and euphemism and may take many forms beyond direct advocacy, including dehumanization and "accusation in a mirror". Historically, incitement to genocide has played a significant role in the commission of genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

Gregory S. Gordon is an American scholar of international law and a former genocide prosecutor during the Media Case at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Gordon is known for his advocacy of the criminalization under international law of a broader category of speech likely to cause mass atrocities, and his book Atrocity Speech Law in which he advances this argument.

Accusation in a mirror (AiM), mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or mirror argument is a hate-speech incitement technique. AiM refers to falsely imputing to one's adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the action that one is in the process of enacting.

References

  1. 1 2 "Hatebase". Hatebase. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  2. 1 2 Quinn, Timothy (March 25, 2013). "Introducing Hatebase: the world's largest online database of hate speech" . Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Introducing Hatebase: the world's largest online database of hate speech (The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention)". International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. March 25, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 "Hatebase: An anti-genocide app. An NGO hopes tracking hateful tweets can flag mounting ethnic conflict, and even prevent genocide". Maclean's. May 8, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Keating, Joshua (April 1, 2013). "Mapping hate speech to predict ethnic violence". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  6. 1 2 Shubber, Kadhim (April 5, 2013). "Crowdsourced hate speech database could spot early signs of genocide". Wired Magazine. Archived from the original on May 21, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  7. 1 2 Jessica Smith Cross (April 11, 2013). "'Hatebase' aims to prevent genocide by tracking hate speech". Metro News . Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Hatebase API Wrapper". GitHub . Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Hatebase API". Programmable Web. 30 June 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Hatebase". Mashape. Archived from the original on May 20, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Hatebase Tries To Scan For Precursors of Genocide In Language". Slashdot. April 6, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  12. ↑ Keating, Joshua; Sutherlin, Gwyneth (April 11, 2013). "Letters: The problem with mapping hate speech". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on December 14, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  13. ↑ Coldewey, Devin (September 10, 2019). "Hatebase catalogues the world's hate speech in real time so you don't have to". TechCrunch . Retrieved October 2, 2019.
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