Interviewer (2:09)

It has on global digital discourse.

Candela Marini (2:11)

Dr. Trindaji holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Southampton and is an affiliated social scientist at the International Panel on the Information Environment in Switzerland. His research focuses on critical race and ethnic studies, critical humor studies, critical discourse analysis, and the social representation of ethnic minorities in mass communication. He's also the author of no Laughing Race, Joking and Resistance in Brazilian Social Media, for which we also interviewed him here on the New Books Network.

Interviewer (2:46)

So be sure to check out that episode if you haven't already.

Candela Marini (2:51)

Welcome Luis, to the show.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (2:54)

Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure to talk to you again. We had this conversation a couple of years ago with my first book that came out, no Love, Risky Joking, Resistance in Brazilian Social Media, and this new book that has just been released roughly six months ago, also by Vernon Press. How can I say it's an expansion from my previous research? Because I have been dedicating the past 10 years to research hate speech on social media and publish two books I read and several articles. The previous books, one in English, another in Portuguese, and a new one will come out in the next few months in Italian. So it's quite diverse. But the idea behind this particular book that we are talking about hate speech and abusive behavior is that what has triggered me the interest in developing this research is that because I want to examine the phenomenon of hate speech in abusive behaviors, however, with a perspective that could go beyond the traditional Anglophone social context. Because the literature examined this phenomenon in English is immense. It's really huge and it's really important. That's undeniable. But I noticed that the same phenomenon is also manifested in different social contexts beyond the Denglophone social context. But unfortunately they don't get too much attention in academia because they wanted to publish in English. So I wanted to bring them to the surface and examining this phenomenon, proposing a framework to understand this phenomenon. However, with this focus on social context, the old, the Anglophone, a traditional context. So that's the short history behind the development of this book. Yes, yes.

Interviewer (5:17)

And you focus mainly on the Spanish speaking, Portuguese speaking and Italian speaking context. But before we go into that, when you start the book, you offer a brief overview of the history of social media platforms. Could you tell us more about the social dynamics and expectations when these platforms first started to develop?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (5:42)

Yes, absolutely. That's very, very important because in the book I start with an overview of the history of the evolution of Internet and social media. And I explained that the objective is not to tell the whole story because this industry is extremely dynamic, so it's difficult to keep up with all the developments, but mostly to organize information that you found, but is scattered in different sources so that you organize them and tell a coherent story behind the development of this technology. And there are two important milestones in this story, that is the beginning of the Internet in the early 90s, where the. How can experts in this field, they call it Web 1.0. That goes from the early 90s up to the late 90s. So let's say 10 years, more or less. And by the turn of the 90s to 20th century, sorry, the 20th, 21st century, there was the development of the so called Web 2.0. And that is very important because Web 1.0 was based on text only Internet. So the interaction between users was very limited. And with the development of the Web 2.0, the interaction, it is called many to many. So that allowed the establishment of a powerful network of users interacting with each other. And that environment that allowed the creation just a few years afterwards of the social media that we know today. Not by chance, the first social media platforms, they emerged in 2004, Orkut, that belonged to Google and it was discontinued years later. Facebook and all the others that came afterwards. And they were, how can I say, feasible endeavors because of the development of Web 2.0 that allowed this network of users, this powerful network of users. So this environment that allowed the, how can I say, the emergency of social media platforms. So without this leap in technological advancement, we not have the social media platform. So those two milestones are very important. So the early beginnings of the Internet, the 90s, early 90s, and then on the turn of 90s and 2000s, the emergence of Web 2.0.

Interviewer (8:47)

And as these developments happened, the outlook was very positive. Right. People expected for these interactions to be, in general. Yeah, good interactions, right?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (8:59)

Yeah, absolutely. And also this development allowed the exchange not only of message, but not only text, but also audio, video, images. So all this array of digital products, they were able to be exchanged within this new scenario.

Interviewer (9:25)

And you also explained some common misconceptions about the virtual space, right. Such as colorblindness or online anonymity. And then you also delve into some of the factors that come into play to actually exacerbate online abuse across different contexts. Could you take us through some of your findings?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (9:51)

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. That is another key point in the wake of this new development. Because on the beginning of the Internet, I mean beginning of the net that we say as it became more popular, more accessible. So there were some voices advocating that the arrival of this technology would provide society with a colorblind environment. And what do they mean with that? They mean that would be an environment free of discrimination, misogyny, racism, and all those phenomenon that we are used to in the offline environment. However, their claim was not accurate enough because was based on this TEXT on Internet. And as this industry evolves very rapidly, in a matter of few years, the Internet was not tech based anymore. So it was much more dynamic. It evolved from one to one interaction to many to many. And as such, the values, beliefs and ideologies that people nurture offline, they bring online as well. So this reveals that there are no. First, it's not that colorblind was a myth, was not a reality. And secondly, that the online and offline environment, they are not two separate realities, they are interconnected. Because people do not leave behind their values, ideologies and beliefs when they connect to the Internet, they bring with them. And that creates the, the environment that we are now discussing. The issue of hate speech and abusive behavior because of those ideologies, those beliefs, they are brought with them when they connect online.

Interviewer (12:00)

Right? And even in the text only communication, you, you could say that all those values can also are present. And it's very easy for identities to come through text as well. It's not only through visual or audio or things like that. And what about online anonymity?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (12:23)

Yes, in fact, that's another, how can I say, fallacy. Because many users who engage in construction, dissemination of misogyny, bigotry and racism, all sorts of intolerance, they tend to believe that being behind a computer screen, they are protected because they believe that anonymity protects them, shields them from being held accountable for their attitudes. But that is not true. First, because there are technical capabilities that allow the identification of individual users. Secondly, because research reveals that the moment that attitudes and behavior of intolerance, misogyny and racism, discrimination, et cetera, they become a public, those users, they tend to do one of those things. They delete the post immediately or they cancel the account in their social media platform, they changed the status of the account from public to private, or they claim that the post was not meant to hurt anyone, was meant to be a harmless joke. So those attitudes, they revealed that in reality they knew that anonymity was not true and they knew that the attitude was not acceptable. So anonymity becomes just a smokescreen that deceives them to believe that they're empowered to do whatever they want, to say whatever they want against anyone, without any restrictions.

Interviewer (14:18)

And what makes social media a space particularly fertile for the spread of hate speech? You call it the echo chamber of hate speech?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (14:32)

Yes, because that's very interesting because I employed a theory of the backstage of even government to try to understand better this behavior. So on social media, people who engage in this practice of abusive behavior at first they believe that anonymity protects them. And secondly, when they connected on the the Internet, on their social media accounts and they find like minded people that nurture the same ideologies. So they feel empowered and they feel allowed to unleash their hate, their intolerance against anyone. And this is the behavior that even Gofferman explains in the backstage and front stage dynamic, that the front stage is the way we present to society in the offline environment, in the public, in the backstage comprises the situation or the environment or the context where certain behaviors are not to be seen by the public. They're not acceptable in society. And so they transform social media in their digital backstage, where they unleash their discriminatory ideologies, they connect with several other like minded people. And since social media has this powerful networking capability, they connect with so many other like minded people, they unleash all that hate intolerance across the Internet.

Interviewer (16:29)

Let's dive now into the different regions you analyzed. And let's start with the studies carried out in the Portuguese speaking world, mainly Brazil. What stood out about the hate speech and other abusive behavior on social media there?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (16:46)

Well, what the studies has revealed, the situation in Portuguese speaking countries is that the predominant phenomenon are linked to gender, class and race. So that is very strong on social media in Brazil. And also they politically motivated hate speech. So with the surge of extremity, right political parties to the front stage of power. So those manifestations, they have also come to light. So the intersection of gender, race and class, it's very prominent in Brazil, in Portuguese speaking countries, politically motivated hate speech and homophobic hate speech. So those are three of the most prominent manifestations of intolerance on social media in these social contexts.

Interviewer (17:48)

Would you like to give us a few examples, especially about the political motivated ones, perhaps with the ex president or with the case of Marielle Franco?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (17:59)

Yes, absolutely. In fact, this is very interesting because how can I say analyzing this phenomenon in the Brazilian social context in these Portuguese speaking countries. And it also overlaps with what is observed in other social contexts. What do I mean? What I mean is that the phenomenon of hate speech abusing behavior is not one dimensional, it is intertwined with different aspects. So in the case of politically motivated hate speech, so the former city councillor Marielle Franco was assassinated in March 2018. So even after her death, she became the target of hate speech on social media. In those hate speech they expressed or they reviewed aspects of gender because she was a woman, homophobic because she had a partner, a female partner, race because she was A black woman and class, because she was a representative from community in Rio de Janeiro. And also the political behind that. So that's a very, very important example that reviews all those dimensions in a single event. And so gender, race, class, and also sexual orientation. So that is very representative, let's say.

Interviewer (19:48)

And so what about the Spanish speaking world? I think the studies were mainly from Spain, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argent, Ecuador, Costa Rica and El Salvador. Was the antisocial behavior and focus different from that of the Portuguese speaking world?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (20:08)

Yes, yes, there was a bit of difference because what is more prominent in those countries are xenophobic discourses. So they are very, very strongly present in those countries in Latin America, in Spain and also in Mexico, the movement of people that are either displaced by economic hardship or, how can I say, conflicts or, you know, a situation like that. So the moment that those people, they circulate, they cross national borders, they become the target or they became the target of a series of hate speech and abusive language on the, on social media because they become, how can I say, the perfect scapegoat for any social problem. Because the people from the recipient countries, they perceive those immigrants as a threat to their resources. And so they need to, or they feel the need to protect those resources and send those people away. So to block the entrance or to stigmatize them with negative stereotypes. So there was a case, for example, in Colombia during the pandemic that blamed immigrants as the source of the virus. So it was a way to stigmatize them and not to welcome them and to say, okay, you are an alien in this environment, you don't belong here, you need to go, you need to go back to where you came from, basically. Was that the message? So that is the characteristics very present in Spanish speaking countries.

Interviewer (22:10)

And you bring up another important connection that is that of hate speech with fake news. Right. And fake information.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (22:19)

Yeah, because based sports or information. The case of the Colombia example. So by blaming immigrants as the source of the virus without any evidence for that. So that's a clear example of fake news. Because you take a real fact, that was the pandemic that was an infection caused by a virus, and then you manipulate that real fact to feel the purpose that you have that was to expel those immigrants, those undesirable people in our country that were threatening your resources, were threatening your status, your privilege in that society.

Interviewer (23:11)

And connected to this, and I think you analyze it with an example from Peru. You also mentioned how hate speech is used and in fake news as well as a source of political mobilization and how there are bots used. I think it was the Fuji trolls, the ones connected with Keiko Fujimori that were purposely using hate speech in order to mobilize voters, right?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (23:40)

Absolutely, absolutely. And how can I say the dangers or behind one of the dangers, let's put this very behind. The political motivated hate speech is because oftentimes they spread, they are disseminated by public figures. And the moment that the public figures, they spread, they disseminate fake news, manipulated information or hate speech, they indirectly or directly, they allow their followers to do the same. So how can I say an ordinary citizen, he sees or she sees, a public figure, prominent public figure, unleashing a series of hate speech, fake news or distorted information, they say, okay, he has done that, so I also can do so he feels empowered and allowed to do, to follow the same pattern. So that was the case on Peru with these Fujitros that were, can I say a group of users, thousands of users that were spreading misinformation and fake news about the opponents, the political opponents. And another important aspect of this phenomenon is that behind the politically motivated hate speech is that they treat their opponents not as adversaries. People that think different, they treat and they depict them as enemies. And it's very different when you treat someone as enemy or as an opponent, as an adversary, an adversary. Also an opponent is someone that think different, has a different perspective, has a different point of view that you can argue with, you can negotiate, you can discuss in a civil way, but the enemy embodies a series of negative attributes. And usually our enemy should be eliminated, should be taken away, should be, it has eliminated, you know, that's the word. So there is a big difference between that and what we see online is that the discourse, they treat political opponents as enemies. And that is very dangerous for democratic regimes.

Interviewer (26:24)

And just as you mentioned with the Portuguese speaking case here too, all the sorts of our, all the expressions of hate speech are actually an intersection of different things, right? Not just xenophobia or political hate, but also gender in particular, or class too.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (26:47)

Yes, and also race. As I explained before, in the case of the Brazilian social context, the studies revealed that there was intersection of gender, race and class. And in Brazil in particular, when we talk about race, we mean the black people. But you know, the Latin American countries, although the component of race is also present, because Latin America countries, they share a common history of colonial legacy, European colonial, colonialism. But the target of racism in several Latin American countries are not as much black people, but people from indigenous origin. And as such, there is one case now, I can't remember exactly the country, but a prominent politician, she went online to dispatch one political opponent that has been, that had been appointed as the representative in the Organization for the American States. And because he's got indigenous origin, so there was this intersection of political discourse and also race, in the case, he was from indigenous origin. And so again, hate speech and obsessive behavior, they're not unidimensional, so they intersect with different aspects. That's why it becomes so damaging for the victims.

Interviewer (28:39)

And so let's talk about your last case of study, the Italian speaking world. And this one was quite a bit different. You had the chance to study a few more contemporary issues as well. What did you find here?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (28:54)

Yes, it's interesting. In fact, this division with different counters and visions was quite interesting because we see the same phenomenon that is hate speech and buzzer behavior, but the trigger phenomenon was slightly different across the different countries. And in the case of Italy, since Italy was the European country that was hardly hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, so that environment or that context has triggered first a sentiment of xenophobia. Because in that environment of uncertainty and fear because of the pandemic, especially in 2019, when everything was so confusing and nobody knew what was going on, so the first sentiment that was manifested expressed on social media was xenophobia. So there was so many cases of hate speech against people from Asian origin. And although many of them were second generation born in Italy, they were seen like the immigrants in Latin American countries. They were seen as the perfect scapegoat, the one to blame, the one to say, okay, the problem has been caused by you, so you should go. And linked with that, associated with this environment of uncertainty and fear came also another phenomenon called infodemics, that was the distortion of a real fact that was the pandemic, but manipulated in different ways to serve a purpose. And which propose was that to infer even more fear in the population, to discredit the possibility of vaccination, and also to outcast the Asian population. So there was this dynamic caused by the pandemic that created this particular environment in Italy.

Interviewer (31:22)

And there were also other, let's call it, phenomena that we didn't mention in the other cases. One is revenge porn.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (31:30)

Yes, what about you? That, yes. In fact, another phenomenon that is observed in the Italian context on social media is the spread of revenge porn and cyberbullying. Cyberbullying, the main victims are young people and revenge porn are women. I would say that at least 90% of the victims are women. So again, we have the intersection of different dimensions. So we have the gender manifestation here. And the perpetrators or the offenders are, I would say also 90, 99% of the case, they are male users. And why they do that? Because they have this, how can I say, feeling, perception of possession. That woman belongs to me, but belongs to me not as a relationship, belongs to me as an object. And as such I am in command of her desires, of her wishes. So the moment that this woman says our relationship is over, I need to move on. And so he doesn't accept that, because that is outrageous according to his way of thinking. And so he acts to discredit her, to disqualify her online with the revenge porn. And also it's another way to reinforce his masculinity. So those are the aspects that we see in the Italian social media in regards to the revenge porn phenomenon.

Interviewer (33:12)

And just to clarify, it's not that this phenomenon is not present in the other regions, it's simply that it hasn't been as prevalent in the research.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (33:22)

Exactly. Yes, yes, perfect, absolutely.

Interviewer (33:26)

And so as you compare the research in the different regions, what do you hope readers take away from your book? And what problems, dynamics and actors should we be paying attention to? And perhaps more generally would you say that is your conclusion that there are significant cultural differences in how hate speech manifests across various societies, or are there more universal patterns?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (33:56)

Yes, that's a good question. The book reveals that, that there are some cultural and historical backgrounds that they act in the manifestation of hate speech, in abusive behavior. So that is very clear, because when you see, for example, Latin America, countries with this common legacy of European colonialism, so there are some common roots there that are manifested on social media. However, I think that the most importantly are, as I said several times, that the phenomenon is not unidimensional. So it's intertwined with so many different aspects. And the people that engaged on this behavior, on these attitudes, they turn what I call in the book, social media platforms. They become the catalyst and the vehicle for this phenomenon. They become catalysts because those people, they gather in this digital environment to connect with their like minded people, to disseminate their discriminatory ideologies, and they turn social media into the vehicle to disseminate those ideologies. And the powerful algorithm of social media enables them to do that, at the same time amplifies those discourses in ways in which that had not been seen before in our societies. So that's dynamic. That is very problematic. And then I say also the book that this dynamic of catalyst and vehicle that social media affects basically four, how can I say victims individual, like I said, for example, in the case of the city councilor Maria Rifranco that was assassinated, she's a single person, she was a woman, so she was the victim. However, when she is attacked, or how can I say a politician with indigenous origin is attacked, it's also the collectivity is attacked, is target. So is individual vulnerable. Social groups becomes us the victims. Society as a whole becomes a victim of this spread of hate without borders, without control, without restriction. And the democratic regimes are also affected by this phenomenon because the moment that political figures they manipulate information purposely and they distort information, they spread fake news, so they undermine democratic regimes. So that is the dynamic that I try to explain in the book.

Interviewer (37:17)

And I know this is an impossible question, but how do you see hate speech developing? And how likely do you see governments or other kinds of institutions being able to monitor it? Better limit it? What's your. Yeah, what do you think about it?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (37:43)

Yeah, that's a very. Let's say that's a $1 million question. That's a very challenging question. And it's challenging not because it's not easy to answer that it's challenging because this industry evolves very, very rapidly. And so it's very difficult to keep up with all its development. So what I've been advocating from the past few years that I investigated this phenomenon is that to tackle this worry shown phenomenon, we should. We as a society should act in four aspects and four pillars. First, that's not an order. No, but number one would be to update the. The legal landscape. The legal framework. So no landscape. The framework. The legal framework should. Obviously it's impossible for the liquid framework to follow the same pace as the technology because it evolves every day, but at least to reduce the gap as much as possible to inhibit those manifestations, to create regulations for those manifestations. Second, to educate the new generation. So schools should disseminate in the young minds the perception that those behaviors on social media they are not acceptable. Especially because young people they compose the majority of user of social media platforms. A third, governments should also create awareness campaigns to warn people in the sense to not for they don't believe that the Internet, the social media they are sort of nobody's land. They should be taught that attitudes and behaviors online they are also capable of being held accountable for the attitudes as they are offline. So they're not true separate realities. And lastly, the big corporations should also play their roles in, how can I say, educating in the good sense as well, obviously educate their users and not to believe that they can do whatever they want on social media. However, this aspect is more challenging than the others because the corporations, the social media, they profit from hate speech because hate speech creates a lot of engagements like dislike, comment and share and that creates a huge revenue for those corporations. So that aspect I know is more challenging to put into practice.

Interviewer (40:53)

And there's also about this last point, the question of language. Right. And that's why your book is also so important, because these corporations if, if they try to monitor or limit some of these behavior, it's mainly in the English speaking world and it's way more limited in other languages. Right?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (41:12)

Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer (41:13)

In fact, maybe changing gears a little bit. We mentioned. You mentioned. Yeah, this is a multi layer problem, constantly changing and with variations across platforms as well. I mean, we haven't even talked about influencers or how social media operates in a space that transcends national borders. But could you talk about maybe from a methodological point of view how you went about, how did you overcome the key challenges you encountered studying the intersection of social media, hate speech and cultures?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (41:59)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the first challenge was to, how can I say, to identify those studies, you know, because the idea was to have a very diverse, how can I say, array of studies to examine that, that phenomenon. So I tried the best I could. I chose open source database as a methodological choice. I could have chosen, how can I say, the standard database, but I chose to choose an open source and also to examine all those different studies in different languages and try to understand where they overlap and where there were differences. So that was the biggest challenge that I faced. So, and that's why I try to structure the book in this way to guide the reader through this journey, you know, to understand the phenomenon, reason by region.

Interviewer (43:08)

Well, thank you so much for this talk. It was a real pleasure listening to you. Before we wrap up, could I ask you what you're working on right now? Are you going to continue this line of research?

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (43:23)

Yes, yes, thank you. Yes. So now I'm working to, how can I say, to promote this book because it's quite new and at the same, at the same time I'm working on another publication in Italian that must come out by the end of the first semester and it's also examine hate speech. In this time making a comparison, not a comparison, but a critical, a cross cultural analysis between Brazil and Italy because both countries, they share a common history of immigration in the 19th century. And so I try to use this link, historical link, to show to the readers that although the two countries have different histories, but there are common links and the phenomenon shows also overlaps, although the social contexts are different.

Interviewer (44:23)

How interesting. I don't read Italian, but I can try. Next. Well, once again, thank you so much for speaking with us. It was a real pleasure.

Dr. Luis Valerio Trindaji (44:33)

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.