The Israel-Hamas war has brought a spike in violent and hateful rhetoric to right-wing social platform Gab as well as to the lightly regulated video sharing sites Bitchute and Odysee.
Data provided exclusively to Fast Company by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) shows that the use of slurs and violent speech against Jewish and Muslim communities between October 6 and October 8 rose a cumulative 373% across the three platforms, from 107 instances to 507. The GPAHE data follows a report last week that found bigoted content saw a similarly dramatic rise on the anonymous message board 4chan.
In sheer numbers, instances of hate speech and threats were far higher on 4chan after the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians than on Gab, Bitchute, and Odysee. GPAHE saw examples of such speech grow on 4chan from 511 the day before the attacks to 2,626 the day after—a 579% increase.
Bigoted or threatening comments specifically against Jews grew from 104 to 488 instances across Gab, Bitchute, and Odysee, while such comments targeting Muslims grew from 3 to 19 instances, according to GPAHE. The difference might be explained by the fact that Gab, Bitchute, and Odysee cater to people who believe in right-wing conspiracies, many of which invoke the false idea of a Jewish globalist agenda.
GPAHE cofounder Wendy Via says the numbers are disturbing in themselves, but they also suggest that hate speech and threats could spread to larger and more regulated social platforms and become normalized. “Particularly worrying is the fact that offline violence toward targeted communities has been planned on these channels and that past mass shooters have had a home there,” she says.
The GPAHE researchers acknowledge that their platform searches likely didn’t capture all forms of bigoted or threatening language. The main goal of the research, they said, was to discover how quickly instances of such speech grow after a trigger event.
In a statement to Fast Company, BitChute Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff claimed the GPAHE report misrepresented the extent of the social platform’s bigotry problem. “These alleged instances, even if true, represent a fraction of a percent of the total number of comments posted on BitChute,” she said. Neither Gab nor Odysee immediately responded to a request for comment.
On Gab, where just over 70% of users are American, extreme antisemitism and calls to kill Jews grew from 9 instances to 185 between October 6 and October 8, a 1,955% increase. GPAHE found a total of 459 instances on the platform between October 6 and October 11. The researchers saw instances of anti-Muslim content rise from 0 to 9 from October 6 to October 8, and counted a total of 22 instances between October 6 and October 11.
On Bitchute, where about 40% of users are American, slurs and threats rose from 70 to 229 from October 6 to October 8, a 227% increase. Anti-Muslim comments rose from zero to four from October 6 to October 7, and then up to eight on October 10.
On Odysee, where about one-third of users are American, instances of extreme antisemitism and calls for violence grew from 25 to 74 between October 6 and October 8. GPAHE counted a total of 328 instances of such speech between October 6 and October 11. Anti-Muslim slurs or threats grew from 3 to 7 between the 6th and the 8th, and totaled 16 between the 6th and the 11th.
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