Twitter: The Social Media Platform with the Most Hate Speech During the 2024 Election Campaign

According to research by Monash University and the Indonesian Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI Indonesia), during the 2024 election campaign, there were 182,118 hate speech posts on social media.

"The highest number of hate speech incidents occurred two days after the presidential candidate debate on January 7, 2024, which focused on Defense, Security, International Relations, and Geopolitics," said Monash University researcher Ika Idris in a press release (February 15, 2024).

Monash University and AJI Indonesia monitored social media from September 1, 2023, to January 31, 2024.

They used 67 keywords to monitor conversations related to the election and minority groups, namely Christians, Catholics, Chinese, Shia, Ahmadiyah, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, Jews, and Rohingya.

The results showed that hate speech was most prevalent on X/Twitter, with 120,381 tweets. Facebook had 56,780 such posts, and Instagram had 4,472.

According to their findings, the most hate speech was directed at the Jewish community (90,911 posts), followed by people with disabilities (46,278 posts), Chinese (9,563 posts), LGBTQ (7,262 posts), Christians and Catholics (4,755 posts), Shia (1,214 posts), and Ahmadiyah (55 posts).

The most common types of hate speech were identity-based attacks (123,968 posts), followed by insults (104,664 posts), foul language (42,267 posts), threats/incitement (39,153 posts), and sexually explicit/vulgar content (3,528 posts).

AJI Indonesia Secretary Ika Ningtyas believes that the media should be responsible for curbing hate speech and producing alternative narratives to support the rights of minority groups.

"The problem is, a number of media outlets amplify hate narratives produced by cyber troops on social media without strict control," said Ika.

"Hate speech has the potential to trigger social conflict. Therefore, active involvement from various parties is needed to stop the spread of harmful information and promote safe and friendly internet use," she added.

(See also: There were 204 instances of content violating election regulations in 2024, most on Instagram)