Online content creators urged to desist from practices that instigate hate speech

A workshop organized by the Defyhatenow Civic Watch in Douala on May 4 2023 served as an opportunity to tell online content creators to consider the effects of their content first before publication.

Facilitators speaking during the workshop said many media professionals have found themselves propagating hate speech, at times without knowing because they didn’t take time to fact-check or reflect on the effects.

Kinang Derick Fai, Conflict Research and Administrative Coordinator for Defyhatenow, said the session in Douala was meant to bring media professionals together so that they could talk about responsible use of the social media. “We wanted to look at ourselves eyeball to eyeball and critically examine some of our publications,” he said.

“We wanted to see among ourselves if there was a better way we could produce some of this content in a responsible way without violating the community standards of the different platforms we use,” the coordinator added.

He noted that the Defyhatenow project is organized in collaboration with Meta, which is why they decided to do a study of online platforms like Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter and Tik Tok among others. “We wanted to see how these platforms are being used by these different content creators and influencers,” the facilitator indicated.

Participants were encouraged to avoid making publications because they want to please followers or simply because they want to put food on their table. “You must not do it the wrong way,” the media experts were told.

The content creators were urged to be peace builders and persons who use the digital space to build a better society.