Publications
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Report Hate Against the Disabled on Twitter
Recently, we have seen a rise in the number of reports on hate against people with disabilities to our online hate reporting tool FightAgainstHate.com. This is a disturbing trend. Disabled people, many of whom suffer from cognitive disabilities, are among the most vulnerable people in our society, and least capable of defending themselves against online…
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Don’t open the door to hate
The page Military Memes (ID 309944675811335) is a very large Facebook page with memes largely about military life. This is not a hate page, but a generally non-hateful humour page with almost half a million supporters (493,056 to be exact). On Sunday the page posted a Hitler meme. The meme consists of various stills and each…
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Bigots target OHPI
The page “Left Wing Bigots and Extremists exposed” (460474917459804) says its purpose is to “expose the violent left wing bigots and people that support them”. The page is used to coordinate raids on anti-racism Facebook pages and groups as well as on government endorsed charities working in this space. An hour ago the Online Hate Prevention…
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Facebook’s Free Speech
When we post a briefing highlighting a Facebook page promoting hate we often get asked “Isn’t there a free speech issue here?” Yes, there are; two in fact. Facebook’s Free Speech One free speech issue is that Facebook has a free speech right to decide what is, and what is not, allowed on their social media…
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Online Vigilantism and its perils
A recent article in The Age discusses how an Australian working in Bangkok was wrongly identified as the Bangkok Bomber on social media after the CCTV footage of the terrorist was publicly released. The online vigilantes posted the immigration papers and the local address of Sunny Burns on social media identifying him as the man…
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Report “Restore Australia” community page
In this briefing, we discuss the Facebook community page Restore Australia (Id#152464798295040), which has 12,211 followers and is spreading anti-Muslim hate in Australia. In its About page, the page admins state that they are “dedicated to bringing about political reform through constitutional change, and exposing the many attacks on our civilization by Islam”. It is…
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Report YouTube video “Noonga Talk”
“Noonga Talk” is a racist YouTube video promoting hateful stereotypes of Aboriginal Australians. It was uploaded on July 5, 2009 and has been viewed 3,720 times. The video makes a thin pretence at humour but given its racist premise is insulting and offensive to the Australian Aboriginal community. The stereotypes promoted by the video include…
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Cyberbullying: Tips and tools to tackle it
Here’s an emotional account by the father of a Melbourne teenager who committed suicide last year after being relentlessly cyberbullied. A few things that he said resonated with us: Why asking teenagers to not use electronic devices does not address the problem. “It’s like a woman saying, ‘I want to dress in a certain way’ and people…
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“Waleed Aly is an Islamic Turd”- Page Removed
One of the pages reported to FightAgainstHate.com was a racist public Facebook group called “Waleed Aly is an Islamic Turd ” (ID #97352561933890) The page has 462 members. OHPI reported the page and has been monitoring it for some time and we are pleased to say that Facebook has now removed it. In this briefing we will…
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ISIS Terror Hacking
The Islamic State Hacking Division published the names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and passwords from 1400 people from around the world. The list includes eight Australians who work for the Government including: a Victorian MP, a NSW Health Department worker and Australian Defence Officials. The release of information came with a message saying, “We are…