Recent Wins
29 October 2013: The Holocaust denial page The Untold History was removed by Facebook after a campaign lasting over two months. The page included blatant antisemitism and was openly promoting Holocaust denial.
OHPI responded with a briefing showing people how they could report both the page and a series of images within the page. We also created an archive of many of the hate images with links so readers could check if they were still live. The briefing was heavily promoted in e-mails and on Facebook itself. It was also mentioned as an example during a protest outside Facebook’s offices.
We’re please to have worked with many others in the effort to get this page removed, and we thank everyone who has been reporting it. We need better solutions to online hate as this level of effort to remove a single page, that is so clearly a hate page, is simply insane given the ease with which such hate pages can be created.
OHPI are working on a solution, a crowd powered system that adds transparency and holds the platform to account. Read more about this at our appeal.
Background
OHPI’s first action saw over 1,500 hate videos removed from YouTube in 24 hours.
Our work on content targeting Indigenous Australians provided the first comprehensive report on this topic. We worked closely with the Australian Human Rights Commission in responding to the crisis. All Aboriginal Memes pages were eventually closed or access to them was blocked by Facebook to users within Australia. OHPI’s work was covered by SBS News.
Our work on Antisemitism was a world first exposing new forms of antisemitism which Facebook was refusing to acknowledge. The report became the basis for a complaint by the ECAJ (the peek Jewish community body in Australia) and all content listed in the report was eventually removed by Facebook. This work received significant international coverage in multiple languages.
In the lead up to ANZAC Day 2013 OHPI responded to various incidents targeting the ANZACs and veterans and provided regularly updates to the Department for Veterans Affairs. All the hate pages on Facebook were rapidly removed.
At the invitation of the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University OHPI present at the 11th International Seminar on Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Warsaw, Poland. We also presented in Hungary at the conference of the World Jewish Congress and in Israel at the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism. Locally OHPI presented at the Melbourne Immigration Museum’s “Owning Racism” symposium and provided guest lectures at Monash University and La Trobe university and a day long workshop for the National Union of Israeli Students at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Our greatest contribution, however, rests in changes to the software, policies and practices of the major social media platforms – these changes don’t just remove hate, they prevent it from occuring to the extent in the future.
Praise for OHPI’s work
Jeremy Jones AM, winner of the 2007 Australian Human Rights Medal: “[OHPI’s report in to Aboriginal Memes] is a timely and significant contribution to an important debate – how we can maximise free speech and communication while protecting victims of abuses of speech”.
Ronald Eissens, General Director Magenta Foundation – Dutch Complaints Bureau for Cyber Hate & co-founder International Network Against Cyber Hate: “OHPI’s report on Aboriginal Memes & Online Hate is a landmark… for the first time, the growing problem of racist memes is addressed and analyzed, urging those who facilitate the memes to take action.”
Jessie Daniels, author of Cyber Racism (2009) & Professor, Public Health and Sociology, City University of New York (CUNY): “[OHPI’s] report is an important document in the effort to stem the tide of ‘Hate 2.0’… Perhaps most importantly, this report takes on the social media juggernaut that is Facebook and seeks to hold it to account for its role building racism into their user interface. This is a timely, pointed and much-needed critique of the way the culture of Internet humor acts as cover for the continuation of racism.”
Zalman Kastel, National Director, Together for Humanity Foundation: “The issue addressed in [OHPI’s] report must not be underestimated. The perception of social acceptability of hate has a real impact on attitudes and behaviours, and in the past has been found to result in increased violence and fear… The compelling material, combined with meticulous research makes an important contribution to the cause of combating racism.”
Peter Wertheim, Executive Director, Executive Council of Australian Jewry: “The promotion of racism in the public domain undermines, and can ultimately destroy, the sense of safety and security of targeted people or groups and also adversely affect social harmony. [OHPI’s] report highlights the fact that social media platform providers lack the knowledge and insight into racism to enable them to make an informed decision…[OHPI’s] report has rendered an important public service”.