Often speeches have been delivered with dangerous intentions to provoke certain revolts among the people, which in several contexts increases the risk that its audience condones or participates in violence against members of other groups (ingroup vs outgroup). The targets are often based on gender, social status, religion, ethnicity, nationality, profession, and migration status. In the context of Bangladesh, dangerous speech is often not considered as such or given as much weight as it should be, particularly when it is violence against women, where victims often face insufficient loyalty and even blame, either overtly or embedded, ‘wearing jeans and t-shirt’, ‘working in the ready-made garments,’ ‘speaking in microphone’, and stigma, where often already vulnerable women are threatened, harassed, and victims of violence. Progressive writers, bloggers, Rohingya refugees, and ethnic and religious sects/communities are increasingly the targets of dangerous speech by influential speakers followed by mass violence in society, often at home. In the recent past (October 2021), the dangerous display of images as a form of expression in social media made its audience susceptible to condone communal violence in Bangladesh. This pictorial communication was no way less effective than a ‘speech given in verbal intonation’. It created communal clashes immediately that left lethal casualties, wounded, destruction of temples, and properties.
In partnership with Resiliency Initiative (RI) and support from the Asia Foundation (TAF) and Meta (Facebook), SAVE Youth Bangladesh has organized two youth interactive workshops online to promote the ‘no dangerous speech’ campaign on 14 & 15 July 2022. The key purposes of this workshop are (i) to promote digital learning, networking, and mentorship for youth (ages 18-27) interested in addressing online dangerous speech; (ii) to support youth to collaboratively design and implement social media counter and positive messaging campaigns to address dangerous speech; and (iii) to share the dangerous speech framework, hallmarks, messages, and sociopolitical contexts of how the speech contributes to the incitement of condoning collective violence against each other groups. The workshop was moderated by Aynul Islam, Associate Professor and SAVE Youth National Moderator. Dr. Adam Burke, Regional Director, Conflict and Fragility, the Asia Foundation delivered the inaugural remarks. The sessions were conducted by Mr Jeebs Unabia (TAF Social Media Specialist), Ms Tahmina Nupur (Master Trainer & SAVE She Leads) and Mazharuddin Bhuiyan (Master Trainer & SAVE GS).
Around 76 university students from across Bangladesh attended the workshop in an interactive manner. The three specific sessions focused on knowledge, counter strategies, and social media tools. The participants take part in the discussion via chat and breakout rooms.
- The spark-patrol relationship of online speech and violence- There is a genuine link between online speech and violence. One needs to understand three aspects before countering strategies: First, the online content truly links with violence is not necessarily hate speech. Not all hate speeches are dangerous or incite violence. Hatred is not often operative emotion, it is rather ‘fear’ much more powerful to incite people to commit violence. The second factor is that dangerous language is often ambiguous to understand but the audience of it really understands what that means. The invitation is ambiguous, but the responses are not ambiguous. The most dangerous speech act, or ideal type of dangerous speech, would have a powerful speaker with a high degree of influence and a susceptible audience. The authority of the speaker and the social and historical context affect the impact of speech. The third factor is that the effect of this language is cumulative which is often overlooked in academia and content moderation. We must think either this language sparks or patrol the effect of such language. Spark is powerful but it is not completely useful without gasoline or some other inflammable substances. Patrol persuades the audience to accept violence as necessary. Spread patrol little by little so that one day the whole country can be set fired. The creation of the condition of genocide/violence has done gradually. It takes days, months, and years. Contents can be patrol or spark which has a cumulative effect.
- Digital counter strategies- the workshop offers interactive discussion on the strategies to counter dangerous speech online. There are two types of counter-speech: organized counter-messaging campaigns- mostly by engaging youth, and spontaneous- organic community/CSOs responses to defuse ‘dangerous communication’. The workshop emphasizes vector strategies to counter speech, warning of consequence, empathy and affiliation, video, image, hashtag campaign, etc. in social media.
- Social media spaces- the third session offers how to use social media tools to counter dangerous speech, including Facebook studio creators, Facebook business page, canva, remove.bg, buffer.com, etc.
