The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has said it tracked and documented a total of 387 Hate and dangerous speech instances on Facebook and Twitter handles across the country in November.
CITAD Coordinator, Countering Hate Speech Project, Hamza Ibrahim, made this known at a Post-Gubernatorial Election Press briefing organised by the Centre and supported by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on Thursday, December 5th in Lokoja.
Ibrahim noted that in the last three months, the two categories, ethnic-based and election-based, had dominated the prime position, beating religion-based hate speech which used to top the list. He called on Nigerians to shun Hate Speech and all forms of negative remarks but value and practise tolerance no matter the provocation.
He said “Our analysis established that the speech instances occur in textual, video, pictorial and symbolic forms and 32 per cent of the offending species were ethnic-based while 26 per cent were election-related. We want to specifically draw the attention of the entire people of Kogi to the dangers and consequences of hate speech and therefore urge that they neither engage in or accommodate hate speech on social media platforms or at community gatherings”.