Social media’s outrage economy is pushing hate onto our streets
Andrew Pendleton, Deputy CEO and Director of Strategy and Advocacy
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Last week I was in my hometown of Nottingham when the annual pride march was painting the place in rainbows and love was everywhere. This weekend there’s been hatred on the streets – of Nottingham, Manchester, Hull, Sunderland, Blackpool, Middlesborough, Rotherham and many other towns and cities.
There was much more love last week than there is hate this week; there is always more love than hate. But those who are the direct targets of this weekend’s organised, racist thuggery – specifically the Muslim community – will rightly struggle to see it that way.
I’m old enough to remember the racism of the 1980s and the rise of the British National Party then. What we have today threatens to be worse because, on top of the whipping-up of fear and false blame by people in our public life who should know better, our new communication tools are going rogue. This is racist thuggery in the age of social media.
What business has an environment charity to speak on issues of social unrest, racism and hatred? I’d ask: what is the point of our business if we ignore it?
First, the planet is for everyone and there’s inherent racism in the structure of the problems we exist to solve. If we don’t speak out about racism, we are not understanding the problems we are here to solve.
Second, as a much younger and wiser colleague once said to me, silence is itself a privilege. We must all use our voices and whatever platforms we have.
Third, Global Action Plan has spent the past four years working to tackle the harms of algorithm-driven social media platforms. We’ve focused mostly on how this environmentally-costly, ad revenue-driven model is bad for people – whether stoking a body image crisis among girls or fuelling misogyny among boys. We’ve also looked in detail at how the same business model is bad for our planet – incentivising climate disinformation and driving conspiracy and mistrust in critical environmental debates.
And increasingly we’ve seen how climate disinformation has been assimilated into the broader conspiratorial ideology being promoted by online merchants of chaos. The first-known use of the name (wrongly) identified as the Southport attacker “was by Bernie Spofforth, an X-user who has previously spread Covid and climate disinformation, and appeared on GB News as an anti-lockdown campaigner”.
The ad-based model upon which all the main social media channels are based is driving hatred and racism. Racism isn’t a new phenomenon, but social media’s outrage economy is pushing more people into the arms of the thugs and is providing the perfect organising platform.
The racists this weekend were often outnumbered by counter protests, and hundreds of people have volunteered to help with the clear-up. But we cannot be complacent. Hatred and racist attacks have increased in the past decade and the toxic online mix of right-wing groups, chaos merchants, egotistical influencers and platform owners, and hostile foreign states who’re only too happy to see social unrest in the UK – all stirred up and rammed down our throats by increasingly AI-driven algorithms – needs dealing with fast.
We each have to find ways of using our voice (because silence is privilege). At Global Action Plan, we’ve already been calling on the new government to take action to curb the way social media algorithms work. Our focus has been on how this threatens to unpick the consensus on climate change and be used to whip up opposition to renewable energy. The hate-fuelling, opaque online systems of promotion for economic gain undermine freedom of speech and instead reward those willing to spread hate.
After this weekend, personally, I’m ready to hand back the keys to all my social media accounts. If that’s what they promote, and they can’t police themselves better, then perhaps ultimately they should forfeit their right to exist. But running away is not the answer. Whether the owners of social media channels like it or not, they’re presiding over public spaces and must obey the rules of public order and discourse.
Whatever you think of mainstream media channels, they are regulated to achieve standards and face censure when they fall short. But social media can apparently allow – and its algorithms even promote – misinformation and outright falsehoods.
Social media has enormous value and, however much we disagree with each other’s views, we all have a right to express them. But just like any other industry, it needs to be subject to laws that ensure transparency, safety and accountability.
Regulation should force openness and give platform owners a legal duty of care towards their users. New regimes like the UK’s Online Safety Act still focus too much on how to deal with content once it appears, rather than addressing the business model and design choices that determine what content goes viral, leading to serious consequences.
What we’ve seen this weekend is the ugly tip of a growing iceberg. The numbers currently stack up for love, but we should never take this arithmetic for granted. It’s time for policymakers to wake up. No government of service, nor any serious government intent on passing evidence-based policy or even just maintaining order, will succeed in a world in which social media is explicitly and deliberately geared up to spread hatred and lies with impunity.
One final thing. While online systems that spread disinformation and hatred need dealing with urgently, a lot of that content can only catch fire in a world where it is given oxygen. Political leaders on all sides really do need to check their language and question how they may have contributed to creating the conditions in which vulnerable people desperately seeking safety and a better life can end up at risk of being burned alive in a hotel in Britain.
How you can help
It’s all too easy to feel powerless in the face of hatred and violence. But there are things we can do to show our support for those affected:
- Sign our Safer Socials petition calling for stronger regulation of social media platforms
- Support the calls of the Muslim Council of Britain and Runnymede Trust and share their resources
- Report any Islamophobia you experience or witness to Tell MAMA
- Join Hope Not Hate’s campaign in support of hope