You're reading: UkraineWorld: Anti-Ukrainian hate speech on Russian social networks

Hate speech became a buzzword in relation to social media: an emotive concept that has no universal definition in international human rights law. In fact, the criteria for identifying hate speech are often ambiguous or inconsistent. Even though this article focuses on examples of words and phrases that can be identified as hate speech defined by European Commission and Ukrainian law, Dr Lidiya Smola, Professor, Researcher in the field of Political/Psychological Sciences explains to UkraineWorld, “hate speech exceeded the limits of verbal communication. Hate became visual: memes, cartoons, drawings. In Russia’s war against Ukraine, visual hate speech became a tool of Russian hybrid warfare.”

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