TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
As online hate speech hits Africa, social media firms told to act
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
In this file photo taken on October 28, 2021, a pedestrian walks in front of a new logo and the name 'Meta' on the sign in front of Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. (AFP/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America)
S
ocial media used to be a source of light entertainment for Nora, a 47-year-old Zimbabwean domestic worker living in South Africa. But lately, it has become a source of fear.
As she scrolls through her Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, she finds posts blaming Zimbabweans for everything from crime and drug rings to corruption - the kind of xenophobic hate speech she worries could fuel violent attacks against migrants.
"People write that we should go home, that this is not our country, that we are bringing crime ... the messages spread so fast," said Nora, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity.
"These messages can lead to violence," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as she ironed clothes in her employer's home in Johannesburg.
Nora is one of an estimated 180,000 Zimbabweans living in South Africa on Zimbabwean Extension Permits (ZEP) that are set to expire at the end of the year, after the government said last year they would not be renewed again.
Earlier permits were first rolled out in 2009 to help regularise the status of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants who had fled economic and political turmoil in Zimbabwe, giving them the right to live, work and study in wealthier South Africa.
The termination of the permits is being legally challenged by rights groups, who say there was no public consultation, and not enough notification.
