Can a hashtag help prevent atrocities? Study shows social media can be a powerful tool

Social media is often criticized for fueling misinformation and violence, but it could actually play a role in preventing genocide and mass atrocities – if used strategically.

A new paper co-authored by Binghamton University Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm examined social media hashtag campaigns during times of crisis and found that digital platforms can aid in atrocity prevention if they are tailored to the context of the crisis at hand. 

“Governments are increasingly using social media, though often not with atrocity prevention in mind, and social media companies have largely abandoned efforts to try to monitor hate speech and inflammatory postings on their platforms,” said Wiebelhaus-Brahm. 

Along with Associate Professor of Justice Studies Arnaud Kurze at Montclair University, Wiebelhaus-Brahm examined social media campaigns in Canada and Syria, analyzing more than 5,000 social media posts tied to hashtag campaigns to determine how they were used during moments of crisis. The hashtags examined were:

• #TruthAndReconciliation – associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), which addresses historical injustice on indigenous people

• #SaveSyria – associated with a broader campaign aimed at highlighting the humanitarian and political crises in Syria

The researchers focused on Canada and Syria as case studies in this research due to the nature of their differences in conflict. In Syria, there is an ongoing civil war; meanwhile, in Canada, the conflict itself was a bit more removed, focusing on injustices towards indigenous and native populations.

“In looking at Canada and Syria, they're two places that arguably were some of the first areas – some of the first countries – where contention around mass atrocity and trying to prevent future atrocities was happening in social media space,” said Wiebelhaus-Brahm.

Their analysis of both hashtag campaigns revealed that social media can be an effective tool in atrocity prevention – in helping to identify the early warning signs of violence, amplify the voices of local people, and draw attention from the international community. However, stakeholders need to be more strategic in tailoring policies to the specific context of the crisis at hand.

Wiebelhaus-Brahm hopes that this study will spur more research on using social media for atrocity prevention, which to date has been mostly speculative. 

“This is one of the earliest empirical explorations of this question. And so one of the things that I hope comes of this is more research looking at different kinds of atrocity contexts, looking at different social media platforms at different points in time,” said Wiebelhaus-Brahm.
The paper, “Comparative Insights on Social Media as an Atrocity Prevention Tool: Policy Implications,” was published in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.