CIJ unveils “Say No to Hate Speech” portal in conjunction with six state polls

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CIJ unveils month-long “Say No to Hate Speech” portal in conjunction with six state polls

THE Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), in collaboration with the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and Universiti Sains Malaysia has kickstarted a month-long hate speech monitoring project for the upcoming 2023 Malaysian state elections.

The monitoring will focus on the severity of hate speech surrounding sensitive issues like 3R (race, religion, royalty) sentiments and gender; and those targeted at specific groups such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people and refugees and migrants.

“Our aim with the “Say No to Hate Speech” monitoring which commenced on July 24 and will continue until Aug 20 is to monitor the following actors: politicians, political parties, media, government agencies and key opinion leaders,” CIJ executive director Wathshlah Naidu pointed out in a media statement.

“This aims to– to identify patterns and trends on how their hate narrative impacts or increases the potential harm against individuals and communities at risk. The monitoring will also include the identification of Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviours (CIB) such as bots and cybertroopers.”

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Mahathir a ‘key proponent of inflammatory’ statements, CIJ says

PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a major contributor of ‘inflammatory’ statements, a preliminary analysis of social media posts ahead of the Aug 12 state elections by the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) has found.

CIJ executive director Wathshlah Naidu said in a statement that in this period of monitoring, Mahathir had emerged as one of the “key proponents of inflammatory statements related to race”.

She added: “Mahathir’s ongoing narrative on challenging the status quo of non-Malays in Malaysia and claiming that Malaysia is not a multi-racial country, but rather a Malay country, produced user generated comments which were both critical of Mahathir as well as those concurring with his position.”

Last month, Mahathir claimed that promoting a multi-ethnic country went against the Federal Constitution. He also asked if the current government was disregarding the rule of law as Malaysia was not described as a multi-ethnic nation in the Federal Constitution.

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