With Imran Ahmed from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Whether you’re on social media, streaming platforms, dating, messaging and meeting apps, or on game sites, if you’re a woman, girl, or Two Spirit, trans, or non-binary person, you’re at greater risk of hate, harassment, and violence.
It’s easy to forget the basic facts of digital media. Take social media. Social media spaces are run by corporations, many of which are based in the United States. The global footprint of these companies is huge. They hold big social power and cultural sway. There are over 36 million internet users and 33.1 million social media users in Canada. But users in Canada represent only a small slice of the world’s social media users.
For all the time we spend on social media and the internet, it’s rather under-regulated. What a user wants – safety, connection, belonging, community – is often odds with how the spaces have been set up. In Canada, like the rest of the world, we’ve got a lot of challenges with regulation. It means that gendered digital hate, harassment, and abuse keeps happening every day.
Over coming months, we’re delving into this with leading experts and content creators, releasing in-depth episodes every single week. We talk about the problem and what we can do to change it. We offer practical tips to help you in your digital life, and we talk about what it means to “take back the tech” for all of us.
We’re joined by Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. He’s an authority on social and psychological malignancies on social media, such as identity-based hate, extremism, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. He regularly appears in the media and in documentaries as an expert on how bad actors use digital spaces to harm others and benefit themselves, as well as how and why bad platforms allow them to do so.
A note about content: this episode addresses gender-based violence.
Relevant Links: Center for Countering Digital Hate; The Facts about Gendered Digital Hate, Harassment, and Violence
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Episode Transcripts
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