For my research project, I plan on looking to see the rise of hate groups on Facebook. When the events in Charlottesville took place, the event was organized on Facebook. Facebook has tried to follow the groups closely and monitor the activity but they’ve been slow in response. I want to figure out why Facebook is the primary target for hate groups and why Facebook is so popular to organize events. I also want to figure out why people harass online. Another thing that I want to figure out is why Facebook is so bad at stopping the spread of the hate groups. Is it because of freedom of speech or would they get attacked by right wing media? Facebook would have to hear that their liberal leaning so I want to figure out why hate groups can be organized.
One thing that my group struggled with was trying to figure out how to keep bias out of the research paper. With my paper being about hate speech, I have to try and not get offended with people’s belief. If someone in a facebook political group is talking about their political beliefs and I don’t agree with them, I just can’t automatically call it hate speech. There’s hate speech on both sides of the political spectrum and I want to see how bad it can be. This ties in with my bias because I’m liberal and I’d want to find as much information on conservative hate groups. However, if I want this research paper to be unbiased, then I’m going to make sure that both sides get researched.
What I hope to accomplish is that I get a better understanding of how easy it is for hate groups to be organized. I’ve had a Facebook for almost nine years so I have a general understanding of how to organize events on Facebook. There has to be a name for the event and if the event becomes very popular then people get notifications on about the event. One thing I’m curious to find out is how these groups name their events without Facebook becoming suspicious of the event. The name of the event could get it shut down if Facebook figures what the event is about and it gains controversy. I want to see the event names to see if the group name is the event’s description or if the event has some code name that Facebook won’t notice.