Making Hate Visible: Online Hate Incident Reporting Tools
![handle is hein.journals/jnlhtst17 and id is 64 raw text is: JOURNAL OF Chaudhry, I. (2021). Making Hate Visible: Online Hate
HATE STUDIES Incident Reporting Tools. Journal of Hate Studies,
17(1), 64-73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33972/jhs.188
ARTICLE
Making Hate Visible: Online Hate Incident Reporting Tools
Irfan Chaudhry
MacEwan University, CA
Irfan.Chaudhry@MacEwan.ca
Given the recent number of hate-related incidents that have come to public attention, there is a significant
need to collect and track these incidents in order to capture and share trends with the wider public. Out-
side of official hate crime data (such as annual government reports), incidents fueled by hate (but that are
not crimes) often go undocumented. To address this gap, the Alberta Hate Crimes Committee - a Canadian
coalition of law enforcement, government, and non-governmental organizations - developed the StopHateAB.
ca website. The purpose of the StopHateAb.ca website is to fill this gap by creating a space to capture hate
incidents to document and make accessible information related to hate incidents. This article will describe the
development of the online hate incident reporting tool StopHateAB.ca. Through a discussion of the strengths
and challenges of creating an online hate incident reporting platform, this paper will highlight the importance
of innovative responses to counter hate and bias by making hate visible. As this article highlights, making
hate visible forces communities to engage in joint conversations about hate and bias to support strategies
that foster a public social environment of justice, equity, and human rights.
Introduction
On January 29, 2017, a lone gunman entered the Islamic Cultural Centre, a mosque in the Sainte-Foy neighborhood of
Quebec City, Canada and opened fire on numerous unsuspecting worshippers. The callous attack resulted in the deaths of
six Muslim men and left nineteen other worshippers injured. All the victims had just finished the evening congregational
prayer. A lone suspect was arrested shortly after the crime and was subsequently charged with six counts of first-degree
murder. While a motive from the gunman has not been clearly identified, friends and former classmates of this man suggest
that he held xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigration sentiment. As one of the gunman's friends explains of a recent
interaction with him on Facebook, [the gunman] told me that in the long run, this non-white, non-European immigration
may perhaps lead to the marginalization of whites (Montpetit, 2017). These hateful perceptions of non-white groups were
the fuel that led to Canada's most recent act of mass gun violence. As Brax (2017) explains, crimes which are motivated by
a form of hate and bias towards an identifiable group is an example of a bad motive - attacking a person because of his/
her connections to a certain racial, ethnic, religious, etc. group (Brax, 2017, p. 60).
Although this crime was not labelled as a hate crime (or an act of terror) due to the evidence available for assessment by
the crown prosecution in the case (see Chin, 2017), the communities and victims impacted by the act cannot help but feel
this was an act motivated by hate. Shortly after this attack, Muslims in Quebec mentioned feeling afraid, scared and intimid-
ated (CBC, 2017). This hesitation the justice system has towards labelling an act as a hate crime does not come unwarranted.
Police and other justice serving agencies must be certain that a crime was motivated by an act of hatred. The reason for
this is often due to successful prosecution of the charge. As a result, real and perceived victims of hate start to lose trust in
the justice system, creating the potential for victims of hate to not report these incidents to the police or other governing
bodies. In a society that claims to be as multicultural and inclusive as Canada does, there are great ramifications to the social
fabric of a nation when a crime is labelled as motivated by hate. Hate crimes are socially disruptive because they showcase
an ugly part of society many do not wish to acknowledge. The hate crime label can create division between groups through
a process of identity formation. In doing so - to the extent that we conform to normative conceptions of identity - we rein-
force the structural order (Perry, 2009). In this context lies the challenge around naming and labelling hate as crimes. As a
result, recording, documenting, and creating visibility on the extent of hate crimes become challenging, as current report-
ing mechanisms might not highlight the real extent on the prevalence of hate crimes or other incidents motivated by hate.
Another related challenge of current reporting mechanisms is the delayed time between asking questions regarding the
experiences of victims of hate crimes. In Canada, the General Social Survey on Victimization includes a question on hate](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jnlhtst17&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Making Hate Visible: Online Hate Incident Reporting Tools
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