Social media was filled with hate messages and calls for violence after the events in Torre Pacheco

The hate speech caused by racism and xenophobia increased significantly on social media followingthe riotsin  Torre Pacheco  (Murcia).  Between 6 and 12 July, more than 138,000 hate messages were published.

This is reflected in a report prepared by the Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia (Oberaxe, in Spanish), following the attack on a neighbour of this Murcian municipality on 9 July, which is part of the Ministry of Social Inclusion, Social Security and Migration and which was presented on Thursday by Minister Elma Saiz.

Following this incident, bulos, disinformation, manipulated images and calls for violence, especially on platforms such as Telegram, against migrants, began to spread. The report states that, between 6 and 22 July, there has been a significant evolution in the number of hate messages and that more than 138,000 messages have been counted.

The peak was July 12, the day the demonstration was called in Torre Pacheco, when 33,046 racist publications were detected, compared to 6,825 the day before, and the volume of content was gradually declining over the next few days.

In the period under review,theperceived hate content %91  wasagainst people in North Africa , 6% against Muslims and 5% against descendants of Africans.

With regard to the type of content, % 33% are messages of dehumanization that include expressions such as "alimaña" or "dan asco". 27% of the content describes human groups targeted as threatened and associated with violent behaviour and insecurity. 23% of the messages directly incite the expulsion of migrants and express explicit hostility, referring to "beating, raping or stealing from Spaniards".

The keywords most commonly used in these speeches were "beating," "mierda," "machete," and "scoundrel."

Social media meeting

Oberax specifies that only 22% of hate messages were deleted by social media platforms, so Minister Elma Saiz has announced that she will meet with platforms next week to increase their deletion. Saiz believes that "it is necessary to work with the commitment of all platforms to make this withdrawal much more effective and faster and to prevent these messages from remaining on social networks over time."

However, he has specified thatthe percentage of removal of hate messages is not the same on all platforms. For example, he has specified that TikTok removes more . "But the important thing is to ask for that co-responsibility," he said.

He has also warned that many of these messages may be "criminal".