Judul : Spain sees surge in online hate speech targeting North Africans
link : Spain sees surge in online hate speech targeting North Africans
Spain sees surge in online hate speech targeting North Africans
Spain witnessed a sharp rise in hate speech across digital platforms in June, with North Africans becoming the primary target, according to the Spanish Observatory Against Racism and Xenophobia.
The agency, under the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, published its latest monthly bulletin based on data gathered by the AI-powered monitoring system FARO.
More than 54,000 hate messages were recorded in just one month, a trend the report describes as “alarming” and increasingly consistent since the beginning of the year.
The report highlights that 81% of the flagged hate speech in June was directed at individuals of North African origin, up from 69% in May and just 57% in March.
Much of the hostile content employed dehumanizing language, stripping the targeted group of human characteristics to justify exclusion or violence. Over 56% of the messages used such rhetoric. Additionally, 22% falsely linked immigrants to public safety threats, while 14% explicitly called for deportation.
The vast majority, 95%, of the hate messages were aimed at men, with 89% containing overtly aggressive language. Particularly concerning is the growing use of tactics designed to evade content moderation algorithms.
These include coded emojis, AI-generated imagery, and ambiguous or indirect language that makes it harder to classify content as hate speech.
The report warns that these evolving strategies reflect not just creativity in skirting digital regulations, but a deeper, more insidious trend: the normalization of discrimination through subtler, harder-to-police formats. This complicates monitoring efforts for both platforms and government agencies.
FARO’s findings also suggest a shift in focus. While previous months saw broader targeting of groups such as unaccompanied minors and Muslims, June’s data shows a narrowing of hostility, increasingly fixated on North Africans.
This is not seen as an improvement in online discourse but as a concentration of animosity on one demographic.
The Spanish government’s official website acknowledges that digital platforms’ responses remain inconsistent and largely inadequate, despite the use of AI moderation.
Only 29% of the flagged content was removed. Among platforms, TikTok led with 92% of reported hate messages deleted, followed by Facebook (40%) and Instagram (23%). In contrast, YouTube removed just 5%, and X (formerly Twitter) only 9%.
User-reported content fared even worse: only 8% was removed within a week, and just 2% within 48 hours. However, when reported by trusted flaggers, officially recognized bodies tasked with identifying illegal content, an additional 21% was taken down.
Commenting on the findings, Spain’s Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, emphasized the seriousness of the situation. “Dehumanization, encoded hate speech, and calls to expel vulnerable communities are unacceptable forms of discrimination,” she said.
“We cannot allow hatred to become normalized in a free and democratic society like Spain,” Saiz added. She stressed the need for consistent and binding cooperation with digital platforms, arguing that “the response cannot depend on goodwill or luck—it must be a shared, enforceable responsibility to counter a growing threat to social cohesion.”
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