KUALA LUMPUR: Pas leaders have been identified as "key amplifiers" of race-based narratives dominating the political rhetoric on social media.
The Social Media Monitoring Initiative of the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), in its interim findings, had identified Pas president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang as one of the main amplifiers of "divisive, racist, intolerant and hate-based" narratives.
The study, done between Oct 20 and Nov 15, also identified other Pas politicians such as the Sik Pas Youth chief and celebrity supporters including singer Jamal Abdillah and actor Zul Huzaimy, who had used inflammatory narratives.
"They have resorted to fear-triggering Muslim voters with phrases like 'going to hell if you vote Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional', and inciting violence against 'kafir harbi' (enemies of Islam), and for calling Malays to unite and fight against the Chinese (DAP) and Indians during the reporting period.
"Hadi and Pas have also resorted to 'red-tagging' in recent weeks, with the continued accusation of DAP being communists as they are allegedly atheist and promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) practices," it said in a statement today.
CIJ's monitoring also found that Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) had also resorted to using the race card, emphasising that the fate of the Malays rests with the party.
PH, they said, had also played the race card by claiming that voting for Perikatan Nasional (PN) would be like "having Taliban rule" in the country.
"During this interim period, a total of 52,012 unique posts were reviewed by monitors. These included comments posted by the accounts being monitored, user-generated comments, and posts that mentioned specific actors.
"Race-based narratives topped the chart with 32,066 posts. This was followed by religion with 13,338; comments targeting the LGBTIQ community at 5,161; royalty at 3,968; and migrants and refugees being the lowest at 2,462.
"This was prevalent across the four major platforms namely, Facebook at 31,969 posts; Twitter at 18,165 posts; TikTok at 1,803 posts; and YouTube at 75 posts.
"Out of the combined 45,404 posts on race and religion, 7,763 included posts with racist and religious slurs and vulgarism; 26 included hostile and dehumanising language; and four were posts calling for outright attacks against non-Muslims."
Apart from race and religion, CIJ said its interim findings also found that the other main trends around hate speech were negative stereotypes around sexual orientation and gender.
"Out of 5,161 posts on gender and those directed at the LGBTIQ community, 2,533 were posts with sexist and gender based derogatory terms, slurs and vulgarism, and eight reached the level of being hostile and dehumanising.
"There were also many sexist remarks about women. A common theme regarding gender that has run through this election cycle is the entrenched sexism, objectification and sexualisation of women candidates. This has the effect of undermining women's leadership in politics."
Migrants and refugees had also been negatively portrayed, said CIJ, with most of the posts sowing hate by claiming that these communities threaten national security and Malaysians' job security.
It said the negative portrayals of these communities had been consistent over the years.
However, CIJ said this project had found that such conversations on social media lead to heightened hate speech against migrant workers and refugees, including instances of doxing and incitement of violence.
"By comparison, despite the fact that only 2,246 of the overall posts monitored target the migrant and refugee communities, this category has the highest number of posts reaching the severity level of hostile and dehumanising posts at 43l, and incitement and call for violence at four posts."
CIJ executive director Wathshlah Naidu, said it was of utmost importance that all political factors guard against violent and extremist hate narratives that could potentially impact or influence voter decisions.
"As the public, we must refrain from falling into the trap laid out before us and not be used as tools to propagate similar hate sentiments."
The Social Media Monitoring Initiative is CIJ's, and the country's, first social media monitoring during an election, and monitors the severity of hate speech during the election period.
It is a partnership with the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Sabah.