Online hate, offline risks

Danger lurking: Engagement-driven platform design, weak local moderation and opaque governance systems enable harmful online hate content to spread rapidly, normalise hostility and escalate cyber outrage into real-world harm. — 123rf

YUSUF Omar used to believe that online hate was largely the result of fringe ideas and influences, at least in Malaysia.

But recently, the 25-year-old software developer has realised that it can emerge from many issues, shaped by different groups’ interpretations of events and amplified by technological advances.