'Society is fragmenting': What's behind rising levels of hatred?

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Reports of racism, discrimination and hatred are on the rise. What's going on? Image Credit: Getty Images, SBS

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Reported incidents of hatred are on the rise, and key organisations say they are just the 'tip of the iceberg'. What's driving the increase?

SBS Examines has heard from a range of organisations which collect and report data reflecting Australia's state of social cohesion.

There's been a clear rise in reported incidents of hatred, including verbal and physical abuse.

Professor Nick Haslam, a psychologist from the University of Melbourne, told SBS Examines "people differ a lot in what they define as being hateful."

"For instance, some people are much more likely to see the use of racial slurs as being intrinsically hateful and violent, other people less. So there's a huge amount of disagreement about what sort of speech qualifies as hateful or not hateful."

Increased awareness and understanding about hate speech could be one reason why we’re seeing more reports.

But there’s another factor making a huge impact.

Online abuse has rapidly proliferated, with experts calling for social media companies to do more to stop the deliberate spread of hate on their platforms.

Associate Professor Matteo Vergani, sociologist and director of the Tackling Hate Lab, said online hate has real world implications.

It's changing norms. I think we are witnessing a cultural change, because society is fragmenting.

"People are exposing themselves more and more, especially online, to groups that normalise hate and polarise opinions," he said.

This episode of Understanding Hate looks at some of the reasons for rising reports of hatred in Australia.

Transcript

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SBS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia.

Nic

In this series, Understanding Hate, we’ve been looking at different forms prejudice and discrimination can take - and the impacts here in Australia. What we’ve found so far paints a distressing image of polarisation and division. Reports of both Islamophobia and antisemitism skyrocketed after October 7, 2023, and continue to make headlines. Anti-Asian racism rose drastically during the Covid-19 pandemic, and racism towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has risen over the past decade, peaking after the failed Voice to Parliament Referendum. We’re also seeing rising reports of violent attacks against LGBT people throughout Australia, which we’ll look at in more detail in future episodes. So what’s happening here? Is hatred really at an all-time high? Or is something else going on?

Nick Haslam

And one of the interesting things is that people differ a lot in what they define as being hateful.

Nic

Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne.

Nick Haslam

For instance, some people are much more likely to see the use of racial slurs as being intrinsically hateful and violent, other people less. So there's a huge amount of disagreement about what sort of speech qualifies as hateful or not hateful.

Nic

Increased awareness and understanding about hate speech could be one reason why we’re seeing more reports. But there’s another factor making a huge impact.

James Blackwell

Online is where I see it the most.

Nic

That’s James Blackwell, a Wiradyuri man from New South Wales. He says he was targeted by racist comments online when he ran in his local election.

James Blackwell

Anything to do with Aboriginal people, especially in the country and regional areas, you get people jumping in, making very harmful stereotypes, and it does make it harder, I think, to be in those online spaces talking about what's going on in our community, that filters out into the real world.

Nic

Tim Dean, resident philosopher at The Ethics Centre, says it’s no accident hate and outrage proliferates online.

Tim Dean

Technologies like social media feed off our outrage. Posts that are angry or outraged or express some kind of negative sentiment, they spread more than posts that say something positive. That's engagement, that is money to the social media companies.

Nic

Nora Amath is the Executive Director of the Islamophobia Register. Their most recent report found online incidents had increased by 250 percent.

Nora Amath

We almost call it the Islamophobia machine, that unfortunately there are elements or actors whose whole job it is to fuel Islamophobia online.

Nic

Nora says social media companies are not doing enough to stop the deliberate spread of hate on their platforms.

Nora Amath

Unfortunately, with the community standards now across X, across Meta, they're loosening those. So organisations like ours, which used to be able to report a lot of things saying that it doesn't meet community standards, it gets rejected in fact, saying, well, it does meet community standards. This is something that we're really concerned about. So I would think that we will actually see more in the next year or so.

Nic

Matteo Vergani is a sociologist at Deakin University, and director of the Tackling Hate Lab. He’s very concerned about the long-term impacts of this rise in online hate.

Matteo Vergani

One of the most scary effects is that it's changing norms. I think we are witnessing a cultural change because society is fragmenting, people are exposing themselves more and more, especially online, to groups that normalise hate and polarise opinions. So the cumulative effect of hatred, injected in millions of online conversations is that hatred is going to become more common.

Nic

It's not all bad news. James O’Donnell is a demographer from The Australian National University, who studies social cohesion. He says there are strains, but Australians’ attitudes towards issues like migration are less divisive and polarised than in other places around the world.

James O’Donnell

Symbolic support for multiculturalism, that's a real strength for us, and it probably helps support social cohesion in Australia in ways that we're seeing lots of pressures in places like the United States and Europe. So there is a positive story there, and I think hang onto that and celebrate that and look into what makes that strong and how we can maintain it.

Nic

And there's also hope for the future.

Jordan Young

I definitely feel that the newer generation is a lot more open to engaging with us. They’ll all give it a go.

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Jordan Young, a Darumbal man, runs workshops to teach Indigenous culture to schools and businesses.

Jordan Young

You probably won't eliminate all of the racism, but I think a good way to decrease it is to show 'em more of our culture that it'll all be amongst it. Yeah, just make sure they can all understand where we're coming from.

Nic

In coming episodes, we’ll hear more about strategies to combat hate and build social cohesion. Subscribe to SBS Examines to stay updated, or head to sbs.com.au/sbsexamines to find out more. This episode was produced and presented by Nic Zoumboulis.

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