Last Thursday, March 27, the Xarxa Punt TIC Network experienced the third virtual meeting of the year 2025. The new virtual meeting of the Xarxa Punt TIC Network focused on hate speech and had more than twenty participants, including Pol Andiñach, a member of the Cuellilargo collective , which seeks to explain the world in a clear, critical and rigorous way in opposition to the media at the service of power.
Initially, hate speech was contextualized. Andiñach explained that people mainly interact with five commercial social networks, which represent a very small part of the vast world of the Internet. In this sense, the social networks that occupy a large part of people's daily lives are owned by several multimillion-dollar companies, which want to maximize their profits and this happens so that people spend as much time as possible looking at content and publishing content. Along these lines, teams are being organized to optimize the algorithm, to identify the preferences and tastes of users and to be able to offer content that attracts and engages. At the same time, Andiñach pointed out that social networks are not neutral platforms, they have their biases and are increasingly tilted to the right. Andiñach added that this is where hate speech comes in, aggressive, visceral content that generates many hours of digital consumption, and he regretted that conventional social networks have not wanted to set limits, have not wanted to exercise controls and, ultimately, have not wanted to regulate.
Next, the reception of hate speech was discussed. Andiñach stated that memes and humor can be a way to introduce political speech, as well as mixing hate speech with many other things, such as, for example, after a cooking recipe or a video of a sports play. At this point, the 'Som-hi juntes' initiative was recalled, which invites citizens to leave behind toxic digital spaces and move towards more ethical and respectful spaces. Andiñach then listed a series of strategies and learnings to stop hate speech and make it recede, since these become a real threat to coexistence. First of all, he mentioned the 'No les des casito' initiative, which asks not to fall for provocations, ignore them to prevent the algorithm from positioning them even better and use energy to make positive content visible. He also encouraged people to post more on social media and to mark topics of conversation, as well as to give sincere and authentic support to creative people, since unfortunately social media is a very hostile and precarious environment. He also recommended reporting accounts through the social platforms themselves and demanding that institutions with competences on the issue comply with regulations and policies. Andiñach concluded by recalling that it is people who give value to social media, suggested moving towards more ethical and respectful social media and affirmed that the digital world and the analog world are two spaces of the same world, which mix and feed off each other.