Anti-Asian Hate Speech Algorithm Protocols

The current exhibition project addresses the rise of hate speech on social media towards Asian communities in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overt expressions of racism, hatred, and xenophobia on social media have increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to its alleged origins in China, these incidents have increasingly targeted people of Chinese origin, but just as well members of other West and South East Asian communities. The AI Collective’s Anti-Asian Hate Speech Protocol immersive video installation explores this phenomenon’s development and its rapid spread. This is made possible by, among other things, filtered data sets of toxic messages from various social media platforms with which A.I. aims to illuminate the underlying dynamics and functions of memes, hashtags, trolls, and bots. Thus, this project contributes to the discussion on the state of online debates in light of the increasing role of social media as a critical access to information and facilitator of public opinion formation.