THEGAYUK

Tag: NoHomophobes.com

All the latest breaking news on NoHomophobes.com. Browse THEGAYUK’s complete collection of news, articles and commentary on NoHomophobes.com.

  • With millions of anti-gay slurs on Twitter every year, is the platform safe for LGBT+ users?

    Millions of anti-gay slurs are issued on Twitter every year – so is Twitter up to the task of weeding out and stamping out homophobia?

    Granted there’s been a massive fall from the homophobia seen at its peak in 2013, but millions of slurs are still being published on Twitter every year. NoHomophobe.com has been tracking four commonly used slurs, “faggot”, “No Homo”, “So Gay” and “Dyke” since 2012.

    Today the website has tracked over 38 million instances of the word “faggot”, 13 million uses of the words “No Homo”, 12 million uses of the term “So Gay” and over 6 million uses of the word “Dyke”.

    The website was created by the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, at the University of Alberta, to “show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society”, back in 2012.

    Although there has been a decrease, there are spikes in the usage of these harmful words. For instance, just before Donald Trump’s win as President in the 2016 US Election, Twitter saw a surge in the word “faggot”.

    Indeed, there are countless stories of LGBT+ celebrities suffering homophobic abuse, and then there are the celebs themselves who are caught with homophobia on their timelines, like Stormzy, Jack Maynard, Josh Rivers and Amir Khan.

    In recent months, however, the word “Dyke” has seen a dramatic increase in usage.

    What is Twitter doing about it?

    LoboStudioHamburg / Pixabay What is Twitter doing about the trans, bi and homophobia on its platform?

    Twitter does have policies in place to protect its community, but does it go far enough?

    Twitter says, “We will review and take enforcement action against accounts that target an individual, group of people, or a protected category with any of the following behavior [sic] in their profile information, i.e., usernames, display names, or profile bios”.

    Abusive slurs, racism and misogyny are explicitly cited, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are not.

    Twitter also, however, notes that it will not act upon insults in its policy.

    So does Twitter really have a handle on hate directed towards the LGBT+ community?

  • Homophobia on Twitter spiked on days around the US election

    Homophobia on Twitter spiked on days around the US election

    Statistics provided by NoHomophobes.com show that online homophobia spiked the day after the US election on the 8th and 9th of November.

    has homophobia increase in the US since Donald Trump victory
    CREDIT: NoHomophobes.com

    • Trans’ hotline report that their call volume tripled during the period.

    • Alleged abusers cite Donald Trump’s victory during their reported attacks.

    • Homophobia on Twitter reaches levels not seen since January 2014.

    Bucking the downward trend of homophobia on Twitter, the Twitter homophobia monitor NoHomophobes.com recorded a staggering increase of homophobic tweets on the 8th and the 9th of November.

    The monitoring service checks every tweet sent on the social network for one of four terms “faggot”, “no homo”, “so gay” and “dyke”. The website was created by the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, at the University of Alberta, to “show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society.”

    Since January 2014 the use of those terms has actually decreased to around 45,000 uses of the word “faggot” per week, however, on the 10th November, the term “faggot” was Tweeted over 32,000 times in just one day.

    Doctor Kris Wells, pulled the data for the use of the word “Faggot” for us and it’s pretty grim reading,

    •  March 5 – 6,509 (times the word was used)
    •  April 3  – 11,406
    •  July 24 – 6,963
    •  August 14 – 7,209
    •  Sept 11 – 7,089
    •  Oct. 16 – 5,598
    •  Oct. 21 – 3,344
    •  Nov. 4 – 5,869
    •  Nov. 7 – 6,407
    •  Nov. 9 – 10,225

    •  Nov. 10 – 32,167

    •  Nov. 11 – 8,863
    •  Nov. 12 – 6,110
    •  Nov. 14 – 7,659
    •  Nov. 20 – 6,747
    •  Nov. 27 – 6,386

    Commenting on the finds Dr Wells commented, “So we definitely see the reality of a Trump presidency kick in on Nov 10th, two days after the election”.

    Donald Trump Cited

    In fact, the spike of homophobic language on the two days around the US Election returned to levels found in April 2014. The Guardian noted that there was a spike in reports of hate crimes in the aftermath of the result. Many victims claimed that their alleged abusers cited Donald Trump’s victory as their reasoning for their attacks.

    The national trans’ hotline, The Trans Lifeline, told the Guardian that call volume had tripled on the Tuesday into Wednesday morning.

    There were numerous reports of death threats, physical assaults and anti-gay and anti-trans graffiti sprayed onto cars. One car had a note left on it which noted,

    “Can’t wait until your ‘marriage’ is overturned by a real president,” read a sign left on a car in North Carolina. Gay families = burn in hell. Trump 2016.”

    Another gay man was assaulted in an alley in Santa Monica who was told, “We got a new President you f***ing f****ts”.

    Have you experienced a homophobic assault since the US election? Get in touch to share your experience.

     

  • Homophobia Is Still A Major Issue On Twitter

    Homophobia Is Still A Major Issue On Twitter

    Anti-gay or homophobic slurs are still a big issue on social media.

    Homophobic words like faggot, “no homo”, “so gay” and Dyke are used being used over 13,000 times a day or 541 insults an hour, on Twitter alone.

    Nohomophobes.com a website set up in September 2012 to log all uses of the words faggot, “no homo”, “so gay” and Dyke on Twitter in real-time, is reporting that those words have been used nearly 61,000,000 times in 3 and a half years.

    ALSO READ: Celebrity Big Brother’s Most Shocking Homophobic Moments.

    ALSO READ: Homophobic crimes up 20 per cent in London, year on year.

    The word faggot accounts for over half of all of the homophobic language that is Tweeted on Twitter.

    Although the trend has been downward since January 2014, alarmingly the use of the word faggot is used thousands of times a day on the social media platform.

    Since around June 2015, the levels at which the anti-gay slurs are tweeted have levelled out but still remain shockingly high.

    When the site was launched in September 2012, Dr. Kristopher Wells from NoHomophobes.com told us,

    “We no longer tolerate racist language, weʼre getting better at dealing with sexist language, but sadly we still see and hear homophobic and transphobic language in our society,

    “While this language might not always be meant to be hurtful, we must not forget that words like “faggot” contribute greatly to the continued alienation and isolation of sexual and gender (LGBTQ) people, especially our youth.”

  • NoHomophobes.com Aims To Research Homophobia Online

    The team that brought the internet, NoHomophobes.com has started an online campaign to research homophobic trends online.

    The project which is being labelled as NoHomophobes 2.0 is using crowd sourcing techniques to obtain labellers to identify tweets that use homophobic language. These human-generated labels will later be used in a machine-learning approach to this research study.

    The research team are looking for as diverse a set of individuals as possible to participate in this unique study. You do not have to be a Twitter user or have Twitter account to participate. You can help them by simply visiting our research project to sign up as a labeller to help code the tweets you will see.
    “Not only is the labelling process important, it’s also a fun, educational, and eye-opening experience,” said a statement from projects website.
    To get involved simply visit:http://www.nohomophobesresearch.com or the Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/ResearchUofA
    When we asked Twitter what they were doing to combat homophobia online, a spokesperson said:

    “As a policy, we do not mediate content (see section 4 of our Terms of Service) or intervene in disputes between users. However, targeted abuse may constitute an infringement of the Twitter Rules”

  • NoHomophobes.com Launches Hard Hitting Television Ad

    Brand new Public Service Announcement for NoHomophobes.com aims to get viewers to question whether anti-gay slurs are still acceptable.

    The University of Alberta in Canada, the institute behind the website NoHomophobes.com, has released its first public service announcement to draw attention to the language we use in day to day life.

    Words like faggot, dyke, and homo are just a few slandering words still casually used in everyday speech. In response, a new television commercial has just hit the airwaves asking why we continue to tolerate homophobic language. The commercial is the next phase of a “No Homophobes” campaign developed by the University of Albertaʼs Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (iSMSS).

    In a statement Dr. Kristopher Wells from NoHomophobes.com said,

    “We no longer tolerate racist language, weʼre getting better at dealing with sexist language, but sadly we still see and hear homophobic and transphobic language in our society,” says Dr. Kristopher Wells, the Instituteʼs Associate Director. “While this language might not always be meant to be hurtful, we must not forget that words like “faggot” contribute greatly to the continued alienation and isolation of sexual and gender (LGBTQ) people, especially our youth.”

    The commercial also directs viewers to www.nohomophobes.com, the iSMSS site that tracks homophobic words on Twitter. The site, which shows actual live tweets, has tracked over 6 million tweets containing “faggot” since July 2012. Nohomophobes.com itself has had remarkable worldwide attention since launching in September 2012, with media coverage coming from Western Canada to the UK and Italy to Cambodia.

    The commercial was produced with generous support from Global Television.

    “We are proud to be part of this campaign,” says Tim Spelliscy, Senior Regional Director Global News Edmonton and Prairie Region. “This is a pressing social issue that has been swept under the surface for far too long.”

    Nohomophobes.com was honoured in this year’s New Year’s Recognition list by TheGayUK for its services to LGBT activism, awareness and politics.

  • New Year’s Recognition

    TheGayUK announces its first ever New Year’s Recognition list, to acknowledge the massive support and campaigning efforts that companies, organisations and individuals have made to the LGBT community.

    (more…)