Counter-Speech On Israel-Hamas Conflict News Comments

Counter-Speech On Israel-Hamas Conflict News Comments Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10(1), May 2025 eISSN: 2503-4197, pISSN: 2527-5070 Available online at: www. indonesian-efl-journal.org http://dx.doi.org/10.21462/ijefl.v10i1.910 Counter-Speech On Israel-Hamas Conflict News Comments Fadhilah Tsaqila Akhyar 1, Deliana2, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti3 1,2,3 Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia , Abstract: Israel-Hamas conflict has been a worldwide issue and its news on social media raised various responses on the comment section. Counter-speech comments are found on Instagram in most hate speech comments. The study aimed to determine the types of counter-speech’s exchanges, and its strategy found on Instagram comment section towards Israel and Hamas conflict news also to investigate the perceptions of social group about Israel and Hamas. Campbell Kathrin's (2010) theory used to examine respondents' views based on social assessment and social identification and Susan's (2016) framework to classify counter-speech interactions and tactics/strategy used. Documentary was used by selecting the suitable data on BBC Instagram account’s comments which were counter-speech written in English and interview were done to seven respondents as Instagram users from Indonesia with the age category of 18 to 34 years. The result shows that: (1) two exchanges type of counter-speech used in the comment section conflict namely One-to-One and One-to-Many are commonly used in Instagram as its features support; (2) the counter-speech comment contained all strategy that was dominantly used Pointing Out Hypocrisy or Contradictions and Presentation of Facts to Correct Misstatements or Misperceptions; and (3) social identification plays a role in the perspective or interpretation especially Racial and Ethnic Identification while social evaluation is more impactful to the use of word choice or diction. Keywords: counter-speech; hate speech; Israel-Hamas conflict; Instagram news comments 1. INTRODUCTION The Israel-Hamas War began on October 7 2023 when Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched a coordinated assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip. According to Britannica’s website (2024) this attack killed more than 1200 people the majority of whom were Israeli nationals making it Israel's bloodiest day since its independence. As the conflict worsened Israel faced increasing international pressure to let limited supplies into the Gaza Strip to address the Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10(1), May 2025 233 Akhyar, Deliana, & Rangkuti escalating humanitarian disaster. The conflict also resulted in an increase in anti-Semitic Islamophobic anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian attitudes worldwide (CBC News 2023). Both news websites and social media platforms provide great forums for discussion in their comment sections. Comments can occasionally contain hate speech which is described as verbal animosity directed at individuals or groups because of social attributes such as gender race or sexual orientation (Erjavec & Kovačič 2012). In cross-national surveys 71% of respondents aged 18 to 25 (Reichelmann et al 2020) and 43% of all respondents reported encountering dehumanizing or hostile online speech targeting individuals or groups in the previous three months. This demonstrates how widespread hate speech is in the internet era. The rising volume of user comments makes efficient management difficult and can be emotionally draining for moderators. One of tactics against hate speech is counter-speech which is communication that actively replies to the development and spread of hate speech to reduce its destructive consequences. Friess et al. (2021) Porten-Cheé et al. (2020) and Ziegele et al. (2020) assert that user interventions can assist vulnerable groups in a way that doesn't interfere with their right to free speech or lessen the need for community managers with formal training. Users are more inclined to participate in flagging and counter-speech when they encounter hateful remarks as opposed to remarks that denigrated a social group without using inappropriate language (Kunst et al, 2021). While counter-speech is crucial in combating hate speech (Kümpel & Rieger 2021; Kunst et al. 2021; Obermaier et al. 2023) little is known about how it influences social group perceptions in online forums. Schäfer et al. (2023) claim that counter-speech polarizes people since it increases the differences in attitudes and social distance between left- and right-wing people when hate speech is addressed. Based on Benesch (2016) study she distinguishes four types of hate speech and counter-speech interactions: one-to-one many-to-one one-to-many and many-to-many. It also includes a list of counter-speech strategies, examples and suggestions for possible winners. The study investigates Twitter's spontaneous counter-speech demonstrating that such encounters frequently occur when opposing viewpoints meet online, sometimes resulting in threats or harassment. However, there is no study that focuses on the social media application called Instagram. Instagram offers a rich integration of visual content, commenting systems, and user behavior, although previous research has focused primarily on Twitter due to its open-text style and popularity in political discourse. Instagram, unlike Twitter, has comments buried beneath visual posts and can reach large audiences through influences or trending content, resulting in a different type of public engagement. Instagram allows users to respond immediately through a hierarchical structure with layered replies. The comments can be changed and are shown in a media context. Instagram is an important platform for research on how users react to hate speech and counter-speech due to its high user engagement, especially among young people. Short comments and an emphasis on influencers and brand engagements characterize Instagram engagement, which is image-driven. Real-time responses and discourse-heavy debates characterize Twitter participation, which is text-driven. Consequently, to gain a better understanding of these behaviors in a specific context, our investigation concentrates on Instagram. In addition, there has been no study that looks at how social groups respond after reading counter-speech. Indonesia, according to data from the Napoleon Website in 2024, is the 4th 234 Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 10(1), May 2025 Counter-Speech On Israel-Hamas Conflict News Comments largest number of Instagram users after India, United States, and Brazil with a total of 100.9 million users representing 31.4% of the total population in the age range 18-34 with a total 72% users, a wide number to represent social groups in Instagram. The goal of the present study is to close this research gap. To sum up this study aimed to investigate the use of counter-speech comments on explicit and implicit beliefs regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict with a particular focus on r (...truncated)