Capturing Hate

"...it is our hope that these findings raise greater awareness and spark discussion of the cultural and political climate that is fostering discrimination and encouraging violence against transgender communities. And, we hope it creates a sense of urgency in making laws and policies that protect them."

Capturing Hate is a project from the WITNESS Media Lab that collected and analysed eyewitness videos of transphobic violence (physical assault) in order to tell a more complete story of the climate of hate faced by the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and queer (LGBTQ) community in the United States (US). In unmasking patterns of discrimination and abuse, this project also explores the untapped potential of eyewitness video as a way to fill a gap in official data sources. General population surveys that currently determine policy, social services, and funding for the transgender community do not include questions about gender identity beyond the male and female binary. It challenges the conventional notion that data affecting policy and funding are only valuable if gleaned from government, institutional, or academic surveys. In short, the data, and the stories and voices which contextualise this data, aim to equip advocacy groups and the media with the tools to effectively and ethically use eyewitness videos to document and report on violence affecting the LGBTQ community.

Thousands of these videos are being shared on "shock" websites like Liveleak.com, World Star Hip Hop, and Fly Height, as well as YouTube, Facebook, Vine, and Twitter. The videos are created not with the intention of exposing or prosecuting abuse, but rather, captured, shared, and engaged with as entertainment. Specifically, the report draws on videos uploaded to 4 social media sites: YouTube, World Star Hip Hop, Fly Height, and Live Leak. The report then analyses ratings and comments, as well as how the videos are captured, titled, and described. In total, WITNESS reviewed 329 videos of physical violence, which researchers found using 2 search phrases: "tranny fight" and "stud fight". The videos, often recorded by a bystander, include graphic footage of trans people being both verbally and physically attacked. In total, the videos were viewed 89,233,760 times, shared 601,300 times, liked 554,143 times, and attracted 230,262 comments. WITNESS found that the videos overwhelmingly attracted negative comments, including transphobic language and people celebrating the violence portrayed. "Am I the only one who feels physically sick when looking at trannys [sic]?," one commenter wrote underneath a video of a man fighting with a trans woman on a subway platform in New York City. The language used by attackers in the videos, as well as in the tags and descriptions, "contain transphobic language that suggests a rigid defense of a gender binary, especially the presumptive appearance, mannerisms, and dress associated with those roles," according to the report. "The viewer engagement with these eyewitness videos reveal deeply held biases that intersect race, sex, class and gender identity. The attitudes expressed by viewers overwhelmingly blame gender nonconforming people for the violence and hatred perpetrated against them and expose a visceral rejection of people transgressing accepted notions of gender expression."

LGBTQ advocates say the videos show the outright hostility and violence that trans people in the US face every day. WITNESS asserts that "[t]he ongoing engagement with these videos and the hostility expressed by viewers are compounding acts of discrimination that traumatize not only individual victims, but have broader consequences for gender nonconforming communities as a whole....A survivor's loss of privacy and control over their public image in the aftermath often compounds injury with the loss of employment, housing, and personal relationships. The circulation and replaying of these traumatic events not only denies survivors a safe space to heal, but has a chilling effect on all gender nonconforming people."

These videos are "captured and shared with the singular objective of amusing viewers, driving traffic, and generating revenue for the 'shock' sites that host and promote them." According to the report, anti-trans videos represent only a small percentage of all videos uploaded to YouTube, but YouTube housed the most videos (209) out of the 329 analysed. Of those 209 anti-trans violence videos, 39% were categorised as "entertainment". Capturing Hate's authors say they have talked with YouTube about the damage such videos can cause and how to discourage transphobic behaviour on the site. They say YouTube has been open to discussing how to better publicise and enforce its take-down policies, which do not allow "content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes", including gender identity.

"The existence of these videos and the volume of hateful engagement pose a direct threat to gender nonconforming people and compromise a positive and empowered representation of these communities. However, we think that there are ethical and effective ways that these videos, though they are intended to cause harm, can be used for advocacy. Balancing the tensions between re-victimization and exploitation and the potent way video exposes abuse is an ongoing challenge. But, there is no doubting the singular impact of eyewitness video in exposing human rights abuses and empowering marginalized communities."

Recommendations to support ethical and effective ways to use eyewitness videos intended to cause harm for advocacy include:

• Organisations and activists should use this data in their advocacy campaigns as a way of documenting abuse and discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming people.
• The findings from this research can be used to raise greater awareness and spark discussion of the cultural and political climate that is fostering discrimination and encouraging violence against these communities.
• The websites that host videos, brands that advertise on them, and news outlets and activists that distribute them should consider their harmful effects. Ethical guidelines and technical tools can help expose abuse while protecting the privacy and security of victims of abuse.
• It is important to avoid the recirculation and descriptions of the videos that may can cause further and long-lasting harm to the survivors. If the intention is to expose or report on abuse, refer to WITNESS' Ethical Guidelines for using Eyewitness Videos in Human Rights Reporting and Advocacy (part of a larger Field Guide - see Related Summaries, below).
• Platforms and sites that host these videos should increase transparency regarding policies and decisions that allow for the sharing and engagement with violent content that is not shared to expose, challenge, or prosecute abuse but is captured, shared, and engaged with as entertainment.