A recent report released by the Centre of Analytics and Behavioural Change has highlighted how prominent xenophobia has been on social media.

According to the report, in January, tweets and social media mentions of foreign nationals achieved the most traction when the actions of foreign national drug dealers came to light, due to the associated raids that took place during this time, at alleged foreign national drug dens.

The report also added that the behavioural drivers identified in the study were used to embed feelings of anger towards foreign nationals.

This theory came to be proven on January 20, with reports of an alleged foreign national drug dealer, who was forced by community members to eat the drugs he was selling to people in the community.

The use of false information to rile up communities is often a major cause for xenophobic-based violence.

The reports says that Zimbabweans and Nigerians were identified as key problematic foreign nationals, with little to no mentions of any other African foreign nationals.

Illegal Immigrants

The illegal immigrants category was highly mentioned.

Foreign nationals, often referred to as illegal immigrants and often a linked to alleged crimes and breaking laws, were often mentioned to justify the anti-foreign national rhetoric.

The report said there were no mentions of American or European foreign nationals.

On the online platforms, there has been no distinction between those foreign nationals who are in the country legally and those who are here illegally.

What causes xenophobic-based violence?

The report made note of the lack of evidence of claims on social media, with incorrect information often being cause for xenophobic-based violence.

Social media posts that call for foreign nationals to return to their own countries were popular along with posts that justified the xenophobic attacks under the guise of patriotism.

It was also mentioned by the report that foreign nationals were being made out to be the cause of the poor infrastructure of South Africa.

They were also blamed for poor service delivery and this has become a common theme.

The public, along with some political parties, blame the slow decay of the country on foreign nationals. The data gathered from the report shows that those who drive the agenda of xenophobia often used foreign nationals as scapegoats.

Conclusion

The conclusion that the report had come to is that at least 80% of social media posts that the team was dealing with, especially on Twitter, painted a negative picture of foreign nationals.

It was also noted that an effort was being made to link patriotism to xenophobia, with being a ‘proud South African’ being linked to being ‘proudly xenophobic’.

The Centre of Analytics and Behavioural Change aims to teach South Africans to analyse xenophobic tweets and to determine if the tweet has incorrect information that promotes xenophobic behaviour.