Abusive Content on Social Media: Identifying Implicit and Explicit Targeting in User Posts

Language

This study generally aimed on analyzing the implicitness and explicitness of the abusive language that posted on social media by the students. It centered on identifying the types of abusive language found on social media, topics prone to the use of abusive language, and the perception of the social media users on the use of abusive language. The data were gathered from 20 posts of the students on social media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, which showcased abusiveness. It was also analyzed whether the gathered posts exhibits implicitness or explicitness. The researcher also identified what topics or context were mostly used by the students on their posts. 20 participants were also interviewed on how they perceived abusive language on social media. The researcher used qualitative textual analysis as research design in analyzing the implicitness and explicitness of the abusive language found on social media posts particularly on Facebook and Twitter. The results of the study revealed that among the 20 posts of the students on social media, the used of abusive language showed only explicitness. The explicitness of abusive language varies from the analysed topics or contexts that were used like, hate speech, racism, lewd, divorce, beauty pageant, sexism, political, school related, personal attacks, and about relationships. The gathered posts of the students on social media were very direct, and straight to the point, the users didn’t sugar coated or filtered the words that were used and considered as abusive. The interviewees shared that the used of abusive language on social media affected the way people behave, the way they perceived things - either in virtual world or reality, their confidence, and how they see their selves.

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