Hate speech in the context of digital violence in Türkiye: Perceptions and biases on Afghan identity

Abstract

According to the data of the Presidency of Migration Management (2021), the largest group of irregular migrants detected in Türkiye in 2021 were Afghans. The arrival of irregular migrants from Afghanistan to Türkiye alongside the Syrian refugees have caused a negatively charged reaction in Turkish society and from the main parties in the opposition. Based on this apparent reaction against the arrival of Afghan refugees, the claim can be made that Afghans are now the new “other” category in Türkiye. We identify two hashtags used on Twitter to protest the arrival of Afghans, which are #sınırnamustur (border is honor) and #hudutnamustur (frontier is honor) having the same meaning in Turkish and are Trend Topics on Twitter. The purpose of this study is to examine the reason why there are two hashtags on Twitter to protest the arrival of Afghan immigrants, what the differences and similarities are between the two in terms of how Afghans are defined and what kinds of hate speech they are subjected to. For this purpose, we applied Craswell’s mixed model in this study using both content analysis and social network analysis techniques. The investigation results reveal that the hashtag #sınırnamustur is a manifestation of a political endeavor, asserting that Afghan refugees are associated with a ‘security challenge’. In contrast, the hashtag #hudutnamustur represents a response from the general populace, embodying elements of cultural superiority.