It is true when they say that influencers and well known public figures should use their words carefully as even the tiniest of unwise communication can have massive effects on their surroundings. People look up to celebrities and influential people and even if they don’t sometimes their words can hit a cord and can start wars.
Something similar happened with the former president of United States, Donald Trump’s speech in which he referred the ongoing pandemic originally known as the corona virus as the “Chinese Virus” and the “Kung Flu” and many other names. Not only Trump but several other US officials took part in such an act and it was soon realized and warned to them that this may start hateful speech and harassment against the Asian Americans and that is exactly what happened.A study took out by an Anti-Defamation League showed the public that with the increase in the Pandemic the rise in hate speech and harassment on social networks aimed at Asian Americans has been directly proportional and while they do not claim that all of it is because of the statements and names of the pandemic displayed by Trump and other officials, they certainly do have a part in it.
The report revealed that online harassment has increased by 6 points from 2020 to 2021 directed at the Asian American community and it is among the largest rise of any community within that time span. Furthermore, online harassment experienced by Asian American increased to the percentage of 17% really quick while previously it was only 11 percent and a decrease in online harassment was observed among All Americans by 3 points.
The researchers have also concluded that Trump’s first use of the bigotry nickname of the virus “China virus” had since the start of the pandemic increased harassment online and started Anti-Asian American hashtags on Twitter and 85 percent increase in Asian American sentiments was observed after Trump contracted the novel virus.
A lot of harassment was seen online on various social media sites and since then tech companies are trying their best to address user’s safety and prevent harmful content from being posted specially Twitter which says that they have developed a longer more in-depth training for its internal teams but as such no massive improvements have been seen on any social media application.
However, since Trump has left office, some leaders have been voicing their concerns against this ongoing harassment and hate speech towards the Asian American community and Biden after joining the office issues a memo in which he condemned these acts.
