Washington Post: Zuckerberg and Dorsey say there’s good reason not to ban hashtags associated with anti-Asian hate

Last year, when President Donald Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the Internet saw a spike in anti-Asian hate. The moment underlined how racism against Asians has risen during the pandemic, finding a home on social media and escalating into real-world violence.

Many people posting coronavirus-related racism use hashtags like “#chinesevirus." At Thursday’s congressional hearing on social media and disinformation, Rep. Doris Matsui, a Democrat from California and one of the chamber’s longest-serving Asian American members, asked the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter why they hadn’t banned hashtags associated with anti-Asian racism.

Racist anti-Asian hashtags spiked after Trump first tweeted ‘Chinese virus,’ study finds

The racism on social media is impossible to ignore in light of the slayings of six Asian women in Atlanta earlier this month, Matsui said. “The issues we are discussing here are not abstract."

Twitter’s Dorsey and Facebook’s Zuckerberg said they were working to take down racist posts on their platforms, but that hashtags are often used by people pushing back against racism, too.

“If it’s combined with something that’s clearly hateful, we will take that down,” Zuckerberg said. “We need to be clear about when someone is saying something because they’re using it in a hateful way versus when they’re denouncing it.”

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