There is a sickness creeping in the forums of Hardwarezone, the most popular online forum in Singapore.

Forum users are hiding behind the cloak of anonymity to make extreme racist remarks and pass sweeping stereotypical judgement on race and religion.

It is not a new phenomenon but this trend does not bode well for our increasingly diverse society.

Online forums perfect breeding ground for Islamophobia and racism

Forum users, for most parts, remain anonymous. Unlike blogs, YouTube channels, or Facebook accounts, the identities of forum users cannot be traced as easily by regular users of the Internet.

This shroud of anonymity gives them a sense of comfort when they post contentious remarks. This is because their real identities will not be dragged into the spotlight for all to judge or heckled.

Another feature of the Hardwarezone forums is its use of user-created acronyms and jargon. Outsiders to the forum not familiar with the lingo may not understand what certain words or phrases may mean. This allows for coded speech to take place while the mainstream is oblivious.

Of course, once a certain jargon is used more frequently, it may gain mass adoption, or at least mass understanding among forum-users and forum-readers (people who browse the forums but do not take part in the discussions).

Peace and Harmony; Religion of Peace; ROP

These three terms, on the surface, are used in association with Islam. On its own, without context, they are neutral or positive in sentiment.

However, in the Hardwarezone forums, these terms carry with them Islamophobic, racist, bigoted and inflammatory connotations. They are usually used to describe Malay-Muslim Singaporeans.

The use of these terms started shortly after terrorist group ISIS entered the world's consciousness when it unveiled gruesome beheading videos online.

The cancer that needs curing

A quick search on Google reveals that several Hardwarezone users use the term ROP to describe Malay Singaporeans - usually in a derogatory manner.

The fact that such forum threads and behaviour are allowed to continue unchecked by the forum's moderator is worrying.

The case for moderating hate speech

Freedom of speech proponents would argue that such skewed viewpoints will be balanced out by thoughtful rebuttals and that rational people will not buy into bigotry.

This line of argument has two drawbacks:

First, the quality of discourse on these forums is not high. Many forum-users are not on the forums for healthy debate. Several are there to confirm their own bias.

Rebuttals are usually not of high quality; and serve more to stroke personal egos, win arguments through insults and generally to inflame sentiments further.

The screenshots below are a taste of the kind of bigoted comments you can find in the forum:

*Warning: The comments may appear offensive to readers. Discretion is advised.*

Such blatant bigotry and flippant comments form the bulk of the 'discourse' in the Hardwarezone forums. The chances of self-correction and balancing out views are extremely low in this case.

Second, who knows how many silent readers have stumbled upon such threads and have been offended by the remarks? While one can assume that most people are rational enough to ignore racist and bigoted comments, it can also be assumed that rational people can still be riled up by such abhorrent behaviour.

Who knows how many impressionable readers have used such hate speech on the forums to justify their own prejudice against a certain group of people?

Responsible free speech should be encouraged; not free hate speech

Free speech is important, because it gives a breeding ground for new ideas, for truth, and a safeguard against the abuse of power.

But free speech, when used irresponsibly, can be detrimental. It incenses and infuriates at its best, and motivates harmful actions at its worst.

The racist/Islamophobic/bigoted comments within the Hardwarezone forums has got to stop before it spreads further.

Let's hope the forum moderators and users can do their part in ensuring that Hardwarezone becomes a breeding ground for truth-telling, not hate-mongering.

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