Antigypsyism on Facebook: hate speech and everyday racism in Portugal

Abstract

Based on the premise that racial hate speech perpetuates social inequality and racial discrimination, this article explores how antigypsyism operates on social media. The aim of this study is to determine the extent to which narratives disseminated online confirm the thesis that racism in Portuguese society is structural. Empirically, the research analyses discourses of Facebook users posted on the pages of newspapers Público and Correio da Manhã, before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study show that the dissemination of hatred aimed at the Roma community reflects the deep-rooted nature of racism in Portugal. Thus, far from being an exclusive phenomenon of the far-right or triggered by the pandemic, its normalization is the result of a historical process of discrimination that this community has faced for centuries.