SASKATOON -- Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan are studying trends and patterns in racist tweets directed at Asian people.
The researchers say since the pandemic began, hate towards Asian communities has risen dramatically.
“Because of the origin of COVID, many people blame China. And because many people cannot differentiate between Chinese, Japanese or other Asian people — the whole Asian community is affected,” said Hongming Cheng, a sociology professor involved in the project.
Cheng, along with computer and linguistic experts, will track about 80 million tweets sent during the pandemic.
The team will then identify offensive content and train an algorithm to pinpoint racist posts in the data.
The researchers want to learn more about the language used and whether certain pandemic news influences racism towards the Asian community.
“We will try and find patterns. For example, what types of emojis and words are frequently used during the pandemic related to anti-Asian xenophobia,” Cheng told CTV News.
Cheng said while it’s known there’s racism online, there’s little data available that shows trends and patterns in hateful language.
Once the project is completed, the results will be shared with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.
Late last week a week a video was shared online showing customers at a Saskatoon Vietnamese restaurant hurling racist insults at staff.
