ACS20220516EN - Racism Online in Canada

The New York teenager that murdered 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday afternoon has been called a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime” In the aftermath of the shooting, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called out social media for enabling the gunman to be heavily influenced by hatred on line. She added that: “the social media platforms that profit from their existence need to be responsible for monitoring... they can in a sense become an accomplice, if not legally but morally.” Racism and hate on line is pervasive and youth in particular are frequently exposed to its manifestation. A Leger survey for the Association for Canadian Studies conducted via web panel during the week of April 25th 2022 reveals that millions of Canadians report ‘often’ seeing racism and prejudice on line and a majority of respondents under the age of 35 ‘often and sometimes’ see racism and prejudice on line directed at immigrants (55%) and a near majority (48%) say they see racism and prejudice on line directed at Black persons. Some 1967 persons were surveyed by Leger for the ACS which included an oversample of 543 immigrants.