Current:Home > Contact-usLGBTQ+ people in Ethiopia blame attacks on their community on inciteful and lingering TikTok videos-InfoLens
LGBTQ+ people in Ethiopia blame attacks on their community on inciteful and lingering TikTok videos
View Date:2024-12-23 12:53:36
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Members of Ethiopia’s LGBTQ+ community say they face a wave of online harassment and physical attacks and blame much of it on the social media platform TikTok, which they say is failing to take down posts calling for homosexual and transgender people to be whipped, stabbed and killed.
A local LGBTQ+ support group, House of Guramayle, said that some TikTok users are also outing Ethiopians by sharing their names, photographs and online profiles on one of the country’s most popular social media platforms.
In Ethiopia, homosexual acts are punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The East African country whose population of close to 120 million is split between Christianity and Islam is largely conservative, and while LGBTQ+ people have long suffered abuse, activists say the hostility has reached a new level.
“TikTok is being used to incite violence,” said Bahiru Shewaye, co-founder of House of Guramayle. Bahiru said several videos have been reported to TikTok but “we are still waiting for them to take action.”
TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.
The AP on Thursday reviewed several videos that appeared to violate TikTok’s community guidelines by inciting violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In one video, a popular evangelical Christian pastor calls for gay people to be stripped naked and publicly whipped.
“Then (gay) people all over the world would say, ‘Oh, these (Ethiopian) people, this is what they do to gays, therefore we will not go to that country,’” says the pastor, whose account has over 250,000 followers. The video was posted on Aug. 5.
In another video posted Aug. 2, a TikTok user calls for gay men to be stabbed in the buttocks. In a third, posted in the past week, a young man says, “We should find them and kill them,” before making a stomping gesture with his foot.
The videos are in Amharic, Ethiopia’s main language.
It’s not clear what sparked the videos, but Bahiru said Uganda’s new anti-LGBT law that prescribes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is playing a role.
LGBTQ+ Ethiopians said the surge of abusive content has left them feeling unsafe, with several fleeing abroad in recent weeks. One nonbinary person said they are now in neighboring Kenya after they were attacked by a group of men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, last month.
“It is very terrifying, to be honest,” they said. “I think I will stay here as long as the situation continues in Ethiopia. … It has always been bad, but this time it feels different.”
Another LGBTQ+ man, a student in Addis Ababa, said he has been outed twice on TikTok. In May, shortly after the first outing video appeared online, he was badly beaten at a restaurant by a group of classmates, who fractured his cheek.
“I don’t feel safe at school after that, so I stopped going,” he said.
The second outing video appeared in late July and has attracted over 275,000 views. It is a slideshow of individual and group photographs under the banner “Homosexuals live freely in Ethiopia.” The top comment says “Let’s kill them, give us their address.”
The first video has been removed, the student said. The second is still online.
Ethiopian public institutions have been accused of fanning the discrimination. Last week, Addis Ababa’s tourism bureau in a statement posted on Facebook told hotels not to allow “homosexual activities” on their premises and warned “action will be taken” if this happens. The bureau is part of the Addis Ababa city administration.
Soon afterward, the city’s police department launched a hotline for reporting “illegal activities that deviate from the law and social values.”
“This was a vulnerable group in the first place,” Bahiru said. “But the new scale of these calls for violence, it has grown out of control.”
LGBTQ+ advocates have long warned that online hate and harassment can lead to violence offline.
All major social media platforms — including TikTok — do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment, especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said in its Social Media Safety Index earlier this year.
veryGood! (9)
Related
- 'Devastation is absolutely heartbreaking' from Southern California wildfire
- Wattstax drew 100,000 people — this 1972 concert was about much more than music
- 'Whoever holds power, it's going to corrupt them,' says 'Tár' director Todd Field
- Comic: How audiobooks enable the shared experience of listening to a good story
- Wendi McLendon-Covey talks NBC sitcom 'St. Denis Medical' and hospital humor
- A full guide to the sexual misconduct allegations against YouTuber Andrew Callaghan
- Fans said the future of 'Dungeons & Dragons' was at risk. So they went to battle
- Colin Kaepernick describes how he embraced his blackness as a teenager
- Taylor Swift Becomes Auntie Tay In Sweet Photo With Fellow Chiefs WAG Chariah Gordon's Daughter
- Whatever she touches 'turns to gold' — can Dede Gardner do it again at the Oscars?
Ranking
- 'He's driving the bus': Jim Harbaugh effect paying dividends for Justin Herbert, Chargers
- Can you place your trust in 'The Traitors'?
- Musician Steven Van Zandt gifts Jamie Raskin a bandana, wishes him a 'rapid' recovery
- Marie Kondo revealed she's 'kind of given up' on being so tidy. People freaked out
- Army veteran reunites with his K9 companion, who served with him in Afghanistan
- Roberta Flack's first piano came from a junkyard – five Grammys would follow
- Winning an Oscar almost cost F. Murray Abraham his career — but he bounced back
- In 'The Last of Us,' there's a fungus among us
Recommendation
-
Mariah Carey's Amazon Holiday Merch Is All I Want for Christmas—and It's Selling Out Fast!
-
Jinkies! 'Velma' needs to get a clue
-
'Return To Seoul' might break you, in the best way
-
Richard Belzer, stand-up comic and TV detective, dies at 78
-
Nevada Democrats keep legislative control but fall short of veto-proof supermajority
-
'Wait Wait' for Feb. 25, 2023: 25th Anniversary Spectacular!
-
Russian fighter jet damages US Reaper drone with flare over Syria: Officials
-
Spielberg shared his own story in 'parts and parcels' — if you were paying attention