The hate you Give

Accountable by Dashka Slater takes place in the city of Albany in 2017 when a highschool student started a private instagram account posting racist and sexist memes to make fun of other students. Over time the account got bigger and was soon exposed to everyone, no one would have ever expected the damage this small account would leave on the city of Albany.

Social media both exacerbated and exposed the racist incident at Albany high school by showing who was responsible for the account and who followed the account. Social media platforms bear some responsibility for the spread of hate speech and misinformation because platforms, like Instagram, should filter hate speech.

Social media platforms bear some responsibility for the spread of hate speech and misinformation because it leads to emotional harm to their users.

When Andrea is informed by her friends of the racist instagram account and that they are posting pictures of her on it, she feels down on herself and feels many different emotions like anger and sadness.

For example in the book, Accountable it states “ there's a racist instagram account, they told her. A ton of people are following it. And there are pictures of you on it, they don't like me , she’d said, they don’t like me because Im black. She had always been secretly convinced that everyone thought she was ugly. Andrea was sobbing but she was also furious,” ( page 55 ).

This evidence is important to the claim because it shows the effect that social media can have on a person. There should be a way to monitor and stop incidents like this from happening because it is way too easy to bring a person down to the point they get depressed or have thoughts of dying by suicide and not think about the any consequences.

The hate speech online should come with consequences and the owners of these big social media platforms should start doing something about it. It is becoming a huge problem in the social media world and nowadays it is way too easy to spread hate and misinformation which results in people getting their feelings hurt at minimum to being bullied and at the maximum some people take their own lives.

The people who spread hate speech online should bear some responsibility for the scar they are leaving on someone for the rest of their lives. When something is posted online it can never be erased and can be brought back to haunt the victim in the future.

When there was a school board meeting in Albany after the racist incident, one parent brought up the reality of the situation. The racist boys who made the account will come back to school after serving their suspension like everything was okay but in reality it’s not. The girls affected will forever have a scar of this incident and have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

For example it says in the book “ That will never go away. So the boys can come back to school after 4 or 5 days and forget about it. Well I can’t, these young ladies can’t, they have to live with that for the rest of their lives.”

This evidence is important because it shows the reality and severity of the situation that no one is realizing. The effect of this incident will take a toll on these young ladies' lives mentally, emotionally , and with future jobs / academic goals with zero major consequences to the people who made the account.

To summarize what was said, the people spreading hate speech will never realize the severity of their actions because they will never understand the amount of trauma they have left on their victim and that is why I think these people should face consequences for their actions. Incidents like this shouldn’t be taken lightly when the damage caused is very serious.

In conclusion these are reasons why Social media platforms bear some responsibility for the spread of hate speech and misinformation because platforms, like Instagram, should filter hate speech.