Scope, Structure, Aspects of Antigypsyist Hate Speech Online: European Union context, monitoring and reporting

This article aims to provide the relevant parameters of the phenomena of antigypsyism, online hate speech, and their connection. The parameters serve as background for finding out about the trends in online hate speech directed at the Roma community, the most important concepts and tropes regarding antigypsyism, and the relevant trends in antigypsyist online hate speech. The article will focus on the European Union context because it provides a comparative political and legal framework and possibilities of joint activities and policies to tackle Roma discrimination. By combining scholarly resources and governmental reports, monitoring and reporting collected through nongovernmental organizations, it is concluded that the phenomenon of online antigypsyism is getting stronger. It mirrors offline hate speech and is relatively poorly monitored. It is spread via all mainstream social media platforms whose record on its removal tends to oscillate. A brief section is dedicated to intersectional aspects of antigypsyist hate speech whose iterations in the digital space are under-researched.