Stop Funding Hate – A Conversation with Richard Wilson and Ritumbra Manuvie

The Polis Project hosts activists, organizers, writers, reporters, and progressive voices as a part of our Politics Podcast. They don’t just tell you what happened. They inform you of the issues, policies, and legislation that matter to their communities, beyond the headlines. This week, we speak to Richard Wilson, a writer, human rights activist, and co-founder of Stop Funding Hate, and Dr. Ritumbra Manuvie, an Assistant Professor and the Executive Director of Foundation London Story.

In 2015 columnist Katie Hopkins published a piece in the British tabloid Sun calling African migrants “cockroaches.” Ms. Hopkins is not alone. Speaking at election rallies in 2018, Amit Shah, India’s Minister of Home Affairs, called Bangladeshi migrants “termites.” Shah’s spiteful rhetoric echoes authoritarian leaders, genocidaires, and war criminals who not only orchestrated mass violence but destroyed nations through dangerous speech for petty political ends. Dangerous speech and ideology that catalyze mass violence are strikingly similar across the world and through time.

There is evidence that hate in the media leads to real-life violence. Researchers across the world have proved over and over again that hate in media leads to anti-migrant and anti-minority hate crimes. In response, social media campaigns like Stop Funding Hate have been launched to stop companies from advertising in and providing funds for certain newspapers and media platforms that use “fear and division to sell more papers.” Today, joining us to discuss online hate and making funding hate unprofitable are Richard Wilson and Dr. Ritumbra Manuvie.

The podcast is available in video and audio formats. You can listen to our last episode with Mythili Sampathkumar and Nidhi Prakash here.

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