The role of hate speech, symbols of content and language preference in shaping users' behavior

Due to the accessibility of social media to anyone with internet connections, racist ideology has become increasingly prevalent. Racial hate speech on social media presents significant communication challenges, particularly among users from different sociocultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the significance of messages on social media can vary and be interpreted differently by users from diverse backgrounds in various contexts. This study employed multivariate analysis to examine the impact of hate speech, symbols of content and language preference on users’ behavior. A structural model was developed to evaluate the significance of the proposed hypotheses. Students from five universities across different regions in Malaysia participated as respondents in this study. This study seeks to fill the gap in empirical research by using an online survey covering university students in Malaysia to examine students’ behavior in expressing racist messages on social media. The findings revealed that hate speech, emojis, hashtags, and language preferences significantly influence users' behavior in expressing racist messages on social media. In contrast, memes had no significant effect. In addition, emojis and language preferences have significantly contributed to users' behavior in expressing racist messages on social media. However, hate speech, memes, and hashtags made substantial contributions. Additionally, hate speech expression on social media had substantial consequences that emphasized the negative behavior of social media users. From this study, government agencies can collaborate with targeted community associations, nongovernmental bodies, universities and schools to launch campaigns on the hazards of hating speech on social media, aiming for early exposure to young social media users. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of users' engagement and social media ethics.