Mapping Digital Hate: A Landscape Review of Online Hate Speech in Jordan

The report identifies three primary typologies of online hate speech in Jordan: gender-based abuse, religious hate speech (primarily targeting Shia communities), and exclusionary nationalist discourse. It highlights how regional conflicts in Gaza and Syria act as trigger events for spikes in hostility and notes that users exploit 'Arabizi' to bypass inadequate Arabic-language moderation. The study also criticizes the 2023 Cybercrime Law for lacking precise definitions, leading to potential over-criminalization of expression.

• Regional conflicts in Gaza and Syria act as trigger events that cause immediate spikes in sectarian and nationalist hate speech in Jordan, reflecting deeper anxieties regarding national survival, sovereignty, and resource scarcity.
• Gender-based abuse is a pervasive structural feature of Jordan's online environment, with 15% of X comments and 5% of Instagram comments targeting women containing threats, incitement to violence, sexualized bullying, and dehumanizing language.
• Religious hate speech in Jordan is disproportionately concentrated against Shia communities, who were the target of 63% of harmful religious content on X, followed by the Druze (12%), Alawites, Baha’is and Sufis (7%), and Christians (5%).
• Exclusionary nationalist discourse targets Jordanians across tribal and Jordanian-Palestinian lines, with approximately 10% of related content on X being derogatory or exclusionary.
• Users deliberately employ 'Arabizi'—a hybrid of Arabic using Latin characters and numerals—to evade automated content moderation systems, exploiting a systemic underinvestment by platforms in Arabic-language tools.
• The 2023 Cybercrime Law in Jordan is characterized by a lack of precise legal definitions for terms like 'sedition' and 'hate speech,' which the report argues leads to interpretive ambiguity and the over-criminalization of expression, as evidenced by 3,170 prosecutions in 2024.

APA

Hakim, Z., & Al Khleifat, I. (2026). Mapping Digital Hate: A Landscape Review of Online Hate Speech in Jordan. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Jordan_Mapping-digital-hate.pdf

Chicago

Hakim, Zain, and Ihsan Al Khleifat. Mapping Digital Hate: A Landscape Review of Online Hate Speech in Jordan. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2026. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Jordan_Mapping-digital-hate.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hakim |first1=Zain |last2=Al Khleifat |first2=Ihsan |title=Mapping Digital Hate: A Landscape Review of Online Hate Speech in Jordan |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2026 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Jordan_Mapping-digital-hate.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hakim2026mapping, author = {Hakim, Zain and Al Khleifat, Ihsan}, title = {{Mapping Digital Hate: A Landscape Review of Online Hate Speech in Jordan}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Jordan_Mapping-digital-hate.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }