Las plataformas ya retiran de las redes sociales el 62% de los contenidos de odio notificados en marzo

The Spanish Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, attached to the State Secretariat for Migration of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, has detected an increase in hate speech in sports fields. It is one of the main conclusions of a quarterly newsletter that also reiterates that Muslim and Latin American people are perceived as an economic, social and security threat. “As we see, we must continue to work intensively with the platforms themselves to detect these contents early and to remove them,” said Minister Elma Saiz. “Collaboration with them is very important and we are already reaping good results. In the month of March 2026, the rate of withdrawal of hate speech content by platforms stood at 62%.”

The Spanish Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia held a third meeting of the working group with the platforms operating in our country on Wednesday. In the meeting, progress has been made in the collaboration already existing in the field of moderation and early detection of hate speeches on social networks and the results have been examined, both the volume of content notified and the rate of withdrawal of these applied by these platforms.

The meeting was attended by representatives of TikTok, Google (Youtube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and La Liga, along with members of the Secretary of State for Migration, including Secretary of State Pilar Candela and the director of OBERAXE, Tomás Fernández.

Hate speech in sport

As can be seen from the monitoring data of hate speech on social networks for the first quarter of 2026 of OBERAXE., hate speech in the context of sport, particularly in football, has grown 9 percentage points compared to the previous quarter in hate speech linked to the sports field, which represents 16% of the total content analyzed. Football, in the male category, is recognized as a significant space for the expression of xenophobic and racist narratives on social networks, with the people of North Africa being the target group (61%) that concentrated the majority of these hate speech contents.

The celebration of the African Cup of Nations and its broadcast, as well as the celebrations of different hobbies in Spanish cities, generated an increase in hostile messages linked to the racial or ethnic origin of players and followers.

Beyond the attacks directed at individual figures - Lamine Yamal and Vinícius Júnior concentrate the largest volume of messages - these contents aim to guide a narrative that reflects broader social tensions. Football becomes a space of high media visibility for the activation and amplification of racist and xenophobic stories.

As for the socio-economic sphere, which represented 20% of the total content of hate speech, one of the episodes that concentrated a higher volume of messages was the elaboration of the Royal Decree for the extraordinary regularization of foreign people who already reside in Spain. These messages, which present migrants as an economic, social and security threat, targeted Muslim people (24%) and Latin American people (11%). The hate content directed towards Latin American people has increased 7 points compared to the previous quarter.

More than 1,100 hate messages daily

The report records this quarter a total of 105,911 messages of a racist and xenophobic nature, the majority (85%) directed against people from North Africa and Muslims, with a daily average of 1,170 hate messages. The platforms withdrew 55% of the reported content, 4 percentage points more than in the previous quarter.

The messages that dehumanize or degrade represent 46% of the total and record a decrease of 10 points compared to the previous quarter (56%). On the other hand, the hate content that presents the target groups as a threat to security and coexistence reached 33%. Likewise, 11% of the content encourages the expulsion of these people, contributing to the reproduction of narratives of social exclusion.

Explicit aggressive language is present in 94% of the hate speech content detected, mainly through the use of insults, threats and disqualifications, which evidences a growing normalization of verbal violence in social networks.

The quarterly newsletter, co-financed by the European Union through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (FAMI), points out that the trusted flagger route stands out for its greater effectiveness against the removal of content through user complaints.

Regarding the rate of withdrawal of racist and xenophobic content, platform X has reached 75%, more than double that recorded in the previous quarter (36%), with TikTok (86%) being the highest rate and Youtube (16%) the lowest.

You can consult the Quarterly Bulletin for January-March 2026 at the following link: 
https://bibliovirtual.inclusion.gob.es/web/biblioteca-virtual/w/boletin-enero-marzo-2026