Linguistic Harassment Against Arab LGBTs on Cyberspace

Abstract

Opponents of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenders (LGBTs) have always been creative in expressing harassment, in which they emphasize their resentment of LGBTs’ “illegal” rights. In this modern era of technology, harassment is transmitted over digital applications. In light of new paradigms of defining cyberbullying, this research aims to describe the significant body of violent language, through which Arab LGBTs are attacked over Twitter. This is specifically important in building a corpus source for computational linguists working on a premature tracing of excluding language. Responses to 100 tweets posted by individuals affiliated with LGBT were analyzed to describe the precise act of discrimination. Results showed that Arab LGBTs experience prejudice against their sexual traits, mentality, poly-religious views, racial roots, and appearance via both verbal and visual means.