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Submitted
Mar 5, 2026
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May 23, 2026
Published
Aug 28, 2026
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Abstract

This study examines the emergence and escalation of hate speech in digital academic spaces across Eastern Indonesia through a mixed-methods approach integrating critical discourse analysis and artificial intelligence-based natural language processing. Drawing on a corpus of 4,200 posts and comments collected from institutional LMS platforms, WhatsApp/Telegram channels, and YouTube comment sections across four provinces (Papua, Maluku, Nusa Tenggara Timur, and Sulawesi), the study finds that 38.4% of the total sample contains some form of hate speech, with implicit euphemistic hate speech (IHS-E) consistently outnumbering explicit hate speech (EHS) at an average ratio of 1.5:1 across all platforms and provinces. Critical discourse analysis identifies five primary linguistic strategies constituting the local “alphabet of hate”: ethnic euphemism and regional nickname deployment, covert religious dog-whistling, ironic praise, dehumanizing metaphor, and socioeconomic stereotyping, each operating in province-specific intersectional configurations. Computational evaluation using a combined pipeline of fine-tuned IndoBERT, DeepHate, and a community-validated local language lexicon classifier achieves a macro-averaged F1 of 0.859, with the local lexicon proving superior to transformer-based models alone in detecting IHS-E. A documented five-stage escalation trajectory confirms that the movement from euphemism to extremism follows an identifiable and intervenable pattern. This study contributes a culturally responsive hate speech detection framework and provides an empirical foundation for more inclusive digital academic governance in Eastern Indonesia.

Keywords

Digital Hate Speech Eastern Indonesia Natural Language Processing Critical Discourse Analysis Alphabet of Hate

Article Details

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How to Cite
Naatonis, R. N., Sumarlin, S., Asmara, J., Latuan, Y. J., Anggraini, D., Snae, M., Heni, H., Nubatonis, E. R., Natzir, S. M., & Kase, E. (2026). From Euphemism to Extremism: Emerging Alphabets of Hate in Digital Academic Spaces in Eastern Indonesia. Journal of E-Learning and Knowledge Society, 22(1), 91-104. https://doi.org/10.20368/1971-8829/1136316

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