A/HRC/46/57 thematic contributions and expertise to the work of the Special Rapporteur. The Special Rapporteur is tasked with guiding the work of the Forum, preparing its annual meetings and reporting to the Council on the Forum’s thematic recommendations. The Forum meets annually in Geneva for two working days allocated to thematic discussions. In recent years, the Forum is usually attended by more than 600 participants. 18. The thirteenth session of the Forum was held online on 19 and 20 November 2020, on the theme “Hate speech, social media and minorities”. The number of participants, at fewer than 400, was greatly reduced as compared to previous years because of uncertainty over the holding of the Forum in the light of the pandemic, and the absence for a significant period of time of an OHCHR consultant to organize the Forum. The absence of a full-time consultant meant that OHCHR staff who worked with the Special Rapporteur but had never previously been involved in the Forum were assigned to ensure the Forum’s success. The limited availability of staff before the Forum in November, the absence of a consultant with experience of the Forum, and the untried online format of the Forum led to the greatly reduced level of participation. 19. The complete report on the Forum and its recommendations is being presented to the Human Rights Council separately (A/HRC/46/58). IV. Thematic report: hate speech, social media and minorities 20. The Special Rapporteur wishes to express his regret that, perhaps ironically, a computer failure at a critical moment led to a significant loss of data for and delays in the preparation of the thematic report. A. Introduction 21. The year 2020 has seen the rapid spread of two pandemics: one a disease of the body, and the other a disease of minds. The ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic have at times overshadowed the illness of minds in social media, which has too often led to atrocities, massacres and even calls to genocide. While the scourge of COVID-19 is being addressed and may be under control within a year, the disease of minds shows no signs of weakening. On the contrary, hate speech in social media is spreading and strengthening. Minorities are overwhelmingly the main victims of hate and incitement to violence and discrimination. Where disaggregated data is available on hate speech in social media or on hate crimes, approximately 70 per cent or more of those targeted tend to belong to minorities. 22. The menace of hate speech affects minorities first and foremost. Whether by omission or not, many actors in the field fail to systematically acknowledge and nominally admit who the main targets are of racism, prejudice, scapegoating and even incitement to violence in social media. By not specifically mentioning minorities, the extent and brutality of hate speech is ignored, even camouflaged in a fog of generalities. In a sense, everyone becomes an accomplice to hate when the main victims remain unnamed. The result is fertile ground to feed intolerance and exclusion, the godparents of hate towards minorities. To add insult to injury, hate has become extremely profitable for some, and useful for others. 23. In the present thematic report, some of the gaps in efforts to combat hate speech in social media are examined, covering such aspects as the extent to which minorities are the main targets of hate speech in social media and the extent to which owners of social media platforms largely still ignore or are not taking sufficient or effective measures to curtail the spread of forms of hate speech that involve human rights obligations in international law. To add another layer of complexity, hate speech in social media actually involves a non-State, private third party in the actual owners of these platforms, which are among the largest and most profitable of global corporations. 24. The theme of hate speech, social media and minorities pits many of the most vulnerable communities – for example, ethnic minorities such as persons of African descent, Asian communities, Dalits, Rohingya and Roma, and religious or belief minorities such as Baha’i, Muslims, Jews and Christians – in countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe 4