A/HRC/49/46/Add.1 priority, which means that increased resources will be dedicated to the prevention of hate crimes and their investigation. 46. However, there is no uniform definition for what constitutes a hate crime. As for hate speech, while it is not criminalized owing to the protection of speech under the first amendment, authorities reportedly act when hateful expressions turn into discrimination or violence. Enforcement should be in line with article 20 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence should be prohibited by law. 47. The Federal Bureau of Investigation gathers data on hate crimes, although reporting is voluntary. The Bureau relies on local law enforcement agencies to collect and submit data but does not compel them to do so, with the result that many local agencies do not submit data, and among the 15,000 that have done so, some 88 per cent have reported not a single hate crime in the space of a year.21 Not only are hate crimes and incidents of hate speech hugely underreported by public officials, minorities themselves may hesitate to do so. Members of some communities may not trust law enforcement, face language challenges or may be undocumented and thus afraid to contact law enforcement officials. This means that there is likely to be a significant undercounting of reporting. African Americans are reported to be the minority most affected by hate crimes and hate speech, while religious hate crimes and hate speech most frequently target Jewish and Muslim minorities. 22 Overall, even the underreported data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveal that hate crimes in 2020 have risen to their highest level in over a decade, and that the majority of the reported hate crimes were motivated by race, ethnicity or religious bias, most targeting minorities and representing perhaps more than 70 per cent of the hate crimes in the country. 48. The underreporting of hate crimes is acknowledged by the Biden administration. The Department of Justice has made its portal (civilrights.justice.gov) more accessible to make it easier to report hate crimes and is focusing on improving language access through translations and attempts to ensure culturally competent information. 49. What is largely unacknowledged is that the overwhelming targets of hate speech in social media are minorities. Of particular concern is the increasing virulence of intersecting misogynous and racist hate speech, which means that minority women are particularly vulnerable to some of the most violent and dangerous forms of hate speech on social media. It has been suggested that hate speech on social media is also contributing to harm in the real world, noting that the 16 March 2021 shooting spree at spas and massage parlours in the metropolitan area of Atlanta where eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women, occurred during the backdrop of rising anti-Asian sentiment in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. 50. Antisemitism, Anti-Asian speech, Islamophobia, derogatory slurs against Hispanic and Latinx, Arab and other minority communities and anti-immigration xenophobia are surging, sometimes at record levels, throughout country. Such incidents appear to be creating real societal harm and divisions in the country, with the growth of xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering, mainly aimed at minorities. The algorithms of some social media platforms create rabbit-holes and amplify prejudice, racism and disinformation. While no one has suggested that social media platforms do not offer people the opportunity to positively connect, share and engage, many interlocutors denounced the rise in harmful content and misinformation. As noted by one minority spokesperson, the business model of some of these platforms promote hate speech, damage democracy and tear society apart. 21 22 12 “Why America fails at gathering hate crime statistics”, ProPublica, 4 December 2017 (see https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gathering-hate-crime-statistics). The last report of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued before the pandemic noted a 17 per cent increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents in the United States in 2017 over 2016, as well as a 15 per cent increase in hate crimes targeting American Muslims in the same period (see Targeted: 2018 Civil Rights Report, Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2018, p. 6. The Anti-Defamation League has also reported historic levels of antisemitic incidents over the past four years (see https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/us-antisemitic-incidents-remained-at-historic-high-in-2020).