Tuesday, 16 March 2021, 8:04 am GENEVA (15 March 2021) – Social media have become platforms for the spread of hate, prejudice and incitement to violence and atrocities against minorities, a UN expert told the Human Rights Council today, calling for an international treaty to address the growing scourge of hate speech against minorities. “Today’s digital context means minorities are too often, with relative impunity, scapegoated, ‘otherised’, presented as disloyal, or as threats,” said Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues. “It is a warning that I never thought I would have to make, but the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers, it started