ADL Combating Hate – CYBERHATE
Since publishing its first report on digital hate in 1985, the ADL has been an international leader in tracking, exposing, and responding to hate on the Internet, ADL closely monitors hate sites and the activities and beliefs promoted by extremists and terrorists. The League has prepared an extensive toolkit for addressing cyberhate and educational resources for parents. ADL convenes a working group on cyberhate bringing together experts, academics, NGOs, and Internet industry leaders to evaluate current practices and to develop new strategies for responding. As a result of that work, in September 2014 ADL released Best Practices for Challenging Cyberhate, which establishes guideposts for the industry and Internet community to help users understand what they can do when they encounter hate speech online. The ADL also provides a Cyber-Safety Action Guide and a toolkit for action.
BRICkS – Building Respect on the Internet by Combating Hate Speech
Many recent studies show that on websites, blogs and social networks, manifestations of hate speech are increasing, especially among young people. The project explores the opportunities offered by modern technologies for empowering young people to use the information disseminated by online media and social networks in a critical way and to promote their active role in the struggle against online racist and xenophobic speech. Its added value is to promote a multi-disciplinary approach that involves stakeholders, professionals and young people and to overturn the usual perspective.
Given the proliferation of violent extremist content online in recent years, developing effective counter-narratives – messages that offer a positive alternative to extremist propaganda, or deconstruct or delegitimize extremist narratives and challenge extremist ideologies – is an increasingly necessary alternative to online censorship.
This Handbook, funded by Public Safety Canada through the Kanishka Project, was created by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) to help anyone looking to proactively respond to extremist propaganda with counter-narrative campaigns, and is intended as a beginner’s guide for those with little or no previous experience of counter-narrative campaigning. It takes readers through the main stages of creating, launching and evaluating an effective counter-narrative campaign. It can also be used alongside ISD’s freely available online Counter-narrative Toolkit.
The “Counter-Narrative Toolkit” website was created in response to the growing need to push back against violent extremist content online. The Toolkit was created following the recognition that many of the individuals that are best positioned to produce credible counter-narrative messages do not always have the skills to do so. The Toolkit is freely available for use by any individual or organisation looking to create counter-narratives. It is intended to be a basic guide for those with little to no previous experience of counter-narrative campaigning, and is by no means comprehensive.
eMORE Project – Monitoring and Reporting Online Hate Speech in Europe
The eMORE project aims to contribute to developing, testing and transferring a knowledge model on online hate speech and offline hate crime, based on a circular and advanced joint monitoring-reporting system, to gain a sound understanding of the phenomena/trends over the Internet and offline, to allow comparative analysis at national/EU level, and to support the harmonised combating against hate-motivated offences at EU/national level.
The Project will develop a knowledge platform available to target groups, which will allow to in-depth analyse hate phenomena online/offline. The platform will process data/information collected through a crawler to monitor the Internet and a APP to report crime. Both of them will be developed by the Project, too. The APP will be tested in 9 participating countries.
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) – On combating hate speech
This general policy recommendation focuses on the phenomenon of hate speech and the damaging consequences of its use for individuals, certain groups of persons and society as a whole. These consequences have been noted particularly in the course of ECRI’s country monitoring but are more generally appreciated. The Recommendation thus sets out ECRI’s understanding of what constitutes hate speech and identifies the measures that can and need to be taken to combat its use.
Facebook – Community Standards
Our mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Every day, people come to Facebook to share their stories, see the world through the eyes of others and connect with friends and causes. The conversations that happen on Facebook reflect the diversity of a community of more than one billion people.
We want people to feel safe when using Facebook. For that reason, we’ve developed a set of Community Standards, outlined below. These policies will help you understand what type of sharing is allowed on Facebook, and what type of content may be reported to us and removed. Because of the diversity of our global community, please bear in mind that something that may be disagreeable or disturbing to you may not violate our Community Standards.
Hate Speech Watch is a user-generated repository to trace, share and discuss online hate speech content. Instances of hate speech signalled here are not reported to judicial authorities, regulatory bodies or internet providers. Please, also report systematically all hate speech you encounter online to the relevant national authorities and Internet companies. Hate Speech Watch also created a manual for combating hate speech online through human rights education, called Bookmarks.
Founded in 1995, ILGA Portugal is the largest and oldest NGO in Portugal striving for equality and against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Our mission is the social inclusion of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population in Portugal through a program of social support that improves the quality of life of LGBT people and their families; through the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; and through the promotion of full citizenship, Human Rights and gender equality. We are a national organization and although we are based in Lisboa, we also have a group working in Porto. We have a strong diversity policy and very active groups devoted to working on Lesbian or Trans issues, as well as a group devoted to Rainbow Families.
IN@CH – International Network Against Cyber Hate
The International Network Against Cyber Hate unites organizations around the world. Incorporating different cultural backgrounds and speaking many languages, INACH has a diverse perspective, allowing the network to counter and address all forms of online discrimination. INACH adds value to the Internet and brings the online in line with Human Rights.
The object of INACH, the International Network Against Cyberhate is to combat discrimination on the Internet. INACH is a foundation under Dutch Law and is seated in Amsterdam. INACH was founded on October 4, 2002 by Jugendschutz.net and Magenta Foundation, Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet.
The growing number of websites promoting hate speech on the Internet is an area of concern for many countries and thus Hotlines. The uncensored nature of the Internet provides the opportunity for those with racist and xenophobic views to promote these to a global audience.
Investigating hate speech related Internet content is extremely complex. However offensive some of the material might be, often it is not illegal under criminal law. Each report to a hotline will be investigated in depth and judged against the legislation of the country where the content is hosted.
Differences in national legislation exists, but typically the common ground across countries is where websites encourage individuals to act on the views presented. Incitement to action as a result of hate speech may then be classified as illegal.
iSCA – Israeli Students Combating Antisemitism
ISCA (Israeli Students Combating Antisemitism) is an innovative, multi-tasked and a leading project, initiated by the National Union of Israeli Students in 2011.
ISCA brings together students from all fields and all academic institutions, who share one goal. This goal is the ongoing battle against anti-Semitism. Our overall objective, combating anti-Semitism, is carried out on various levels. We work in small groups, each one is dedicated to a customized mission, which breaks down to many small tasks. We seek to raise awareness to the ongoing phenomenon of global, modern-day antisemitism, with the home for more and more people to be aware and take action.
ISCA was founded out of necessity. With the internet becoming a platform where everyone can share information and content, it is being abused by some, who spread their hate and anti-Semitic views.
Our wish is a simple one – for us to no longer be needed.
The LIGHT ON project (Cross-community actions for combating the modern symbolism and languages of racism and discrimination) is funded by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission.
LIGHT ON (January 2013 – December 2014) aims to tackle the normalization of racism and its related images and habits, providing a set of tools for the community, but also for law enforcement professionals, through a preventive and participatory approach calling everyone to put discrimination in the spotlight — and combating it.
The general objective of the project is to contribute to the development of a culture that denounces racism, underlines its social disvalue, and promotes an active role of individuals in combating racism, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance.
MANDOLA – Monitoring and Detecting OnLine Hate Speech
MANDOLA project wants to make a bold step towards improving our understanding of the prevalence and spread of on-line hate speech and towards empowering ordinary citizens to monitor and report hate speech. The objectives of this project are:
- To monitor the spread and penetration of on-line hate-related speech in Europe and in Member States using big-data approaches, while investigating the possibility to distinguish, amongst monitored contents, between potentially illegal hate-related speeches and potentially non illegal hate-related speeches.
- To provide policy makers with actionable information that can be used to promote policies that mitigate the spread of on-line hate speech.
- To provide ordinary citizens with useful tools that can help them deal with on-line hate speech or bystanders or even as victims.
- To transfer best practices among Member States.
- To set up a reporting infrastructure that will connect concerned citizens with police forces and which will enable the reporting of illegal hate-related speech.
Microsoft – New resources to report hate speech
Microsoft is committed to creating safe online communities where customers can learn, play, grow and interact without the threat of violence or hatred. That’s why for many years they’ve sought to protect our customers by prohibiting hate speech and removing such content from their hosted consumer services. Microsoft implemented a new dedicated web form for reporting hate speech on their hosted consumer services, and a separate web form for requests to reconsider and reinstate content.
Our intention is to inform people of racist, homophobic, religious extreme hate speech perpetrators across social networking internet sites. And we also aim to be a focal point for people to access information and resources to report such perpetrators to appropriate web sites, governmental departments and law enforcement agencies around the world.
We will also post relevant news worthy items and information on Human rights issues, racism, extremist individuals and groups and far right political parties from around the world although predominantly Britain.
The Online Hate Prevention Institute
The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) is an Australian Harm Prevention Charity. It aims to reduce the risk of suicide, self harm, substance abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse that can result from online hate. Its focus ranges from cyber-racism, online religious vilification and other group-based forms of online hate, through to the cyber-bullying of individuals.
OHPI conducts research, runs campaigns and provides public education, recommends policy changes and law reform, and seeks ways of changing online systems to make them more effective in reducing the risks posed by online hate. It aims to find ways to create systemic changes that reduce the risk of harm both now and into the future.
they can’t – Fighting Antisemitism & Terrorism Online
Global anti-Semitism has reached levels of intensity that surpass anything seen in the last fifty years. The Internet and social media have provided powerful tools to those who seek to demonize the Jewish people and Israel. Traditional watchdog groups and anti-defamation organizations are not equipped to wage this battle.
That’s where They Can’t comes in.
Started in 2013 by Eliyahou Roth, They Can’t has built a network of grassroots activists that mobilizes in minutes, flagging hateful content to remove it from sites like YouTube. Based outside of Jerusalem, Israel, They Can’t is entirely funded by supporters and members. Collectively, our efforts have removed more than 49,800 anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content from Social Media in just two years.
Together against Hate on the Net
A 2015 Initiative to tackle hate on the internet in Germany, which includes a taskforce of internet providers, civil society organisations and media control. More information in English can be found here.
True Vision – Internet Hate Crime
The Internet has changed the way we communicate, it has many positive values but it has also allowed the hateful to spread offence to a broader audience, without editorial control and often behind a veil of anonymity. True Vision provides information on the law and how to address hate online.
Twitter – Reporting Abusive Behavior
Twitter strives to provide an environment where users can feel free to express themselves. If abusive behavior happens, we want to make it easy for our users to report it to us. Users can include multiple Tweets in the same report, helping us gain better context, while investigating the issues to get them resolved faster.
UNESCO – Countering Online Hate Speech
While the Internet is not separate from the realm of laws, there are complications in developing and applying legal responses to perceived online hate speech. It is for this reason that this study examines social responses which may be considered as complementary to any legal limitations enforced by a state.
A typology of responses is elaborated in this study. One is monitoring and analysis by civil society. A second is individuals promoting peer-to-peer counter-speech. A third is organized action by NGOs to report cases to the authorities, and a fourth is campaigning for actions by Internet companies hosting the particular content. A fifth response is structural – empowering users through education and training about the knowledge, ethics and skills to use the right to freedom of expression on the Internet. This is what UNESCO calls Media and Information Literacy.
It is creative societal responses like these which can produce results. They can help ensure that the Internet remains a place of positive potential, and that this network of networks will help us to build Knowledge Societies on the basis of peace, human rights and sustainable development.
United Nations – General recommendation No. 35 (Combating racist hate speech)
At its eightieth session, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Committee) decided to hold a thematic discussion on racist hate speech during its eighty-first session. The discussion took place on 28 August 2012 and focused on understanding the causes and consequences of racist hate speech, and how the resources of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (the Convention) may be mobilized to combat it. Participants in the discussion included, in addition to members of the Committee, representatives from permanent missions to the United Nations Office in Geneva, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organizations, academics and interested individuals.
Following the discussion, the Committee expressed its intention to work on drafting a general recommendation to provide guidance on the requirements of the Convention in the area of racist hate speech in order to assist States parties in discharging their obligations, including reporting obligations. The present general recommendation is of relevance to all stakeholders in the fight against racial discrimination, and seeks to contribute to the promotion of understanding, lasting peace and security among communities, peoples and States.
YouTube Creators for Change is a new initiative dedicated to amplifying the voices of role models who are tackling difficult social issues with their channels. From combating hate speech, to countering xenophobia and extremism, to simply making the case for greater tolerance and empathy toward others, these creators are helping generate positive social change with their global fan bases.
