Counter Hate Erasmus Project

Project Title

Counter Hate

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

From the first January 2015 terroristic attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris up to the August attack 2017 on the famous Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona, fear and rhetoric of insecurity across Europe increased exponentially. A rise in hate speech against migrants and Muslims has been noted, whereas in Italy, for instance, in February 2018 a far-right Italian extremist shot six Africans in a racially motivated attack. Moreover, in the fall of 2015 Europe was finally faced with what North African and Middle-Eastern countries have been experiencing for years: the arrival of pronounced numbers of refugees, who braved the extreme hardship and uncertainty of the so called Western Balkans migratory route. What has quickly been mistermed as “refugee crisis” – since it is factually a crisis of the European Union and a crisis of the nation-states’ response – has additionally increased intolerance and hate speech that spread particularly fast over online social media. Reactions to this obvious intensification of hateful online commentary in EU member states, however, were not uniform. While France opted for a crack-down on Facebook hate sites, other countries seem to have preferred a much more conservative response; one much more in line with the United States’ dictum of freedom of speech. So, following the necessity to coordinate a common response to Online Hate speech, on 31th May 2016, the European Commission presented with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube a “Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online”. The four IT companies accepted to share the European Commission’s and EU Member States’ commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online.

In spite of that, the Internet offers the possibility of every user/participant to create, publish, distribute and consume media content fostering therefore a space of full participation, engagement and self-expression. The development of online social networks, in particular, has increased the level of youth participation in cyberspace in a variety of ways ranging from keeping in touch with peers and developing new contacts to sharing content and exploring self-expression. Online space, just as online space, presents new opportunities, challenges but especially threats to young people which are not aware what is online hate speech, of its real potential consequences, of its hateful narratives and who are the online perpetrators of hate speech.

So, the project “Counter Hate” focused on promoting high-quality youth work aiming to provide youth workers all the necessary knowledge and tools on online hate speech against migrants and refugees, and improve the preventative capabilities of youth workers by producing tailored responses, counter-narratives, and awareness raising campaigns. The direct target group of the project were youth workers and youth leaders.

The project included the realization of:
-Project website.
-One project survey and release of project survey report.
-One Moodle platform which host the e-learning courses (IO1).
-Two Intellectual Output (IOs), namely, e-learning courses (IO1) and CH digital guide (IO2).
-Three Transnational Project Meetings.
-One training event for staff training (C1).
-Online and local disseminations activities.

Project results were achieved through a careful project planning and defined project methodology. The following methodology was applied: Plan, Do, Check, Act. This aimed to constantly monitor the project advancement and to ensure permanent quality improvement. At the same time, in other project activities, such as local workshops, Training event etc.. (C1) was applied a non-formal methodology approach.

Moreover, all the intellectual outputs and project activities were realized in a way that allowed the new trained youth workers and the partners organisations to produce a positive impact on medium/long terms by:
1. contributing to a better understanding of how Internet and social media can be used for preventing and combating online hate speech against migrants and refugees with targeted tools, responses, and best practices;
2. analysing hate speeches more rapidly and, specifically, better identifying and understanding anti-migrant and anti-refugee hatred online, also in order to prevent radicalisation leading to violent extremism;
3. proactively targeting the needs of different target stakeholder groups (in particular, youth organisations and NGO) and supporting them in the fight against racism and xenophobia;
4. improving, monitoring and reporting capabilities on hate speech online following the social media reporting rules of Council of Europe.
5. breaking down anti-migrant and anti-refugee stereotypes and reducing fear of crime and social distress.

The Transferability and sustainability strategy guarantee the overall exploitation of the project results also in the next years and all digital materials produced will be kept on project website for the next years to come.

Additionally, all partners will check the opportunities offered by the new Erasmus+ programme 2021-2027 and apply new projects in the field of online hate speech.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 56176 Eur

Project Coordinator

Latvijas jauniesu attistibas centrs & Country: LV

Project Partners

• SDRUZHENIE ALTERNATIVI INTERNATIONAL
• ASOCIACION PROJUVEN
• OESTERREICHISCHE JUNGARBEITERBEWEGUNG, OEJAB