Informing civil society action against hate speech on social media

In 2016 I was commissioned by the Get the Trolls Out project to produce a guide to countering hate speech on Twitter. 

Informed by research about the damaging impact of hate violence—and particularly verbal aggression—the guide promotes safety when countering hate speech, given the potential for retaliatory social media posting against those involved in counter speech

• The guide was launched in a Twitter campaign on 22nd July 2016 – the European Day for the Victims of Hate Crime.
• A graphic with five top tips from the guide, produced by the initiative of Twitter, has since been disseminated through the hashtag #stoppinghate.
• The guide has been translated into French, Greek, Italian and Serbian and is used by civil society organisations in those countries in their work against hate speech.

In Serbia, the Media Diversity Institute for the Western Balkans printed 500 copies in Serbian and used the guide in two training workshops in 2017 delivered to 30 youth educators, who in turn used the guide to deliver 25 workshops in schools and youth centres.