10 October 2019: Wider education stakeholders
Today, educators and young people, but also policy makers, members of the industry and civil society organisations will gather in Brussels for the Drive change, hack online hate conference.
These wider education stakeholders play an essential role to put in place adequate regulatory frameworks and measures to address the phenomenon of online hate speech – and to hold each other accountable in that regard.
What’s up today?
1 – Follow the SELMA conference
The final SELMA conference “Drive change, hack online hate” is a collaborative event open to anyone interested in hacking online hate.
Throughout the day, participants will discuss how to tackle the problem of online hate speech through education and how to empower young people to become agents of change. To follow the event and participate in the conversation, keep an eye on #HackHateConf on Twitter!
2 – Learn more about policy efforts to tackle online hate speech
In “Where’s the harm in online hate speech?”, Professor Victoria Nash of the Oxford Internet Institute discusses problematic content and behaviours online, the promises and limitations of both policy and education when it comes to dealing with online hate speech, and where the SELMA approach fits in this context. Be sure to give the interview a read!
Looking back
While activities will continue, the SELMA project is officially drawing to a close, and for this reason, this week is an opportunity to look back on some of our main achievements.
1 – (Re)discover the SELMA research report
Earlier in 2019, we published our research report “Hacking Online Hate: Building an Evidence Base for Educators”. Since then, it has been serving as a backbone for the education and awareness raising activities carried out as part of the SELMA project. Be sure to read it if you would like to get a better, holistic understanding of the online hate speech phenomenon.
2 - Making SELMA work for social media providers and other online companies
Social media providers and gaming companies play an essential role in addressing the issue of online hate – through their terms and conditions, but also by seeking to go further, involving children and young people more actively in shaping the platforms and services they provide. To do so, these companies can design their own education programmes and awareness campaigns, and integrate the right tools on their platforms.
The SELMA Toolkit can be instrumental in helping these companies set up such features. For this reason, we have developed a “how-to” guide for them, presenting a range of hands-on activities to involve children and young people in the fight against online hate. To learn more about it, read our article “Making SELMA work for online platforms”; if you want to dive deeper into the topic, discover our “How to make SELMA work for social media providers”.
For an example of how young people and industry representatives can engage in a meaningful dialogue on online hate speech, you may want to read the interview of a Facebook representative by a panel of young people, carried out within the SELMA project – or watch a snippet below.
3 - Taking stock of policy efforts to tackle online hate
Online hate speech is an increasing concern of policy makers around the world, who seek to address and resolve it, both at national and international levels. The solutions generally take the form of top-down initiatives to regulate, monitor or report online hate speech. Yet, these only scrape the surface of the broader culture of online hate and fail to address the root causes of the phenomenon. The SELMA approach complements existing regulatory initiatives by providing a greater focus on education, in order to address the root causes of online hate speech. To learn more, read our article “Going beyond regulation to tackle online hate”.
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