Description
The project is about monitoring and counteracting hate speech in the internet in the western region of the Silesian Province (in small and medium size towns of 40,000-100,000: Rybnik, Wodzisław, Żory, Jastrzębie, Racibórz). An online portal will be launched and run with young reporters (5 person under 25) and a series of workshops on hate speech will be held in secondary schools and universities (a total of 15 workshops with 20-30 participants each), a social campaign will be launched with workshop participants to address the issue of hate speech (target group: members of local communities aged 15-45) and intervention procedures will be developed in partnership with local media. The added value of the project will be the dissemination of information about the project and its outcomes through local media. We want to implement this project to create opportunities for young people to act against online hate speech, raise their awareness and communicate the risks of hate speech to all community members.
Summary of project results
"Stereotypes and negative sentiments exist in the western part of the Silesian Province regarding Polish versus German nationality, descent and customs. There was a major public outcry manifested by abusive and aggressive comments in local social media, covering German names with paint and abusive graffiti etc. and by a storm in the media in the neighbouring community when the community of Krzanowice (County Racibóż) installed German language geographic names along with Polish ones in 2012. Local media and their online portals have been affected by daily portions of hate speech from both sides of the ‚quiet' conflict. Young people have experienced the effects of verbal aggression and stereotyping at school, in the community and in the online reality. The objective of the project was to help young journalists and youth develop skills to identify online hate speech and to effectively fight against this phenomenon using both the technology and legal measures. The project trained 5 young journalists and 324 students aged 16-20 on how to recognise hate speech, and how to respond effectively using the technology and legal measures with the aim of eradicating it fully. Furthermore, teachers and police officers were trained to provide support to young people affected by cyber-violence. The project delivered workshops for 5 youth journalists and 15 workshops for 324 students aged 16-20. An online portal (
www.niehejtuje.com) has been establish to monitor hate speech incidents. Eighteen media portals were monitored and 303 hate speech alerts were sentto portal administrators. Two scenarios were developed for hate speech workshops. A Stop Prejudice social campaign was developed and conducted by 303 students from 9 schools; workshops on online hate speech prevention and consequences were held for 35 teachers and police officers. The project offered benefits to students of secondary schools in Rybnik, Wodzisław Śląski, Żory, Racibórz and Jastrzębie-Zdrój, as well as to youth journalists, teachers, police officers."
Summary of bilateral results