I
spent the last few days in Europe – Budapest, Hungary to attend a meeting of
the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. It is a body composed
of 30 representatives of youth NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). It
provides opinions and input on all issues concerning youth within the Council
of Europe. The Advisory Council ensures also that young people are involved and
their voices are heard in the institution’s broader activities.
One
of the main topics discussed was a recently launched campaign: No Hate Speech Campaign, which was
launched on the 22nd March by the Secretary General of the Council
of Europe. The campaign and the ‘No Hate Speech Movement’, which accompanies
the campaign, were born out of the realization that young people are exposed to
violence, discrimination, and bullying online. The space that was once supposed
to be the safe haven for all became a space where hate, prejudice, and stigma
started to rule hurting the most vulnerable.
No Hate Speech Campaign has a few very important objectives:
•
To raise awareness about hate speech online
and its risks for democracy and for individual
young people
•
To promote media and Internet literacy
•
To support young people in standing up for human
rights, online and offline
•
To reduce the levels of acceptance of
online hate speech
•
To mobilize, train and network online youth
activists for human rights
•
To map hate speech online and develop tools
for constructive responses
•
To support and show solidarity to
people and groups targeted by hate speech online
•
To advocate for consensus on European policy
instruments combating hate speech
•
To develop youth participation and citizenship online
The Campaign is promoted by a video presenting the
topic of hate speech online where a few young people from different places in Europe
talk about what hate speech online means to them and how it affect young people.
Here you can see the video. I am very proud of it as one of the people present there is from my organization, ANSO (Association of Nordic and Pol-Balt LGBTQ Student Organizations).
The Campaign has many elements from training
courses for bloggers, to research, various tools, to the Hate Speech Watch. It is an interesting approach to bullying or
discrimination as it seems like those happening digitally have not been looked
at with the same concern as the ones happening ‘in the real life’.
I am very curious how the campaign will develop
especially that it is not supposed to be only European level campaign. It is
supposed to be driven on national levels as well and not only online but
offline, too. It will be definitely interesting to see it grow. So far there
are national committees being set up in 34 member states of the Council of
Europe (out of 47), which is a great number already. I really hope that the
topic of hate speech and online bullying will get on agenda in Europe, not only
within activists or NGOs circles but also in schools!
We could be witnessing a real change in
attitudes and approaches to using Internet.
To read more about the campaign and No Hate Speech
Movement, please go to the official website. And...join the movement! Share what YOU are doing to counteract hate speech online!
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I spent the last few days in Europe – Budapest, Hungary to attend a meeting of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe.
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