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In recent years, we have all become aware of the threat hate speech poses to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Developing effective strategies to address it has become a major concern for national authorities and civil society actors across Europe.
The Council of Europe selected Experientia to map the hate speech mechanisms within some EU countries.
3 things to know
The importance of stakeholders
Meeting the different stakeholders was essential to understand what were the commonly shared problematics and the specific ones related to each actor. The inclusion of stakeholders in a workshop to define the prioritary issues to overcome was essential, though many different perspectives.
A new approach
Through meetings with experts, desk research and readings, the team outlined some of the specific aspects and actors contributing to the current situation of hate speech, both in public and private contexts. The team developed a systemic map whose aim is to outline the main mechanisms and factors (and their interconnections) leading to hate speech countries.
Future directions and policies
The data gathered was useful to map some actions undertaken (mitigating or balancing factors) to prevent and combat hate speech, but also to grasp some early signals of potential future initiatives having an impact on Hate Speech.
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Context
The Council of Europe selected Experientia to map the hate speech mechanisms within some EU countries. In recent years, awareness has been raised of the threat hate speech poses to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Challenge
Developing effective strategies to address it has become a major concern for national authorities and civil society actors across Europe. Such strategies should enable member states to significantly reduce the incidence and spread of hate speech, while respecting freedom of expression.
Experientia mapped the hate speech mechanism and its involved variables through an extensive system map that helped to identify the gaps to fill in the legal framework, in the local services and in the collaboration between public authorities, citizens and politics in the countries that were part of the project.
Research
During the first phase of the project, Experientia collected and went through a number of documents and reports provided by the local consultants in each country: to build familiarity with the topic.
The team went on with the Stakeholder Interviews and took part in a formative workshop session held by the Council of Europe. The stakeholder interviews allowed us to investigate the topic from different perspective and they helped to better detail the draft of the systemic map that was under definition.
Design
Experientia used the findings from the interviews and the documents to iterate the systemic map and write the systemic analysis report.
In particular, we held two ideation workshop to create a space to define and agree upon potential opportunities and measures to be taken against the hate speech spreading and the leading institutions that will coordinate the development of such opportunities in the future.
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