Published: 15 November 2017
Region Europe
At the end of November, the Media Diversity Institute and its partners will launch the continuation of the successful programme “Get the Trolls Out!” (GTTO). In the second phase of GTTO we are going to monitor the media and counter religious hate incidents against Muslims, Jewish and Christian communities in Europe through a campaign of myth debunking and solidarity videos and articles.
Led by MDI, the second phase in 2017-2019 will benefit from the partners’ exceptional experience of using innovative media outputs to deliver a powerful counter-narrative, extending their scope to include diverse forms of hate speech, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Christian sentiments and attempts to turn public opinion against migrants and asylum-seekers. The project activities will be underpinned by dynamic social media engagement.
The project’s partners are European Forum of Muslim Women (EFOMW), Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme (Licra), Amadeu Antonio Stitfung (AAS), Symbiosis from Greece and the Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ) based in Budapest with the support of the Council of Europe. By bringing together a consortium of partners from Germany, Hungary, Belgium, France and Greece, including the Council of Europe’s Directorate General of Democracy, MDI will be able to implement cross-border approaches which have the potential to share ideas and experience on a regional level.
Some of the projects’ key activities will include monitoring of traditional and new media content in order to uncover anti-religious speech and discourses by public and other figures. When project’s monitoring efforts detect anti-religious speech and discourses in the media, the partners will expose and counter them. Get the Trolls Out 2 will focus also on video story production and several media strategy.
Amongst numerous activities, reports and campaigns during the first phase of Get the Trolls Out, MDI published the guide “Stopping Hate: How to Counter Hate Speech on Twitter?” The guide contains useful tips and advice for both civil society organisations and individuals and it was produced and promoted with collaboration with Twitter.