Like Share Diversity! Log out Hate Speech! – press release
Campaign of young people against hate speech
Bucharest, 14th of February 2019 – As a reaction to phenomenon of hate speech spread in online, young people from Romania and Germany claim together: Log out Hate Speech! Sign in Love! and encourage all of us to contribute and to build a culture of respect towards human dignity, through social media communication. If you are ambassadors of non-discrimination use the hashtag #LikeShareDiversity.
The campaign is the result of a youth project Like Share Diversity! Log Out Hate Speech! That brought together youths from Romania and Germany for working together on the topic of diversity. Between 7th-14th of January 2019 in Berlin and 21th-28th in Bucharest, through methods of non-formal education, the youths discovered how hate speech works as a social phenomenon and how this affects online and offline vulnerable groups such as people belonging to ethnic, religious, gender or sexual minorities or people with disabilities. The project gave the youths the chance to discover how to react in efficient ways for combating hate speech and celebrate diversity.
This environment of civic education and intercultural exchange was offered to youngsters by Plural Association (RO), in partnership with DRA (DE) and it was financed through EUROPEANS FOR PEACE program of Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) and Erasmus+ of Commission of Europe.
Therefore, during 14th-28th of February, Plural Association and DRA invite you to follow their campaign Like Share Diversity – Log out Hate Speech! Sign in Love! on their Facebook pages. During of this campaign, there will be promoted five short movies created by the youngsters, memes, or articles on the topic of LGBTQ+, racism, feminism, ethnic diversity, and discrimination of people with disabilities.
Log out Hate Speech!
Plural (RO) and DRA (DE) united in this project in order to offer an educational answer against the wave of intolerance and discrimination directed to vulnerable social groups through narratives that spread separation, (extreme) hate, and disinformation. Unfortunately, hate speech is massively used and promoted by some users on social media and our young people needed to understand the phenomenon and to learn how to react effectively against hate speech on social media.
We encourage teens to promote a culture of respect and human dignity when the Internet creates new possible ways of exposing marginalized groups to intolerance, prejudices, violent communication and hate.
Irina Ilisei – Asociația Plural (Ro)
The phenomenon of fake news, Alt-Right, and increased popularization of some extreme right parties, the toxic masculinity and promotion of violence against women, discrimination of LGBTQ+ people, intolerance against people with disabilities, the hate directed to migrants are current issues of our society.
These issues influence and boost the destructive power that hate-speech has. A study conducted by the European Council shows that 75% of the internet users faced hate speech. Mostly, the hate speech online is directed to LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, and women. Demonization, isolation and discrimination are also addressed to Roma people and other ethnic groups and migrants, at the level of EU. According to Active Watch, in Romania, the most affected groups of hate speech are Hungarians, Roma, and sexual minorities.
Sign in Love!
We need to understand hate speech and its power to generate negative effects (even physical violence), we need to recognize it, and to combat it! Through Like Share Diversity campaign young people will be able to highlight that diversity is the beauty of this word and each of us can contribute in order to fight against the wave of intolerance and to promote narratives about diversity online.
Because today is 14th of February, a day of love – not by coincidence – the first movie for our campaign Share Diversity – Log out Hate Speech! Sign in Love! sends a message of love in several languages of the globe.
#likesharediversity
Plural Association is a non-governamental organization working in the field of civic education which organizes international exchanges with youths, activists, leaders, youth workers, teachers and researchers. Plural is engaged in combating discrimination, anti-gypsism, promoting of diversity, gender equity and democratic participation.
Contacte
Irina Ilisei, Coordonatoare Proiecte – Asociația Plural
0748 295598
irina.ilisei [at] asociatia-plural.ro
Iulia Sima, PR specialist
0724 646355
office [at] asociatia-plural.ro
The project was implemented within the EUROPEANS FOR PEACE programme with support from the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ). The opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of the Foundation EVZ.
The author is solely responsible for the content. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
