The STAND-UP project held 4 webinars in february: 3 national webinars developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain, Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece, and a final pan-european webinar with the participation of the STAND-UP partners and all the case studies discussed.
All the webinars explained the use of technological tools as OSINT software and Falkor platform to monitor online hate speech and hate crimes. As well, each regional webinar focused on a particular case to investigate.
The Spanish webinar by FUNDEA presented “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain” with two case studies: the World Cup in Qatar and narratives of the right-wing on two controversial dates in Spain.
The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR spoke about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate”, focus on antisemitism and right-wing extremism in Italy.
The Greek seminar lidered by EPLO along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights held the topic “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” analyzing xenophobia in Greece.
Here you can find all the reports exposed in the webinars:
Using digital intelligence tools for monitoring hate speech
The STAND-UP Webinars foreseen for this month aim to promote and present the use of technologically advanced tools to combat and prevent hate speech, starting from the analysis of online hate speech, with a view to cooperation between public sector-Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) mainly-and the private sector (associations, NGOs and research centres).
Discriminatory behaviours, intolerance and hate are widespread in Europe towards individuals or entire communities based on biased motivations – race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or other peculiar features identifying those individuals. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Amnesty International and the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, the hate and discriminatory climate towards other minorities or sensitive groups grew significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic[1], which exacerbated social tensions and hate sentiments – against Asian people primarily, but also against Jewish, for instance, always put in the spotlight by conspiracy theories.
Analysing the available data, despite the high number of hate crime incidents, “victims continue to avoid reporting” to LEAs (only one out of ten in Spain, for instance), together with a rise of hate speech, in particular in the online environment, resulting in companies and governments applying increasingly strict regulations.
The hate phenomena are inextricably connected, originating from hateful socio-cultural conduct based on a discriminatory foundation, marginalizing and harming – either physically or verbally – the targets.
However, the specificities of hate crimes and hate speech need to be distinguished, especially concerning the features of the online environment which shape how those phenomena manifest themselves. The criminal component can also lie in a comment on social media or in a text: the web analysis, in this sense, results prominent, not only in thoroughly understanding hate phenomena but also in preventing the escalation from online hate speech to offline hate crime.
The Regional OSINT Report drafted within STAND-UP will offer an insight into the partners’ countries, specifically investigating selected topics: xenophobia in Greece, Antisemitism in Italy and islamophobia in Spain.
The choice of the categories affected is the result of the debate rise during each national Focus Group, providing a broad perspective of the southern hate climate. While migrants and refugees are the most affected group, selecting hate incidents based on religion offers a socio-cultural framework of Italy and Spain which is inherently related to their historical roots. Moreover, both antisemitism and islamophobia actually cover other individuals’ features, as intersectional phenomena: from the religious aspect, they also encompass ethnicity and gender.
In the framework of the “Stand-Up: fighting against hate crimes in the EU” project, 4 webinars will be presented: 3 national webinars held in Greek, Italian and Spanish, developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain; Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece. In addition, a fourth webinar will also be held at an pan-european level. The topic of these seminars are about the use of technological tools to monitor hate speech, identifying hateful feelings, areas of intervention, groups at risk and hate narratives on social networks.
The main objective of these seminars is to establish a comprehensive and holistic framework in the fight against hate crimes and hate speech based on the RIPP model (complaint-investigation-prosecution-prevention) from a victim-centered approach. Within the seminars, technological tools as OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and FALKOR platform will be presented and the results of monitoring hate speech in every research field.
The pan-european webinar is about “Tackling and monitoring hate phenomena in Europe: right-wing extremism, islamophobia and antisemitism” and it will be held on 22 february. The seminar will be initiated by Viviana Gullo, presenting STAND-UP and the preventive and investigative model to tackle the hate phenomena; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechai will address the technologies OSINT and Falkor supporting the model. As more, regional OSINT reports will be presented by Fabio Frettoli, Katerina Charokopou, Thanassis Dimopoulos, Lucía García del Moral and Viviana Gullo. Finally, Sergio Bianchi will raise a debate and future opportunities. You can register through this form.
As for the national online events, the Spanish webinar by FUNDEA, “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain”, will be held on 20 february, with a presentation of the STAND-UP project by Lucía García del Moral. As in the Italian seminar, it will also participate Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain presenting the tools for hate speech monitoring online OSINT and FALKOR. Finally, Lucía García del Moral and Jose Luis Salido will explain two case studies from Spain: “Islamophobia in social networks: the World Cup in Qatar” and “Narratives of the extreme right: monitoring 20-N and 25-N dates”. You can register through this form.
The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR will talk about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate” and it will be on 14 february. The speakers, as the pan-european webinar, will be Viviana Gullo; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain; Fabio Frettoli and Sergio Bianchi, exposing the topics mentioned in the pan-european event. You can register through this form.
About the Greek seminar, EPLO together with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights will held on 15 february the webinar “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” with the welcoming of Professor Vasilki Artinopoulou, scientific coordinator of the project. The round of discussions will be presented by Maria Poulopoulou, establishing the project’s objectives and methodology. Kouroutzas Christos will talk about “The role of new technologies in tackling hate crime and hate speech”. Lior Mordechai will develop a technical presentation about the use of OSINT intelligence. Finally, the Greek OSINT report focus on the case study “xenophobia towards refugees and inmigrants in Greece” will be presented by Katerina Charokopou and Thanasis Dimopoulos.
STAND-UP has as its main objective to improve cooperation between different organizations in the fight against hate crimes through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-institutional model.
This project is financed by the General Directorate of Justice and Consumers of the European Commission and the consortium is formed by the Euro-Arab Foundation of Higher Studies (Spain), Procura della Repubblica di Trento (Italy), The prosecution office of Venice (Italy), Fondazione Agenfor International (Italy), European Public Law Organization (EPLO), Greek National Commision for Human Rights (GNCHR), Association Des Agences de la Démocratie Locale (ALDA) in France.
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