REPORT: PECAO Synthesis Report on Antigypsyist Online Hate Speech
Today we are happy to present you with the most recent work – PECAO Synthesis Report on Antigypsyist Online Hate Speech.
The Peer Education to Counter Antigypsyist Hate Speech Online project focuses to address and counter antigypsyist hate speech online by working with young people, using a combination of peer education and monitoring in order to obtain two-fold results: the peer education methodology serves the purpose to achieve a direct change in attitudes and actions of a high number of young people, and the monitoring to contribute to better understanding and a more systemic change of policies through advocacy based on the results.
ERGO network acknowledges the contribution of all peer educators engaged in the project and would like to thank all of them!
This report was elaborated by Ileana Rotaru, assoc. prof. PhD habil. of West University of Timisoara, research expert of Nevo Parudimos Association and responsible for the research instruments and methodology elaborated and applied for the purpose of the PECAO project.
The report represents a deliverable of the PECAO project in relation to the project’s overall objectives:
• To reach out to at least 2000 young people in Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Italy, France, North Macedonia and Albania through peer education activities in universities or youth clubs to raise their awareness of the adverse impact of hate speech on Roma and to
empower them to recognise and report hate speech online.
• To empower 50 young Roma peer educators in 10 countries to monitor hate speech in online media and report cases of hate speech to IT companies, national equality bodies and relevant state institutions to reinforce implementation of anti-discrimination legislation. Their work will lead to national datasets of at least 150 cases, as well as at least 50 reported cases.
• To advocate towards national and EU decision-makers for anti-discrimination policies that take into account the online sphere as well as
antigypsyism as a bias motivation for hate speech and hate crime.
• To use the experiences of peer educators and results of the monitoring to raise awareness of other stakeholders (wider civil society, educational practitioners, young people) of antigypsyist hate speech in online media and the urgency to counteract.
When it comes to the Roma people: The people most suffering under hate speech are obviously those targeted – Roma, citizens of Europe. The project should have a positive long-term impact on them if hate speech content is reduced in online media as a result of this project. Less hate speech online means less incitement to violence and less stereotyping by the majority of society, leading to a general decrease in antigypsyism.
Read the full report HERE.
This publication was funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC 2014-2020) and Google.Org Impact Challenge on Safety. The European Commission’s and Google.Org’s support for the production does not constitute and endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views of the authors only, and the European Commission and Google.Org cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained there.