A Toolkit on Using Counterspeech to Tackle Online Hate Speech

The Future of Free Speech and The Dangerous Speech Project developed an interactive toolkit on the use of counterspeech. The toolkit starts by explaining counterspeech through its various definitions and introducing the phenomenon of “counternarrative” with examples of NGOs’ and activists’ campaigns. The toolkit asks, “To what content does counterspeech respond?” and follows with counterspeech goals, strategies, and practical considerations. The examples of counterspeech analyzed by the authors include #iamhere, an international collective counterspeech network; Mirrors of Racism, a Brazilian campaign; the work Hasnain Kazim, a German journalist; Reconquista Internet (RI), a counterspeech group created in response to hate group Reconquista Germanica (RG); and the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, the author of “Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism.”