{"id":97944,"date":"2017-09-04T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97944"},"modified":"2017-09-02T15:48:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T14:48:51","slug":"how-to-stand-up-to-online-trolls-and-profit-with-humour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/09\/how-to-stand-up-to-online-trolls-and-profit-with-humour\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Stand Up to Online Trolls \u2013 and Profit \u2013 with Humour"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 Apr 2017 – <\/em>Hatred is at the root of much of the world\u2019s horrors, and it often spreads online. It\u2019s hard to imagine humour may be a way to counter this modern, borderless phenomenon.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that one of the most creative campaigns against online hate emerges from Germany, a country that remains painfully aware of the devastating consequences of fear and xenophobia.<\/p>\n

Donate the Hate is a cheeky campaign through which one euro is donated for every hateful comment that is spotted and responded to by the non-profit organization ZDK Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur, or its partners. The donations go toward supporting refugees as well as a group that supports Germans who wish to leave far-right movements.<\/p>\n

The idea germinated in 2014 when the small town of Wunsiedel wanted to do something pro-active about an annual neo-Nazi walk. \u201cNazis against Nazis\u201d became Germany\u2019s \u201cmost involuntary walk-a-thon\u201d, raising money for every metre walked by the extremists. Tongue-in-cheek posters of encouragement and thanks were hung alongside the course of the march, as well as painted onto the sidewalk. The initiative raised thousands of euros and garnered international fundraising awards.<\/p>\n

Margaret Wente: Why trolls love to pick on women<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So is this how communities can stand up to the hate that seems to have been given new license in the Trump era \u2013 and which festers in sectarian conflicts around the world? One rare and alarming study here at home suggests a 600 per cent increase in how frequently Canadians used language that was racist, Islamophobic, sexist or otherwise intolerant over the period between November 2015 and November 2016.<\/p>\n

Those who study online hate in particular have come to the realization that there are only a few key strategies available when it comes to standing up to trolls \u2013 including the use of comedy.<\/p>\n

Susan Benesch, head of the Dangerous Speech Project in the United States, authored one of the first qualitative studies of Twitter. The study, commissioned by the Canadian government, identified successful counter-speech as being able to shift the user\u2019s discourse and positively impact the general tone of the conversation. Humour can often be an ingredient in pushing back on hateful narratives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have observed that humorous counter-speech can shift the dynamics of communication, de-escalate conflict, and draw much more attention to a message than it would otherwise garner,\u201d writes Ms. Benesch and her co-author, Derek Ruths of McGill University, in a follow-up guide.<\/p>\n

The authors point to a social media campaign that included pasting pictures of rubber ducks onto images of Daesh fighters, and to sarcastic responses to their calls for violence. Counter-speakers, as the experts call them, can use humour to \u201cneutralize hateful and dangerous speech that is viewed as powerful or intimidating; attract the attention of a larger audience to the counter-speech,\u201d and help \u201cto soften a message that would otherwise be harsh or aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who are victimized may not always have a joke at the ready, but they needn\u2019t feel alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe online world is the wild, wild west and we started thinking of it similarly to street harassment,\u201d said Emily May, co-founder of Hollaback!, a non-profit organization that started an initiative called HeartMob. \u201cWe wanted to build on best practices around bystander intervention. Online, there are people who can come and help.\u201d<\/p>\n

The platform allows victims to find a community of vetted social media users who can intervene, report, even figure out when a troll isn\u2019t a person, but actually a bot.<\/p>\n

In fact, considering that there are already thousands of fake online Twitter accounts involved in all sorts of positive and negative activity \u2013 why not utilize automated accounts to take on the trolls?<\/p>\n

Canadian doctoral student Douglas Guilbeault posed this very question at a recent gathering of academics, digital rights experts, policy makers, and activists at RightsCon in Brussels. \u201cCan we design bots that protect, rather than harm, human rights?\u201d<\/p>\n

And, if yes, will they have a sense of humour? Don\u2019t laugh, these are serious questions; hate\u2019s punchline can be deadly. Governments, law enforcement agencies, and social media platforms must join the search for powerful comebacks.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Amira Elghawaby<\/a> is the communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theglobeandmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have observed that humorous counter-speech can shift the dynamics of communication, de-escalate conflict, and draw much more attention to a message than it would otherwise garner. The authors point to a social media campaign that included pasting pictures of rubber ducks onto images of Daesh fighters, and to sarcastic responses to their calls for violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}