"Development practice has a critical role in providing the foundation for preventing violent extremism. UNDP’s conceptual framework proposes eleven interlinked building blocks for a theory of change explaining how development can help prevent violent extremism. These building blocks, which will in
...
form global, regional and national strategies for PVE include:
1. Promoting a rule of law and human rights-based approach to PVE;
2. Enhancing the fight against corruption;
3. Enhancing participatory decision-making and increasing civic space at national and local levels;
4. Providing effective socio-economic alternatives to violence for groups at risk;
5. Strengthening the capacity of local governments for service delivery and security;
6. Supporting credible internal intermediaries to promote dialogue with alienated groups and reintegration of former extremists;
7. Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment;
8. Engaging youth in building social cohesion;
9. Working with faith-based organizations and religious leaders to counter the abuse of religion by violent extremists;
10. Working with the media to promote human rights and tolerance;
11. Promoting respect for human rights, diversity and a culture of global citizenship in schools and universities." (Executive summary, page 5)
more
"In this issue we discuss some of the arguments and debates related to the highly charged and topical issue of Russia’s strategic narrative and how it is disseminated. Propaganda, in numerous forms, creates a barrier to more constructive engagement and dialogue. This issue’s contributors find th
...
at Russia’s narrative is based on notions of encirclement by the West as part of a deliberate containment strategy that Russia feels duty bound to resist if it is to remain a great power. The West, for its part, acknowledges Russia’s power status and its legitimate right to seek such status, but questions the means it uses to that end. Propaganda constructs an artificial information reality and sows doubt by questioning the very existence of objective, reliable and credible facts. It can mobilize popular support against an external threat, as well as toward a positive goal. Propaganda thrives when notions of journalistic objectivity are sacrificed. The notion that there must be two sides to any given issue or event can undermine rational conclusions when one side relies on the power of implausible denials and direct lies. “You have your truth, and I have mine” is the mantra and motto of contemporary Russian information warfare." (Director's letter, page 4)
more
"With well-organised and far-reaching weapons of information Russia has succeeded in sowing doubt about the need for democratic values and is therefore also undermining faith in democratic countries, weakening it. Russia government uses lies, concealment, and the manipulation of anything that can se
...
rve their purpose—to turn citizens toward the ‘preferred’ direction. We are now faced with new and cunning forms of propaganda; a go-to source of information may turn out to be a false news outlet or a false Facebook ‘friend’. In the new information age, where borders between media fact and fiction are blurred, agents of propaganda seek to access citizens with messages presented in formats that discourage critical thinking. The main objectives of such attacks are to undermine democratic values—tolerance, minority rights, freedom of expression, the rule of law, and also loyalty to one’s country. In this war, democratic states are faced with unprecedented difficulties; in order to protect themselves they cannot fight the enemy using the same weapons the enemy uses, because then democracy would be no different than authoritarian rule. Democracies must choose mechanisms to counter hostile propaganda that comply with the rule of law and our fundamental values. This is difficult, but not impossible. In this publication, we have collected a number of expert opinions on what national governments, the EU, relevant institutions, and the media can do to win this war for the hearts and minds of the people." (Foreword)
more
"This paper seeks to provide some initial guidance as to what Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is and what it means for the media development sector, its donors and other organizations that work with media developers. The paper also discusses challenges and implications of VE and CVE for media dev
...
elopment and how media development work is relevant to CVE and CVE efforts." (Introduction)
more
"1. Hyper-local factors were the most important components in both radicalisation and counter-radicalisation. Participants placed significant emphasis on the role of ‘heads’ of the neighbourhoods (who are the “only ones able to warn and convince young people against wrongdoing.” Heads of nei
...
ghbourhoods have personal qualities that build trust within communities and make them effective first responders. These qualities can be summarised as follows: A credible, non-corrupt person who does not use his position to ‘swindle’ or make a profit; A person who promotes moderate stances and uses moderate speech; Local to the area, not just the region or the city, and speaks common people’s language; and Non-politically aligned and not promoting the values of one particular party or another. Another hyper-local element that helped improve communities’ resilience to radicalisation is the effective presence of security forces clamping down on radical preachers, which helps reduce the spaces of recruitment. Among the most important points highlighted by focus group participants was socio-economic deprivation that contributed to the primary method of radicalisation, which was “not out of religious conviction, but desire of money.” 2. Radicalisation happens offline and involves face-to-face recruiters making direct contact. Participants underlined the importance of hyper-local interaction as “television and social media do not have a drastic influence on young people’s minds. What impacts their thinking are their personal relationships with people they trust.” This concept works both positively and negatively as participants explained that in the incidents of radicalisation they were aware of, recruiters always knew their targets." (Major findings, page 8)
more
"Als Russland die Krim annektierte und den Krieg in der Ostukraine führte, setzte es gleichzeitig eine Propagandakampagne in Gang. Zur Bekämpfung von Desinformation und Falschmeldungen gründeten Dozenten und Studenten der Mohyla-Journalistenschule in Kiew im März 2014 das Informationsportal Stop
...
.Fake. Über 1000 Fälle von Manipulation und Lüge aus russischen Quellen hat Stop.Fake aufgedeckt. Etwa 130 000 Leserinnen und Leser besuchen täglich das Portal, das unterdessen nicht mehr nur Fakes entlarvt, sondern für Qualitätsjournalismus steht. Es sieht seine Perspektive darin, das Spannungsfeld von Politik, Propaganda und Publizistik zu erforschen." (Abstract)
more
"Counter speech is a way of responding to hateful messages. If left unchallenged, the peddling of myths, lies, and the use of hateful rhetoric and abuse can lead to more harm being done - especially when individuals are targeted without knowing there is support out there and ‘haters’ gain more c
...
onfidence about expressing their views both on and off-line." (http://www.stoppinghate.getthetrollsout.org)
more
"Das Buch deckt die Mechanismen auf, die es den Trollen im Internet so einfach machen. Es zeigt die Tricks der Fälscher, die gezielt Unwahrheiten verbreiten, sowie die Rhetorik von Hassgruppen, um Diskussionen eskalieren zu lassen. Damit die Aggression im Netz nicht sprachlos macht, werden konkrete
...
Tipps und Strategien geliefert: Wie kann man auf untergriffige Rhetorik, Trolling oder Shitstorms reagieren? Wie entlarvt man Falschmeldungen oder Halbwahrheiten möglichst schnell? Was tun, wenn man im Netz mit Cybermobbing konfrontiert wird? Denn: Wir sind den Rüpeln, Hetzern und Hassgruppen nicht hilflos ausgeliefert – die Gegenwehr ist gar nicht so schwer." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
more
"The Council of Europe Seminar, Combating Sexist Hate Speech, brought together a group of around 60 participants, including human rights and women’s rights activists, youth leaders, journalists and policy makers to challenge sexist hate speech, its causes, forms and consequences, and to propose so
...
lutions to counter it [...] A wide range of proposals for actions by different stakeholders were made during the Seminar, highlighting the fact that sexist hate speech is an issue that should be addressed not only by the different sectors of the Council of Europe, but also by national governments, the media and civil society organisations. Specific activities were proposed, such as the creation of a logo and online stickers, the use of videos, the promotion of strategic litigation and the organisation of feminist camps for young women. Specific recommendations were also made regarding the role of the media sector, including platform providers and the need for codes of ethics to ensure more effective moderation in social media; and active gender equality policies regarding media content but also in the media sector. A set of necessary policy actions to address sexist hate speech were also identified, including clarifying concepts and definitions, eliminating gaps in legislation, especially related to combating violence against women, eliminating sexism from the language and practice of all institutions, promoting gender equality and media literacy training, and promoting the integration of a gender equality perspective in all aspects of education." (Summary, page 5-7)
more
"There are a multitude of UN legal instruments which pertain to the rights of freedom of expression and information, and this book is the first to comprehensively map them and their function. It details the chequered history of both rights within the UN system and evaluates the suitability of the sy
...
stem for overcoming contemporary challenges and threats to the rights. Leading scholars address key issues, such as how the rights to freedom of expression and information can come into conflict with other human rights and with public policy goals, such as counter-terrorism. The book's institutional focus comprises five international treaties, UNESCO and the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression." (Publisher description)
more
"The present report provides a global overview of the dynamics characterizing hate speech online and some of the measures that have been adopted to counteract and mitigate it, highlighting good practices that have emerged at the local and global levels. While the study offers a comprehensive analysi
...
s of the international, regional and national normative frameworks developed to address hate speech online, and their repercussions for freedom of expression, it places particular emphasis on social and non-regulatory mechanisms that can help to counter the production, dissemination and impact of hateful messages online." (Executive summary)
more
"Overall, the evaluators found that the project’s approach was quite relevant in promoting religious freedom and preventing religious radicalization. The project targeted pesantrens affiliated to the traditional Islam Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and at the same time, it empowered the mainstream moderate
...
Islam that has been seen as ‘silent majority’. Subsequently, it provided a countermeasure against the ‘vocal minority’ extremists in the country. In this regard, a similar attempt could have been done among the modernist Islam Muhammadiyah educational institutions, which have older roots in Indonesian society. Radio programs have been attractively designed, especially for the young audience, and encouraged them to be agents of change among the Muslim community. The progressive Islamic study programs clearly provided theological basis for religious freedom and against religious violence. Meanwhile, the video documentary provided the students a reality check, a chance to deal with the real world’s cultural and religious diversity. Both activities were sufficient and complemented each other, in rising their critical awareness on the issues of tolerance and radicalization. The pesantren based radio broadcasting service has been seen as a spiritual oasis by its surrounding community, and facilitated them to digest the moderate Islamic knowledge. Otherwise, they would fulfill their spiritual hunger with another kind of religiousity which is radical and extremist in nature. However, not all of the radio stations pay equal attention to both targets: the young students and the community members. Due to some considerations, some pesantrens prefer to focus on serving the external beneficiaries (community), while ignoring the internal ones (young students). Some pesantrens
unexpectedly did the contrary. In this case, regular monitoring is necessary to ensure and remind stakeholders to meet their actual objectives." (Executive summary)
more
"Visual images have been a central component of propaganda for as long as propaganda has been produced. But recent developments in communication and information technologies have given terrorist and extremist groups options and abilities they never would have been able to come close to even 5 or 10
...
years ago. There are terrorist groups who, with very little initial investment, are making videos that are coming so close to the quality of BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] or CNN [Cable News Network] broadcasts that the difference is meaningless, and with access to the web they have instantaneous access to a global audience. Given the broad social science consensus on the power of visual images relative to that of words, the strategic implications of these groups' sophistication in the use of images in the online environment is carefully considered in a variety of contexts by the authors in this collection." (Publisher description)
more
"A number of international organisations and NGOs suggest strategies for countering hate speech, but there is limited evidence of successful interventions. There is a general lack of impact evaluations of interventions to counter hate speech. When impact is measured it tends to be done in the short-
...
term, for example by looking at feedback from individuals involved in conferences, rather than measuring behavioural change or changes in attitudes. Moreover, claims about the impact of specific interventions are often made by the organisations running the interventions and are unsubstantiated." (Page 3)
more
"Young People Combating Hate Speech Online is a project of the Council of Europe’s youth sector running between 2012 and 2015. The project aims to combat racism and discrimination in their online expression of hate speech by equipping young people and youth organisations with the competences neces
...
sary to recognize and act against such human rights violations. Central to the project is a European youth media campaign which will be designed and implemented with the agency of young people and youth organisations. As a preparation for the project, the Council of Europe’s Youth Department commissioned three “mapping” studies about the realities of hate speech and young people and projects and campaigns about it. These studies are published here as a resource for the activists, youth leaders, researchers, partners and decision makers associated to the project and the online campaign. They are truly a starting points: more research is needed, both on the legal and policy implications of hate speech online as on its impact and relation with young people." (Back cover)
more