Online Magazine
"Golden Like" for Stop Hate Speech
Be it on social media, in comment sections of online media or in forums: In the supposed anonymity of the internet, some people lose all sense of civility. There is harassment, insults and threats. To combat this hate speech, the Swiss women's organisation alliance F has initiated the "Stop Hate Speech" project and is sending out the "Bot Dog" to identify hate speech on the net.
by Tobias Imbach
Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine the internet and all its forums, comment columns and messaging functions without it: Hate Speech – hatemongering of any kind has become a global problem on the internet. How does one take action against it? While newspapers and platforms now have reporting features, and every deletion of a hate speech message is important, the sheer volume of insults, threats and slurs makes using these features feel like tilting at windmills. But the approach you have taken gives hope ... and is already showing results.
You created an algorithm and named it Bot Dog – and got around 1000 volunteers to feed the Bot Dog with 45,000 comments and ratings. These ratings train the algorithm, which can now be used to detect hate speech on the internet. In the meantime, Bot Dog is correct in almost 8 out of 10 cases. It also shows what to do when hate speech is identified: As part of the Counter Speech Lab, a research project of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, you provide instructions and assistance on how to stop hate speech and bring discussions back to a factual level.
We want to encourage the Bot Dog in its task and make even more people aware of it, so that it will soon be right in 9 or 10 out of 10 cases. For this, we give him and the initiators of the Stop Hate Speech Initiative led by Sophie Achermann from alliance F a "Golden Like". Here's to an internet full of lively discussions and news – without hate.
THE INTERNET OF TOMORROW
Hate speech should not be part of the internet of the future – read here what this could look like:
A new internet age is coming – are you and your company ready?
Hate speech has become a global problem that threatens our culture of discussion and also our democracy. Freedom of expression means that as many people as possible feel invited to participate in discussions. Hate speech prevents this. We use AI in the Stop Hate Speech project because, on the one hand, the amount of hate speech would be unmanageable and, on the other hand, because it is not bearable for people to fight through hate messages for hours every day. Combining AI, science and civil society engagement, we believe we can tackle the problem with the best of all three fields. BIG THANKS and warm greetings!
Sophie Achermann, Co-Project Leader Stop Hate Speech
Source: zvg
The Format
In our format "The Golden Like", we regularly honour individuals or institutions with a short eulogy who, in our eyes, have earned special praise for their achievements or where the appreciative thank you is far too often neglected.
