Righting the wrongs: fact-checking journalism vs hate trolls

ended

“Maldita Migración: fact-checking journalism vs hate trolls” will contribute to monitoring, preventing and countering hate speech online in Spain and Italy using fact-checking journalism and social media literacy to create a strong community able to identify and refute online disinformation targeting migrants, refugees and other vulnerable groups, thus proactively neutralizing the rise of hate speeches, racism and xenophobia, particularly post-Covid-19. The project’s main achievement will be a strengthened community of more than 15.000 people actively countering hate speech by refuting disinformation online in Spain and Italy. This community will include 130 journalists, teachers, online influencers, local authorities and members of migrants’ rights organizations trained as trainers in media literacy and anti-migrant hate speech, as well as over 600 young people, activists and influencers engaged in interactive workshops. These activities will underpin campaigning initiatives and online activism applying fact-checking journalism to fight anti-migrant disinformation triggering 1.000 disinformation alerts (monthly), 150.000 medium and low-level actions and reaching more than 1.000.000 people in Italy and Spain (and across Europe). This will contribute to unleashing the collective power of the many more in Europe who worry about the rise of racism and xenophobia but who have felt disempowered to combat it, lacking the right channels or the sense of community to stand up to it and fight for their common values. This collective power is key to restore the terms of the debate to facts and values, promote dialogue based on tolerance and respect, and enable social cohesion, building on the sense of solidarity and social cohesion that was formed in the Covid-19 period. The partnership behind the project brings in Oxfam’s years of experience in influencing and building coalitions on solidarity issues and recent successful experiences by the independent, non-profit journalistic projects Maldita.es and OpenPolis.