Category: EN Hatedemics

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EN Hatedemics News Projects

Pilot Test of HATEDEMICS AI Tool in Coria del Río

Young people, teachers, and educators will gather next Thursday, October 23, at the Museum of Andalusian Autonomy in Coria del Río to participate in the pilot test of the HATEDEMICS project. This initiative, in which the Euro-Arab Foundation is involved, aims to develop tools to combat hate speech.

A Two-Session Day

The initiative will take place over the course of a day divided into two training sessions.

  • In the morning, from 10:00 to 13:00, the activity will be aimed at a young audience.
  • In the afternoon, from 16:30 to 19:30, the session will be specifically geared toward teachers and educators.

The event will offer attendees the opportunity to learn first-hand about the tools being developed to identify and confront hate speech in various contexts. This pilot is a key step in the implementation of the project, and its results will help refine the strategy and materials ahead of the official launch.

The Museum of Andalusian Autonomy, an emblematic site for Andalusian history and culture, thus becomes the setting for this important educational and social initiative, highlighting the importance of education and dialogue in the fight against hate.

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The Euro-Arab Foundation Addresses Misogynistic Violence and Incel Communities at International Anti-Discrimination Conference

On June 12nd, Murcia hosted the International Conference Against Underreporting of Discrimination and Hate Crimes. Organized by Columbares, this conference was a crucial event for addressing the concerning reality of low reporting rates in cases of discrimination and hate crimes.

The event’s opening featured Rosa Cano, director of Columbares, who emphasized the urgency of combating intolerance in light of the worrying underreporting data. Also present were Ana Vanesa Valero García (Vice-Rector for Continuing Education at the University of Murcia), Leopoldo Olmo Fernández-Delgado (Secretary-General of the Ministry of Social Policy, Families, and Equality for the Region of Murcia), and Pilar Torres (Councillor for Social Welfare, Family, and Health for the City of Murcia). The Director-General for Family Diversity and Social Services of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030, Patricia Bezunartea Barrio, participated remotely.

One of the standout presentations at the conference was given by José Luis Salido Medina, a researcher at the Euro-Arab Foundation, titled “The Violent Face of Misogyny: Manosphere and Incel Communities.”

During his presentation, the researcher delved into the incel movement, exploring its origin and context within the ecosystem of misogynistic movements and the so-called “manosphere.” The talk critically addressed the intrinsic relationship between hatred and violence, examining the common elements that underlie both and how these manifest specifically in the case of incel communities. Finally, Salido offered a concise reflection on a prevention paradigm specifically applicable to addressing misogynistic movements and the incel phenomenon, highlighting the importance of proactive strategies to combat these violent ideologies.

The conference also served as the platform for the presentation of the book “Breaking the Silence.” The result of research by Columbares, the book compiles testimonies from victims of hate crimes in various contexts (public spaces, social media, homes) and addresses topics such as LGTBIfobia, aporophobia, and racism. These accounts offer deep insights into the victims’ experiences, their reporting processes, and the consequences on their daily lives.

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Evaluating the HATEDEMICS Project’s Platform against Hate Speech

The Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies played an active role in the pilot session organised to evaluate the functioning of the HATEDEMICS project platform. This European initiative aims to develop innovative tools for the detection and analysis of hate speech online, as well as for the promotion of alternative narratives.

The test session, held at the Museum of Andalusian Autonomy on Thursday 22 May, was attended by staff from project partners, including the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies, through its researcher Lucía G. del Moral; the Maldita Foundation, the Andalusian Studies Centre (organiser of the session), as well as education specialists, journalists and professionals from various NGOs and civil society organisations. Participants were able to interact with the functionalities of the tool, providing valuable comments and suggestions for its optimisation.

The Euro-Arab Foundation’s involvement in this project underlines its commitment to promoting coexistence, respect and the fight against all forms of intolerance and discrimination. Its participation in the evaluation of the HATEDEMICS platform is an important step in ensuring that this tool is robust and useful in combating hate speech in the digital environment.

The HATEDEMICS project, funded by the European Union, brings together academic institutions, civil society organisations and technology experts from various countries. The platform being developed will enable researchers, practitioners and the general public to better understand the dynamics of hate speech and contribute to its prevention and mitigation.

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The Euro-Arab Foundation takes part in the meeting of the Spanish Network against Hate Crimes

This Tuesday, the online meeting of the Spanish Network against Hate Crimes and Infradenunciation (REDOI) took place, a meeting that brought together various actors committed to the fight against this problem.

María Pina, President of REDOI, welcomed the participants and highlighted the main objectives of the network: to promote scientific-technical knowledge, disseminate good practices, offer practical content, foster collaboration and networking, and facilitate citizen mobilisation and awareness-raising. She also reviewed the trajectory of REDOI since its birth in 2022, its formal creation in 2023 and its current expansion phase (2024-25), marked by the organisation of conferences, congresses, dissemination activities and meetings.

During the meeting, testimonials from REDOI members were shared, reflecting the spirit of collaboration and the positive impact of the network. The current status of REDOI, a statewide network that works with an interdisciplinary approach to combat hate crimes and encourage reporting, was also presented. Lucía García del Moral, researcher at the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies, reiterated her organisation’s commitment to REDOI and the importance of working together, joining the European funding initiative and supporting the possible integration of REDOI into a European network that is in the process of being set up.
Project

Future projects

Currently, REDOI’s work is framed within the project ‘BREAKING THE SILENCE’, funded by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, which also includes interviews with victims, a manual for reporting, the II International Conference and a podcast of testimonies.

In addition, a new international project promoted by Columbares was also presented during the online meeting, with the aim of expanding collaboration networks at European level in the fight against hate crime.
The meeting served to address the tasks that REDOI will implement in 2025, including the 2nd International Conference, the reorganisation of the network’s structure, the establishment of more efficient communication mechanisms and the expansion of the network itself.

The 6th REDOI meeting was presented, which will be held in a hybrid format on 12 June in the Assembly Hall of the Faculty of Education at the University of Murcia.

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We participated in the International Conference ‘Artificial Intelligence against Hate and Disinformation’

Last Thursday, March 13th, the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies participated in the international conference ‘Artificial Intelligence against Hate and Disinformation’ in Brussels, organized by ALDA (European Association for Local Democracy) and the Hatedemics’ Consortium.

The conference featured the presentation of initial findings from the Hatedemics project, which is developing advanced tools to detect, analyze, and counter harmful narratives, including racism, xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and intolerant discourse.

Lucía García del Moral, a researcher and international project manager at the Foundation, presented the methodological approach for the effective implementation of the Hatedemics Advanced Platform. She emphasized the importance of actively engaging NGOs, CSOs, fact-checkers, journalists, and young activists in the daily use of this tool to effectively combat hate and disinformation.

About the Hatedemics Project:

Following the conference, the Hatedemics project consortium held an internal meeting. HATEDEMICS, funded by the European Commission, aims to combat online hate speech and disinformation. The Euro-Arab Foundation leads the research component of the consortium.

The project’s primary goal is to empower NGOs, civil society organizations, media professionals, public authorities, and young activists to address these issues, with a focus on their impact on vulnerable groups. HATEDEMICS addresses the interconnected nature of hate speech and misinformation in the digital sphere.

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Euro-Arab and HATEDEMICS analyse hate speech and disinformation online with NGOs, journalists, fact-checkers and public authorities

The Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies has organised two meetings with fact-checkers, journalists, NGOs and activists to address hate speech, disinformation and digital environments. These meetings are part of the European project HATEDEMICS: Hindering hate speech and disinformation through Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technologies, which aims to strengthen preventive and reactive measures against hate speech and disinformation online. To this end, the project aims to empower NGOs/CSOs, fact-checkers, public authorities and youth to effectively prevent and combat polarisation, the spread of racist, xenophobic and intolerant discourses, as well as conspiracy theories, by adopting a perspective focused on multi-agency collaboration, artificial intelligence, social networks and youth, as well as comprehensive care for victims and affected communities.

The first meeting took place on 17 July from 12pm to 2pm at the Euro-Arab headquarters in Granada. The discussion group was made up of activists, representatives of civil society and NGOs with expertise in hate speech, disinformation and digital environments and new technologies. The debate was divided into several topics, on which each participant intervened and shared their experiences and knowledge from their area of expertise, such as the definition of ‘hate speech’, the current legislative framework or how political parties or civil society deal with hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

The second meeting took place on Wednesday, 24 July from 10 a.m. to 12 noon in an online format and brought together a group of journalists, information verifiers and a representative of law enforcement agencies to analyse the current challenges presented by the instrumentalisation of information for purposes that may represent hate crime and motivate conspiracy narratives. They also discussed the information verification tools they use, the legal framework for action and the resources available to combat hate speech and disinformation online.

The Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies is a non-profit institution that works to promote dialogue and cooperation between Euro-Arab societies. The Foundation develops research, training and awareness-raising projects in different areas of specialisation, with a special focus on the promotion of human rights, interculturality and peace. It is in this work that it participates in the HATEDEMICS project funded by the European Union and where it is responsible for the research work package, in charge of defining the approach, the socio-technical requirements and the methodology.

HATEDEMICS project website: https://hatedemics.eu/

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HATEDEMICS Project Kicks off in Trento

Lucía G. del Moral, researcher at the Euro-Arab Foundation and coordinator of HATEDEMICS at the foundation, speaks at the kick-off meeting together with researcher José Luis Salido.

On 17th and 18th April the Italian city of Trento will be holding the kick-off meeting of HATEDEMICS, a European Commission-funded project that put together fourteen partners with the objective of hampering hate speech and disinformation through AI-based technologies to prevent and combat polarisation and the spread of intolerant speech and conspiracy theories.

The project arises as a consequence of the rapid growth of social media platforms as facilitators of communication and interaction, but also as fertile ground for discrimination, hatred and misinformation with multiple targets. In this sense, during two years HATEDEMICS will address online hate and fake news, monitoring, detecting and recording. It will estimate the ‘hatedemics risk’ as the sum of the ‘hate speech and infodemics risks’ and, automatically assess behavioural changes.

The project will pilot and test a HATEDEMICS Platform, a tool that will be useful for NGOs/CSOs, fact checkers, journalists and media companies, as well as public authorities and youth activists to raise awareness of hate speech, and foster education through critical thinking and the ability to identify hate speech.

FUNDEA’S role in HATEDEMICS

The Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies will be in charge of the research and support package to create the Platform, i.e. to prepare the HATEDEMICS methodology considering the current trends of hate speech, disinformation and multi-targeted discrimination [R1] online, as well as the requirements and needs of all stakeholders and target groups mentioned above. This will provide guidelines and approaches to engage all of them in the daily use of the advanced HATEDEMICS Platform and the development of a specific training and educational pathway. It will also facilitate the implementation of the pilot project, ensuring that the HATEDEMICS approach goes beyond the framework of the project and its end.

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The Euro-Arab Foundation in the meeting of the European Commission’s DG JUST

Reunión en Bruselas de coordinadoras de proyectos europeos financiados por el programa DG JUST de la Comisión Europea. 16 de abril de 2024

On 16 and 17 April, the European Commission is bringing together in Brussels the coordinators of projects funded by the Directorate-General for Justice (DG JUST), the department responsible for EU policies on justice, consumer rights and gender equality. The more than 100 people invited to the event will receive information on the new rules for funding and justification of expenditure, as well as guidelines for the quarterly review of each project to be submitted to the Commission.

The Euro-Arab Foundation’s Director of Research and International Projects, Javier Ruipérez, together with Euro-Arab researcher, Daniel Pérez, are participating in the event as coordinators of VicTory and as partners of the Data Equality project, both funded by DG JUST. The first one is focused on preventing discrimination in the use of data and the latter on improving the application of restorative justice for victims of hate and extremism.

In addition to the training sessions, the event serves as an opportunity for the different entities to develop synergies and establish contacts to create networks, which is essential in this type of projects focused on promoting cooperation between justice professionals, victim support workers, victims themselves, researchers and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Participants will also receive workshops on gender mainstreaming or how to include a gender perspective in all their work.

The meeting will also address the call of the CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) programme which, together with the Justice programme, is part of the European Commission’s new Justice, Rights and Values funds. One of the projects funded by CERV is ReBel, of which the Euro-Arab Foundation is a member. It aims to foster social understanding of migrants and improve migration policies by working closely with migrant women. Another ongoing CERV project, in which the Foundation is involved, is HATEDEMICS, which aims to empower NGOs/CSOs, journalists, youth or public authorities against hate speech rooted in misinformation and targeting vulnerable groups.

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The Center for Andalusian Studies and the Euro-Arab Foundation will work to combat hate speech in a common European project

Reunión entre CENTRA y FUNDEA por el proyecto HATEDEMICS contra delitos de odio

The Andalusian Studies Centre (CENTRA), based in Seville, and the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies, based in Granada, have held a meeting at the headquarters of the latter to coordinate the latest aspects of the European project HATEDEMICS, which will unite them in the task of preventing and combating polarisation and the spread of racist, xenophobic and intolerant discourses and conspiracy theories through technologies based on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The project, funded by the European Commission, will be coordinated by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler and has thirteen partners: the Euro-Arab Foundation, CENTRA and Maldita. es in Spain; Saher Europe (Estonia), European Association for Local Democracy (France); CESIE, the Fact-Checking Factory SRL and the Commune of Trento (Italy); Solidarity and Overseas SErvice and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Security, Reforms and Equality (Malta) and the Centre for Citizenship Education, the National Research Institute and the Association of Demagogues (Poland).

The Euro-Arab Foundation will lead the work package that will define the approach, the socio-technical requirements and the methodology to be used, considering both the current trends of hate speech and disinformation, online multi-target discrimination and the needs of the target groups of this project, NGOs and CSOs, policy makers, legal authorities, IT companies, journalists and fact-checkers, the academic and research sector and the general public using the Internet and social networks.

The Andalusian Studies Centre, for its part, will be in charge of the report that will form the basis of the future HATEDEMICS Platform with which to prevent, tackle and denounce multi-target discrimination, online hate and misinformation, with updated, specific and effective indicators for better management of hate speech phenomena, applying the results of focus groups and semi-structured interviews, with recommendations for transferability and adaptability for the promotion of alternative narratives.

One of the main goals of HATEDEMICS is to improve the capacities and critical thinking of the target groups with reliable AI tools, combined with advanced data collection methods, will allow for more tailored online interventions resulting in more efficient and effective efforts of both professionals and volunteers. The vision is to maintain fairness and balance by applying appropriate measures and ensuring compliance with legal and ethical standards.

The launch of the HATEDEMICS project is scheduled to take place on 17 April in the city of Trento with a kick-off meeting attended by all partners.