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Counter-speaking group trying to make social media a better place – Global News

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Hundreds of Canadian digital warriors are on a mission to make social media — particularly comment threads on Facebook — a nicer and more inclusive space.

I Am Here Canada is the Canadian branch of a wider movement that started in Sweden in 2016 called #jagärhär. It describes itself as “a non-partisan action group that practices counter-speaking.”

“We dive into comments online where there’s hateful comments, or bigotry, or intolerance or anything like that, and we do that to carve out space so that people that want to share their opinions, share their voices, have that space to do that where they’re supported,” said Alena Helgeson, the founder of the Canadian branch, which started in 2018.

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READ MORE:
Canada considering forcing social media companies to remove extremist content

It’s not censorship, Helgeson explained, but rather a way to balance the views represented in comment threads and offer facts and context in conversations.

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“We’re not telling people not to say those things. If you are wanting to spread your hateful comments or your bigotry or whatever, fine, you do that. We’ll present you with the facts, but we’re going to add in a lot more compassion — and we’re going to bring in all these people that want to say all these positive things — that it’s kind of going to mute you but it’s not directly attacking you.

“It’s to create an alternative message. Because there’s so much hate out there, that’s what people see.”

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The hope is that people who tend to avoid commenting because they don’t feel comfortable or safe will add their voice to the discussion.


READ MORE:
6 steps Canadians can take when they spot hate speech online

Helgeson cited a Leger Institute for Canadian Citizenship survey that found three-quarters of Canadians don’t feel comfortable engaging online. Those are the people I Am Here Canada are trying to bring back into the conversation. Battling trolls is not really the point.

“When you read it, if you didn’t know better, you’d think the world is a horrible, hateful, terrible place. There are people that get really discouraged by it or depressed. They don’t realize that’s just the minority of voices wanting to silence everyone else. So if we can bring everyone else in and show them that there are such amazing people out there… I think that brings a little hope into it.”

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WATCH: (Sept. 27, 2019) Women – especially women in politics – receive a disproportionate amount of abusive and hateful messages on social media. ParityYEG is using artificial intelligence to send out a positive tweet for every negative one. 






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ParityBOT uses AI to combat abusive tweets to female election candidates


ParityBOT uses AI to combat abusive tweets to female election candidates

Members of the movement are vetted and come from a variety of backgrounds.

“They’re just fellow Canadians, everyday Canadians. You don’t have to be an academic.

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“I’m a substitute teacher and I work in a medical office. We have journalists, we have mechanics, we have health-care professionals, comic book creators and then of course we do have academics… scientists,” Helgeson said.

A member is assigned at the start of every day. Other members flag problematic posts — news articles shared on public Facebook pages that are generating a lot of awful comments — and members get to work.

“We’ll usually put in maybe a general comment, maybe we’ll post facts and push back a little bit, and then everybody is invited to boost the post — likes replies, reactions — and that’ll push those positive posts to the top.

“Those are the first ones that that silent majority of Canadians see because those are actually the people we are trying to engage.”

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Currently, the I Am Here movement has groups in 15 different regions around the world, including Canada, Australia and the U.K.


READ MORE:
Alberta oil and gas advocates plan counter-rally amid Greta Thunberg’s visit to Edmonton

“There are certain topics that are universal: things like the refugees, that’s a big one. Climate change is huge. It does not matter what country you are in at all, that 16-year-old girl just triggers off so much hate, it’s incredible,” Helgeson said.

“LGBTQ2S as well, very big. We find there’s a lot of hate and stereotypes with Indigenous issues as well — a tremendous [amount] — but we’re also finding that’s not as much universal.”

WATCH: (March 17, 2019) Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard University, talks about controlling the spread of online hate and violence.






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Controlling the spread of online hate and violence


Controlling the spread of online hate and violence

While trying to counteract all the hate online might seem daunting, group members feel it’s crucially important work.

Helgeson describes dangerous speech as “any form of literature or text or pictures that has the ability to increase the violence against a certain group of people or increase the tolerance of that.”

READ MORE: Racist letter tells Leduc family ‘we do not like your kind’

There’s concern that online hatred is manifesting in real life.

“We’ll see a lot of stuff online that maybe we never saw before. We see groups of people being called cockroaches, we see a lot of hate towards political figures, for example.

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“Now we have billboards that have hate speech, we have people that refer to other groups in casual conversation as cockroaches or vermin. We have people that don’t seem to have any trouble yelling at certain groups in public.

“If we’re seeing that hate online, we know that somehow it’s going to bleed into real life, and we need to be able to stop it as best we can.

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“Sometimes it feels daunting and maybe we won’t ever be able to change it. I like to hope that somewhere down the road, groups like ours won’t need to exist because people will just get engaged into the conversation naturally and defend each other and protect each other.”

To get involved in I Am Here Canada, apply through the group’s Facebook page.

WATCH: (Feb. 15, 2017) The Alberta Hate Crime Committee has launched a website in order to document hate-related incidents across the province by type, time and location. 






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#StopHateAB website tracks hate-related incidents in Alberta


#StopHateAB website tracks hate-related incidents in Alberta

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued – CTV News

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued  CTV News

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India’s media – captured and censored

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Across almost every form of media in India – social, broadcast and print – Narendra Modi and the BJP hold sway.

With India amid a national election campaign, its news media is in sharp focus. Until recently it was believed that the sheer diversity of outlets ensured a range of perspectives, but now, India’s mainstream media has largely been co-opted by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just how did the media in India get to this point and what does it mean for the upcoming elections?

Featuring:

Ravish Kumar – Former Host, NDTV
Shashi Shekhar Vempati – Former CEO, Prasar Bharati
Pramod Raman – Chief Editor, MediaOne
Amy Kazmin – Former South Asia Bureau Chief, Financial Times
Meena Kotwal – Founder, The Mooknayak

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Social media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards

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Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against multiple social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.

The school boards, including three in the Greater Toronto Area, have launched lawsuits seeking $4.5 billion in damages against Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, the owner of both Facebook and Instagram, for creating products that they allege negligently interfere with student learning and have caused “widespread disruption to the education system.”

But at an unrelated news conference in Ottawa on Friday, Ford said that he “disagrees” with the legal action and worries it could take the focus away from “the core values of education.”

“Let’s focus on math, reading and writing. That is what we need to do, put all the resources into the kids,” he said. “What are they spending lawyers fees to go after these massive companies that have endless cash to fight this? Let’s focus on the kids, not this other nonsense that they are looking to fight in court.”

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Four separate but similar statements of claim were filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of JusticSocial media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, a rapid escalation of aggression, and mental health challenges,” Colleen Russell-Rawlins, the director of education with the Toronto District School Board, said in a news release issued Thursday.

“It is imperative that we take steps to ensure the well-being of our youth. We are calling for measures to be implemented to mitigate these harms and prioritize the mental health and academic success of our future generation.”

The school boards are represented by Toronto-based law firm Neinstein LLP and the news release states that school boards “will not be responsible for any costs related to the lawsuit unless a successful outcome is reached.”

These lawsuits come as hundreds of school districts in the United States file similar suits.

“A strong education system is the foundation of our society and our community. Social media products and the changes in behaviour, judgement and attention that they cause pose a threat to that system and to the student population our schools serve,” Duncan Embury, the head of litigation at Neinstein LLP, said in the new release.

“We are proud to support our schools and students in this litigation with the goal of holding social media giants accountable and creating meaningful change.”

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