Counterspeech Trainings

REGISTER HEREWHATThe Future of Free Speech Project (FFS) cordially invites you to register for our forthcoming (November 2023) training sessions on our new counterspeech toolkit (forthcoming) developed in cooperation with the Dangerous Speech Project. Experts will offer insights into the meaning, role and use of counterspeech.The trainings are primarily targeted for civil society organizations and digital activists, but we also welcome registrations from policy makers, academics and other interested individuals/organizations.Each training session will span across 2 days. Full participation in both days is required. Each training session is the same. We are holding three separate sessions to make it convenient for different time zones. So please only register for the session that fits best with your schedule.PROGRAMMEDuring the two days participants will explore counter speech. Sessions include:

• What is Counterspeech and why is it important?
• Counterspeech strategies and practical considerations
• Counterspeech: Defining Success
• Counterspeech: As a Reaction to What?
• Practical Examples from TikTok
• Decoding right wing extremist symbols

For the full training programme click hereWHEREOnline.

• For Session 1 (South Asia – 1^st and 2^nd November)
• For Session 2 (Central Time – 6^th and 7^th November)
• For Session 3 (Central European Time – 13^th and 14^th November)

As we anticipate a high number of participants we will reserve places on a first come first serve basis. As we anticipate a high number of participants we will reserve places on a first come first serve basis.WHEN

TRAINERSCathy Buerger is the Director of Research at the Dangerous Speech Project. She studies the relationship between speech and intergroup violence as well as civil society responses to dangerous and hateful speech online. She is a Research Affiliate of the University of Connecticut’s Economic and Social Rights Research Group and Managing Editor of the Journal of Human Rights. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut.Stephanie Häusinger works on transformative civic education and has lead the project “firewall – combating hate speech online” at Amadeu Antonio Foundation from 2021 – 2023 in Berlin, Germany. In her work, she focuses on the prevention of discrimination and hate speech online, especially targeting young people, educators and civil society organizations. She studied cultural anthropology and international development in Germany, Austria and Spain.Charlotte Lohmann joined the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in 2021 as an education specialist in the project “firewall: countering hate on the internet” and works on the topics of hate speech, empowerment of digital moral courage and media literacy. After studying social sciences in Poland and Germany, she worked for the Krzyzowa Foundation in Poland in the field of historical-political education, where she expanded the focus on media literacy promotion for the context of international youth work.Richard Siegert’s field of expertise is situated at the intersection of civic education and the study of the far right. He works as an education officer for the project “firewall – combatting hate online” at the Amadeu Antonio foundation in Berlin and writes a PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen on the social discourse of the “New Right” in Germany and France.The training will be facilitated by Natalie Alkiviadou, Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Free Speech Project.Natalie is Senior Research Fellow at Justitia, working on the Future of Free Speech project. Her research interests lie in the freedom of expression, the far-right, hate speech, hate crime and non-discrimination. She holds a PhD (Law) from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has published three monographs, namely ‘The Far-Right in International and European Law’ (Routledge 2019), ‘Legal Challenges to the Far-right: Lessons from England and Wales’ (Routledge 2019) and ‘The Far-Right in Greece and the Law’ (Routledge 2022). Natalie has over ten years experience in working with civil society, educators and public servants on human rights education and has participated in European actions such as the High-Level Group on Combatting Racism, Xenophobia and Other Forms of Intolerance.THE PARTNERS

The Future of Free Speech Project is a collaboration between Danish think tank Justitia and Vanderbilt University. To understand better and counter the decline of free speech, the FFS seeks to answer three big questions: Why is freedom of speech in global decline? How can we better understand and conceptualize the benefits and harms of free speech? And how can we create a resilient global culture of free speech that benefits everyone? The objectives are to understand better why we need free speech and to explain better why the freedom to speak is so fundamental. We will also extrapolate how we can protect free speech while addressing legitimate concerns surrounding misinformation, extremism, and hate speech.To do this, we pursue a three-part endeavor: (1) Through polling and research, we will measure global attitudes toward free speech and analyze whether common concerns and arguments used to justify restrictions of free speech are based on real or imagined harms. (2) through defending and strengthening existing standards needed to resist the global authoritarian deterioration of freedom of expression. (3) Through outreach, the FFS provides activists, policymakers, academics, and other critical stakeholders with the data, arguments, and standards to help turn the tide of what the FFS calls the free speech recession.Ultimately, the FFS aims to generate knowledge and spark the involvement needed to energize activists, persuade skeptics, resist authoritarians, and foster a resilient global culture of free speech.

The Dangerous Speech Project (DSP) was founded in 2010 to study speech (any form of human expression) that inspires violence between groups of people – and to find ways to mitigate this while protecting freedom of expression. The DSP works primarily in four areas:

1. Tracking and studying dangerous speech in many countries
2. Researching effective responses to dangerous speech and other forms of harmful expression
3. Advising social media and other tech companies on their policies, and encouraging them to engage in transparent research
4. Teaching dangerous speech ideas to a variety of people who use them to study and counter dangerous speech.

In each of these areas, it works closely with a diverse group of partners to maximize the quality and impact of its efforts and share its work by writing articles, reports, blog posts, and op-eds and giving frequent talks.The Amadeu Antonio Foundation is one of Germany’s foremost independent non-governmental organizations working to strengthen democratic civic society and eliminate neo-Nazism, right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of bigotry and hate in Germany. Since its founding in 1998, the Foundation has funded more than 1.800 projects and campaigns in pursuit of this goal. It brings direct support to victims of hate-based violence and promotes alternative youth cultures and community networks to make social structures resilient against intolerance and racism. Furthermore the Foundation engages with hate and other forms of group-focused enmity online while promoting the development of a democratic digital civil society. QUESTIONSFor any questions please contact Natalie Alkiviadou at natalie@futurefreespeech.com