Education
In our conversations with counterspeakers, many have said that educating people (either the person posting hatred or the larger audience) is their primary goal. Counterspeakers correct hateful misinformation, explain why messages are hateful, or even amplify hateful speech as a method of educating others to its existence, and trying to inspire them to respond.
Some scholars have even started using social media – especially Twitter – to challenge misinformation in their area of expertise. One example that has become well known in the public conversation of race in America is Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University. Kruse writes lengthy threads in response to popular misrepresentations of American history on topics such as slavery, the drivers of the Civil War, and lynching.
Kruse has in the past explained that he responds “for the people who encounter these counternarratives and think that they’re wrong, but don’t know enough to back it up; people who need a counterpoint to their uncle at Thanksgiving, or to their co-worker in the breakroom,” (Pettit, 2018).
Publicly stating dissent can be a very powerful form of counterspeech, especially when hateful speech and misinformation have gone unquestioned in the past. When the dissenting voices are authorities in their fields, the counterspeech can carry even more weight.
Another example of counterspeakers using education in their responses is the Lithuanian Elves. The Lithuanian Elves (named such, according to their founder, “because elves fight trolls”) were founded in 2014 to counter Russian government disinformation campaigns that criticize democratic institutions and attempt to stoke intergroup conflict. By 2022, they had expanded into 13 Central and Eastern European countries. The Elves do not attempt to change the behavior of those posting disinformation because they do not think it would be possible. Instead, their counterspeech is aimed at those who read the disinformation. “We hope they are understanding what they are reading. We are trying to make them not be poisoned by the fake news and the propaganda,” said one member.
