BRATISLAVA – As
part of its mission to address the critical issue of online hate speech – a
pervasive issue facing global Jewry – the EU-funded Building Bridges for
Combating Antisemitism Together (Bridges) initiative held its fourth
training session on Wednesday and Thursday, December 11-12.
Led by the World Jewish
Congress (WJC) and CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe,
in local partnership with host Council of Jewish Communities in Slovakia, the
two-day event convened Jewish community representatives, public officials, and technology
experts in Bratislava.
The first session of the day provided
an in-depth overview of online hate speech, focusing on its definition, general
standards across platforms, and the legal frameworks governing it. Aiming to incorporate the work of the EU
strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, the
session also briefly reviewed other publications including the EU-funded Networks Overcoming Antisemitism
(NOA) Project reports, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s publication
The Fragility of Freedom: Online Holocaust Denial and Distortion, which
includes an article co-authored by WJC’s Yfat Barak-Cheney, Executive
Director of the Technology and Human Rights Institute (TecHRI), and Hannah
Maman, Project Manager at TecHRI.
By equipping participants with
practical tools to monitor, report, and counter online hate speech, Bridges
leaders led group discussions and activities that helped establish a basis of
what ‘online hate’ looks like on social media platforms. looked at an action
plan to analyze what effective, concrete actions look like in a coherent
framework.
Transitioning from there, the
second session saw participants analyzed case studies to understand the balance
between hate speech regulations and protections for freedom of speech. While
exploring key concepts such as “hate speech,” “harmful speech,” and “illegal
hate speech,” “content moderation” and “community guidelines”, participants were
tasked with defining what these terms mean, identifying specific types of acts,
including hate crimes, and determining the appropriate authorities or
stakeholders for reporting, such as social media platforms or law enforcement.
The second part of the day
showcased examples of hate speech from social media platforms, and the
participants were encouraged to work in small groups and reach certain conclusions
regarding the severity of harmful speech in each of the examples and to place
the example according to the Article
19 pyramid on hate speech.
The second day featured insights from guest speakers, including Fergal Browne, Outreach and Partnership Manager at TikTok, who explained how TikTok moderates content on the platform and how it regulates hate speech. He specifically focused on tools to counter various forms of hate speech, and shared some statistics, for example, the fact that ‘89% of hate speech content is removed by TikTok’s AI-driven moderation systems before reaching users.’ Browne also highlighted the importance of collaboration, specifically focusing on the success of TikTok’s redirection policy on Holocaust denial and distortion, created in partnership with WJC. Namely, the keywords triggering this platform intervention led the users to AboutHolocaust.org – a website providing factual information about the Shoah in 19 languages, produced by UNESCO and WJC. He concluded the session with an exercise trying to put into practice the theoretical ideas of TikTok’s community guidelines by analyzing specific case studies and reasons why they were or were not removed from the platform.
Participants also heard from Eliška
Henrikova of the Slovak Ministry of Interior’s Department of Criminality
Prevention, who went over laws that regulate extremism and antisemitism in Slovakia,
showing a number of interesting graphs resonating the number of online and
offline hate crimes recorded to the police and prosecuted in Slovakia since
2018, highlighting the changes due to antisemitism in the wake of October 7.
The final two afternoon sessions
focused on helping the participants map
their response-system an analysis of the findings from the Facing Facts
research on “Current
Activities & Gaps in Hate Speech Response,” in which they thought of
the relevant stakeholders, i.e. intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, religious
institutions, and the media, who could help them take the first step towards promoting
safety and unity within their Jewish communities and their presence online.
Through collaborative mapping and strategic partnerships, participants developed short-term action plans to combat antisemitic hate speech online. The event empowered local leaders with tools to monitor progress, foster collaboration across sectors, and drive meaningful change. This fourth training reinforced the Bridges project’s commitment to building sustainable partnerships and promoting inclusivity, equipping Jewish communities across Europe to effectively address online hate and advocate for change.
