On 17 May 2016, the GEM club in Skopje hosted a training for dealing with hate speech in the media sphere, primarily provided to editors, journalists and web administrators. This training was organized by the Foundation Metamorphosis within the project “Media Fact Checking Service” which is implemented by the Foundation Metamorphosis with the support of USAID Macedonia. This one-day training was attended by 15 media representatives. 20160517_102105The aim of the training sessions is to contribute towards strengthening the capacities of the online media in Macedonia for recognizing and fighting hate speech and speech that spurs violence and crime out of hatred, as well as to promote the professional journalistic standards within the project “Media Fact Checking Service” which is implemented by the Foundation Metamorphosis with the support of USAID Macedonia. 20160517_102513This training covered the following topics:

  • Introduction in hate speech
  • Legal frameworks related to hate speech
  • The efforts of the Helsinki Committee of Human Rights of the Republic of Macedonia in this area
  • Participation in the community faced towards fighting hate speech
  • Hate speech identification according to the Media Fact Checking Service’s methodology
  • Social responsibility of the media (web sites)
  • Development of internal self-regulation mechanisms; Development of hate speech policy, registration, user generated content limitation, comments on social media, notice and take down mechanism

20160517_104626 20160517_123818Furthermore, the first mobile app in the world for fighting hate speech was also promoted at this training, and this app has the aim to inform more efficiently and also to raise the public awareness about the hate speech, providing the citizens with fast and innovative access to the newest news in this area, as well as an providing access to the educational and expert resources. “Ne mrazi” is the first smart phone app of such type in the world and it is available for free download for the users of the most popular operating systems – Android via Google Play and iOS, i.e. for the users of iPhone and iPad via the Apple Store. 20160517_130704 20160517_132101This training allowed all present media representatives to acquaint with each other and to share experiences as well as to implement the learned tactics and advices for preventing hate speech in their everyday work. 20160517_140253Moreover, several discussions related to this topic arose during the training, and the present media representatives stated that if these training sessions are held more often, they will help in the prevention of the hate speech in media on time. 20160517_141537

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