A Toolkit on Using Counterspeech to Tackle Online Hate Speech (the future of free speech)

The DSP searches for the best responses to harmful content, especially content that increases the risk of intergroup violence, which it calls dangerous speech. Several years ago, the noticed some counterspeakers at work.  The team began searching for more, and gradually found many more. Some operate alone, and many counterspeak together in well-coordinated groups numbering in the thousands. Theirs are true grassroots efforts: all the counterspeakers have taken it on voluntarily, without pay. The DSP has studied them and their efforts, producing the first ethnographic study of counterspeakers, a detailed paper on what they are trying to accomplish, and a review of research on what impact they are actually having. In general, their goals are quite similar, and their techniques are strikingly different. From all this work, which is the largest body of research on counterspeech in the world as far as we know, the DSP has created the content for this toolkit.