The aim of the project is to strengthen the preventive and reactive measures against hate speech and disinformation online. It aims to empower NGOs/CSOs, factcheckers, public authorities and youngsters as activists to effectively prevent and combat polarisation, the spread of racist, xenophobic and intolerant speech, as well as conspiracy theories.
The project’s primary objective is to address online hate and fake news, with a specific emphasis on tackling the often overlooked and interrelated issues that intersect between hate speech and disinformation.
HATEDEMICS will raise awareness and improve skills and critical thinking by advancing AI-based technologies that:
1) monitor, detect and record hate speech and disinformation on social media.
2) estimate the ‘HATEDEMICS risk’ as the sum of the ‘hate speech and infodemics risks’, i.e. the online exposure to (potential) hate and mis informative messages.
3) create dialogue-based counter-narratives that support professionals and activists and facilitate advanced reporting activities by implementing an effective human-in-the-loop approach, whereby automated suggestions are always validated by human operators, who always have the final say on the posted content.
4) automatically assess behavioural changes determined by the counter-narrative intervention. The combination of these technologies will allow for more focused and timely online interventions (i.e. advanced targeted search followed by relevant textual suggestions), resulting in a more efficient and effective professional and volunteer effort. This approach is based on maintaining fairness and balance and ensuring adherence to legal and ethical standards.
