Trending
Trending
BBC World Service
The volunteers fighting hate on Facebook
22 minutes Posted Jun 7, 2019 at 9:20 pm.
0:00
22:17
Download MP3
Show notes

Nina spends three hours a day on Facebook – not sharing selfies or catching up on news, but trying to make the network a nicer place.

She’s a German member of a large and growing international movement called #IAmHere. Started in Sweden in 2016, tens of thousands of volunteers in more than a dozen countries organise in closed Facebook groups.

They target popular posts, often from mainstream news organisations, which get overrun by extremism, violent threats and hate speech. Their goal is to inject balance into the conversation with facts and more moderate views.

There’s some evidence to indicate that their efforts are starting to have an impact. We’ve been in around Europe visiting #IAmHere’s founder, Swedish journalist Mina Dennert, and several members from the German group – fittingly called #IchBinHier.

We find out how they operate – and what motivates people like Nina to spend so much time trying to chip away at such an enormous issue.

Presenter: Reha Kansara

Reporter: Jessica Bateman

Photo: German #IAmHere volunteer Nina

Photo credit: BBC