Hate Helps Initiative

Description

This is an exercise which shows how to cope with hate comments on the Internet and turn them into online donations for refugee projects and exit projects for extremists.

  • Module
  • Intervention
  • Group size
  • medium
Course code: 3 ACW
Exercise Category: Good Practices
CC - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Purpose

The aim is to draw attention to the right-wing radical, racist and anti-Semitic hatred in the net and to create something positive in response to this.

Participants

youth aged 15 - 20

Description

The Internet is currently flooded with racist and xenophobic comments. HASSHILFT (“Hate Helps”) is a signal against it: it is an involuntary online donation action. The idea behind this: Everyone inhuman online post in respective social media platforms generates a 1 Euro donation for refugee projects of "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" (a refugee support initiative) and "EXIT-Deutschland" (an exit programme for right-wing extremists). In this way, all haters practically donate against themselves. The funds that make hate comments an involuntary donation are made available beforehand by partners and supporters.

Materials needed

A video explains the activity:http://zentrum-demokratische-kultur.de/initiativen/?c=hass-hilft

Methodology

  • Getting in touch direcly with hate comments writers: the more they write, the more they donate to institutions they definitely do not want to support
  • Showing how uncertainty in the extreme right scene can be generated

Advice for Trainer

This action can be included in teaching units as an example of coping with right-wing extremism in a most targeted way.

The action started in Germany in 2015. The methodology has been copied and adapted many times and has spread worldwide.