The University of Nicosia is a partner in implementing the SOpHiSM Project, alongside the Centre for European Constitutional Law (CECL), the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA), and the Hellenic League for Human Rights. The project, which will run for 20 months (as of 01/03/2020), is funded by the European Commission Justice Programme (JUST) & Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC-AG2019/REC-RRAC-RACI-AG-2019).
Online hate speech is seen as a growing problem in Greece and Cyprus, which can be attributed to societal attitudes towards specific groups, the evolution of online media, lack of awareness and of appropriate tools to recognise and counter hate speech. Professional and citizen journalists are producing content containing hate speech both intentionally, in order to gain visibility, as well as unintentionally because they are not in position to effectively recognize it.
The SOphiSM project attempts to address this issue by drawing on existing international standards and tools, as well as the views of all involved actors: Young journalists, students of journalism, citizen journalists and NGOs.
More specifically, the project aims to:
- support high quality journalism in Greece and Cyprus through the enhancement of the media literacy skills of students of journalism, junior journalists and citizen journalists (bloggers and social media influencers);
- consolidate and add to the existing pool of data on hate speech online in Greece and Cyprus;
- improve media literacy and skills to identify and counter hate speech online, and to create anti-hate speech messages;
- create tools designed to target the particularities of online hate speech in the participating countries.
Furthermore, the project aims to raise awareness among the general public on the challenges of online hate speech. This is expected to contribute to decreasing hate speech elements in online journalism and in promoting accurate, truthful reporting framed by anti-hate speech.