My Democracy Social media of migrant organisations for empowerment in dealing with right-wing extremism and racism

Starting point

In recent years, new immigrants in Germany have developed large networks and resonance chambers on social media in their native languages, so that communication by and with people with immigration background or family immigration history is hardly conceivable without Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube etc.

From our own experience in digital networks, we know that immigrants often experience racism and right-wing extremism on social media, among other things in integration-related social media groups and spaces in their native languages. The perpetrators come not only from the majority society, but also from the migrant networks themselves, in that common racist prejudices, extreme nationalism, conspiracy theories, machismo and hatred are communicated between groups and towards marginalized subgroups. Only a few groups or digital spaces can be kept free of this through consistent moderation.

Goals, target groups and methods

The specific goals of the project are:

Participative and activating knowledge generation on racism and right-wing extremism in migrant social media spaces.
Description of successful strategies for dealing with racism and right-wing extremism in social media.
Reflecting on racism and right-wing extremism in social media in order to be able to make it the starting point of our campaigns.
Conception and implementation of multilingual, continuous and modularized workshops (Social Media Academy)
Networking

The target groups of the project are migrant organizations, providers of social media services (such as administrators and moderators of Facebook groups); people with and without a migration background (to whom migration background is generally attributed) who are and can become victims of racist attacks on the Internet and volunteers who act against racism and right-wing extremism in social media spaces.

Within the framework of the project, the implementation of the following activities is planned: Conception and implementation of online surveys and organization of participatory discussions in different languages to stimulate the discussion of racism and right-wing extremism, Conception of campaigns and information materials for dealing with the issue in the social media, Development of Social Media Academy, Design and implementation of workshops for respective target groups.

Our Social Media Academy aims to provide intervention tools and resources for a confident and proactive approach to racism and right-wing extremism in the social media to target groups, both online and in person, through multilingual Workshops offers. Through continuous and modularized workshops, the target groups are supported in their perception and interpretation of the phenomenon on social media.

My Democracy is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration and by the Federal Government Commissioner for Anti-Racism.