Spanish Group about "Silence Hate"

Interview of Taron Saribekyan from Spain after the Training Course "Silence Hate" in Berlin.

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Can you give us your opinion about the project “Silence Hate“ ?

The project was a very good opportunity to discover more things about the topic of the project. For me was an interesting period because I met new people and learned new things from them. The best activities were when we had debates. I liked that we had a cultural evening when I discovered new things and different kinds of food from the countries which sent participants in the project. I liked that we had some workshops where we saw different videos and we discussed them after. I really appreciate that the food and accommodation were very good.

How can youth help to combat the rise of online hate speech ?

Youth can find information about this from the internet. Youngers can ask for more information during the hours at schools. They can ask Facebook to block people who practice hate speech. They can explain to other youngsters about this topic to grow the awareness in the society. They can learn more about this topic and after some of them become influencers on youtube and to talk about this topic. They can organize groups at university or highschool and after they can go outside to do protests or to explain to others from the street this problem. They can write articles about situations where they meet hate speech and publish them in online media, blogs or in the newspaper of the school.

Do you think that Media is a pathway to racism, intolerance, Islamophobia...? Depends on the situation because sometimes I agree with this and sometimes I do not agree. First you must choose what sources of information you will follow or you read. I believe that social media is very accessible today and the information flies fast. In my opinion social media is oftentimes for a lot of people the main source of information. If you don't choose the right sources you will be in the situation where you will see a lot of fake news, racist videos or islamophobia. All these bad situations exist because the level of education for many people is very poor. In conclusion, media is good if you know how to use it and for how long every day.