Hate speech is threatening our democracies. To tackle hate speech, it is vital for people to campaign, to act together to uphold human rights online, to raise awareness, change attitudes and mobilise communities. Campaigning is a way of bringing people together, united by common goals and values.

The goals of the campaign are:

• To raise awareness about hate speech online and its risks for democracy and for individual young people
• To promote media and Internet literacy
• To support young people in standing up for human rights, online and offline
• To reduce the levels of acceptance of online hate speech
• To mobilise, train and network online youth activists for human rights
• To map hate speech online and develop tools for constructive responses
• To support and show solidarity to people and groups targeted by hate speech online
• To advocate for consensus on European policy instruments combating hate speech
• To develop youth participation and citizenship online

The campaign is based on a European platform and programme of activities run by the Youth Department of the Council of Europe – under the responsibility of its Joint Council on Youth, where youth leaders and government representatives make decisions side by side, the Organisation’s co-management system. This is the umbrella under which national and/or local campaigns will run.

The national campaigns are to be implemented with the active involvement of non-governmental and governmental representatives in the field of youth, in the spirit of co-management. While responsibility for establishing the campaign committees lies with the governmental youth partners of the Council of Europe (through the European Steering Committee on Youth); in cases where no committee has been set up, the Council of Europe welcomes joint initiatives from non-governmental partners in the countries concerned.

National campaign committees have been set up in some 34 member states so far; it is expected that the others will soon follow and that by June 2013 most of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states will have a campaign up and running.

The campaign is designed to be everyone’s campaign; any organisation or individual should feel free to join and to take action whether alone or with others.

Read about the European Action Day for the Victims of Hate Crimes.

Read about the European Action Week Against Racism and Discrimination.