HateFree Culturethe usage of social media in national campaign against rasism and

hate violence for youth

Lukáš Houdek, coordinator

Office of the Government of the Czech Republic

lukas@hatefree.cz ; +420 604 463 676

Social media and their role in HateFree

Culture

Facebook (13.500 fans; reach 30.000 per day), Twitter (350 followers) - Facebookis the central point of the project.

The most important thing is to be constantly active and share interesting content(in ideal case our own content)

• Sharing of our own content (articles, comics, videos, memes, analyses, proving hoaxes false etc.)

• Sharing content of the others (what is happenning at the moment regardingour topics worldwide, content of other initiatives or partners)

• Constant communication with the community (via comments or messages)

Own content sharing and its popularity

• VIDEOS

We shoot most of our activities and share it with our fans. Therefore we sharemost often:

• Spots (promoting our campaigns and open calls)

• Videos from HateFree Zones

• Shots of performances (Stand-up comedies, read trolling etc.)

• ARTICLES

Articles which deal with contemporary issues or those that prove hoaxes againstRoma or muslims false are the most popular. These are also shared the most. Stories about victims of hate violence or positive examples are also popular.

• PHOTO CAMPAIGNS

Photo campaigns are one of the most popular and successful contents for FB likesand sharing. Young people love to be photographed and share their photos withtheir friends. People also like to look at photos of strangers.

The most successful are those that are funny or socially important

Videos

TV spots with viral potential Videos from HateFree Zones (with a challenge)

Shots of live performances Making ofs

Photo campaigns

Fans and increase in visibility

• To get new fans through unpopular topics is very hard (most of the society think of attempts to change the thinking of people as propaganda), but not impossible. The most important thing is to produce as cool and interestingcontent as possible, so that people share it, comment and like it (only then itwill reach their friends and contacts and you will reach people out of yoursocial buble).

1. Funny content

2. Content that concerns fans themselves (photo campaigns etc.)

3. Strong stories or positive examples (people don‘t want to hear negative storiesor moralities. Positive examples are the most shared)

4. Open calls / crowdsourcing (cooperation, ideas, competition, etc.)

5. Networking – cooperation with festivals or other organisations. Make thecooperation public.

6. FB promotion

Communication with the users

• We communicate with fans as much as possible – via regular commentsunder posts or via messages (they consult with us their problems or ideas)

• We always try to be emphatic, never use labels for debaters (such as racist, nazi, homophob etc.), never call them bad names.

• We have codex for discussion – if the users break it, we delete theircomments or block them if they break the rules repeatedly. Blocking usershas to be reasonable and has to be the last step when none of theprevious warnings worked.

• It is important to show and accept your own mistakes, appologize etc. Beas transparent as possible. Never try to hide (delete) some post thatbecame controversial.

• HATERS - their only aim is to irritate people, to communicate theirfrustrations and hate others. Even though they make the time spent on the page very irritating for others, they are important as they increaseyour visibility. Better than using hate speech against them is to send themlove (heart emoticons), kisses or funny pictures to show how silly theircomments are.