Project Hatemeter: helping NGOs and Social Science researchers to analyze and prevent anti-Muslim hate speech on social media

‘Hatemeter’ is a European project funded under the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme. The project aims to document, analyse and prevent hate speech on social media. It brings together researchers from several disciplines as well as NGOs in each of the three partner countries: Italy, France and Great Britain. Initially the researchers’ efforts focused specifically on anti-Muslim hate speech on Twitter. Following the recommendations of NGOs active on the field, the Hatemeter Platform was developed. It allows the automatic collection of large amounts of data on social media. Thanks to it, a user can: identify potential hate messages in real time, visualize the data collected through different types of graphs, and receive suggestions for counter-narratives writing. Used by Social Science researchers, it has proven to be an effective tool for exploring large amounts of data, identifying trends and then supporting more qualitative analytical approaches. For NGOs, it facilitates social media monitoring, stimulates and accelerates the training of operators who produce counter-narratives to fight hate speech.