The Real Up project (Hate speech, racism and xenophobia: Alert Mechanisms and Response, analysis of the Upstander speech), is a project approved by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) of the European Commission under the Call: CERV-2021-EQUAL. Its implementation period is 24 months (from the signing of the Grant Agreement, currently under preparation).

It is a project led by OBERAXE (State Secretariat for Migration) with the following partners:

• National Office for Hate Crimes (ONDOD) of the Ministry of Interior.
• Community of Research on Excellence for All (CREA-UB) of the University of Barcelona.
• International Study Group on Critical Theory of the University of Valencia.
• Cidalia, diversity consultancy.
• A-Digital, as an associated partner.

The overall objective of the Real UP project is to improve the capacities of state authorities to identify, analyse, monitor and evaluate online hate speech in order to develop and strengthen counter-narrative strategies (upstander discourse) against hate speech motivated by racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsyism by Discussing and generating a map of good practices and didactic and effective tools for counter-narrative hate speech online; and describing profiles of perpetrators and victims, through which the intensity, severity, distribution and potential impact of hate speech can be assessed, in order to establish recommendations for action related to upstander discourse.

The specific objectives are:

• To analyse upstander discourse as an effective tool to counter online hate narrative and hate speech.
• Establish and/or strengthen synergies between institutional actors and key stakeholders (including civil society and internet platforms), to carry out an effective counter-narrative campaign against hate speech on social media, in order to discourage its use.
• Disseminate the project and analyse the transferability of its main outputs, in order to multiply the impacts, both at national level and in other EU Member States.

Background

The Real Up project is a continuation of two initiatives of the State Secretariat for Migration: the AL-RE-CO project and the Protocol for Combating Hate Speech Online.

The table below summarises the project’s Work Packages (WP) and their timing: