Online hate speech has been a problem for Internet platforms, creators and users for some time. Regulations have been ineffective and restrictions have been slow. 

In recent years huge Internet platform have started to realize the consequences of online hate speech and have worked towards ways to combat it.  Recently Google has been using 10,000 independent contractors to flag “offensive or upsetting” content, in order to ensure that extremist, xenophobic or any hate-related materials don't pop up on its front pages. 

"These contractors work from a huge manual, first made public in 2013, describing every potential problem they could find with a given search query: whether or not it meets the user’s expectations, whether the result offered is low or high quality, and whether it’s spam, porn or illegal." Alex Hern from the Guardian writes.

Facebook on the other hand has launched its Online Civil Courage Initiative and is working on it alongside the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-extremism campaign group. 

"As well as providing training and a dedicated support desk, Facebook will offer organisations the opportunity to promote campaigns against extremism through its own platforms and provide financial support for academic research into online and offline patterns of extremism and how to respond to it." writes Graham Ruddick, also from the Guardian.

According to the Guardian Facebook moderators had identified around 1,300 posts on the platform as “credible terrorist threats” in that month.

So how can you help?

Be active! If you see hate speech online, report it. Every big social media platform has a report button and the more people act, the more it becomes possible to demolish hate speech online. Become one of our many birds, soldiers of positive messages. Be a part of our Coalition of Positive Messengers to Counter Online Hate Speech.

Visit our website www.positivemessengers.net or our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/positivemessengers/ for more information on how to be a positive messenger online.