How Sleeping Giants and Stop Hate Money tackle hate speech online

Audio 27:55

The Sleeping Giants France Twitter account has nearly 20,000 subscribers.

Twitter screenshot

By: Steven Jambot Follow |

Simon Decreuze Follow

30 mins

The Media Workshop highlights two initiatives targeting the wallets of websites and media that propagate hateful and violent speech.

They are called Sleeping Giants France and Stop Hate Money.

Publicity

Sleeping Giants - the Sleeping Giants, in French - is a collective of activists that was born in November 2016 in the United States, just after the election of Donald Trump.

The objective was then to hurt the finances of the Breitbart site, an American conservative media that can be described as far-right and which played a role in Trump's accession to the White House.

How? 'Or' What ?

By pushing advertisers to remove their ads.

The Sleeping Giants collective now exists in around fifteen countries, including France.

In the first part of this show, we talk to

Rachel

, co-founder of

Sleeping Giants France

.

She begins by recounting the genesis of the French branch of this organization, in February 2017. She also explains how activists choose their targets and measure their success.

Finally, it justifies the importance of the anonymity of this commitment.

Sleeping Giants' approach has inspired other initiatives like

Stop Hate Money

, carried by

Conspiracy Watch

and piloted by

Tristan Mendès France

, which we hear in the second part of the show.

Associate lecturer at the University of Paris, specializing in digital cultures, he recalls that there is " 

often a business

 " behind sites promoting hate speech and conspiracy.

At the end of the program,

Mondoblog audio

gives the floor to Malian

Ousmane Makaveli 

who explains that online mobilization is also developing in his country.

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