We support and empower the targeted and victimized, acting to counter hate speech and misinformation online.
It was in May 2016 in Sweden that I started counter-speaking, after realizing how professional trolls start pages and groups on social media to spread misinformation. I saw how they attack and harass journalists, politicians, opinion-formers, especially women, people of color, the LGBTQ community and anyone who speaks up for human rights. I saw that politicians quit their jobs, that journalists dare not cover and report on certain issues and that opinion formers self-censor to avoid attacks.
I realized many more people needed to get involved to stop the hate, support the targeted and stop the polarization by reaching out to the people who shared and retweeted the hateful messages. So, I started the first group on Facebook #jagärhär (#iamhere) so we could organize ourselves, using the hashtag to find each other in the hateful comment sections. One year later we started the group in Germany and since then we have started #iamhere groups together with local representatives from all over the world. We are now over 150 000 people who choose to stand up for what we believe in and who support others that stand up for justice and human rights every day.
We encourage members to stop the hate by sharing links to hateful comment sections and join in actions together in those comment fields.
We stop the hate by simply pushing it down in the comment section, we stop the polarization by discussing the matter in a nuanced manner and we support the targeted.
We also prevent the dissemination of disinformation by helping others with sources of fact-reviewed information.
We defend Human Rights, Freedom of Speech and Democracy, respecting any human being. We nurture empathetic, benevolent, compassionate and responsible conversations. We share only fact-checked, evidence-based, scientifically-proven and constructive information.
