Narratives of the Far-Right Today
27th of February 2024
Overview
SolRem’s workshop on “Narratives of the Far-Right Today” sought to raise awareness among young participants regarding the significance of remaining informed and vigilant concerning far-right narratives and disinformation spread across social media.
Approximately 20 individuals participated in the workshop, actively engaging in debates and discussions concerning the implications of far-right narratives on human rights.
Agenda
| Workshop: Narratives of the Far-Right TodayAna Catarina Caldeira, President of IM Cultural |
| Part 1:Human rights: what is it and what is its origin?Human rights and freedom of expressionActivity: who says worse?Hate speech and extreme narratives Part 2:Media literacy and how important is it to have it?How does social media work?Disinformation vs wrong informationFact checkingFar-right narratives in PortugalDeep Fakes |
Contributions
The workshop started with an overview of the history of human rights, accounting for the most important declarations and conventions established to uphold the defense of human rights. A comprehensive definition of human rights, along with an exploration of the various types of rights that it entails, contributed to a discussion about the distinction between absolute, limited or qualified rights. This instilled the discussion on freedom of speech, on whether it is or not an absolute right that each and every individual holds, which carried the conversation into the limitations of freedom of speech and its relation to hate speech. Participants engaged in an activity that promotes critical thinking through the discernment of differences between freedom of speech and hate speech, and particularly different levels of offense associated with hate speech.
This served as the starting point into the approach of media literacy and its importance when it comes to the spread of narratives of the far-right on social media platforms that are widely used all across the globe. Participants were encouraged to report social media posts that contain disinformation, fake news and hate speech, thereby facilitating intervention of the social media platform. They were also equipped with strategies on how to spot disinformation and wrong information, followed by an activity of fact-checking and a showcase of AI generated deep fake videos.
In summary, the participants gathered information and strategies to navigate sources of information with an aware and alert mindset to the issues that permeate social media dynamics today.