As the person responsible for the organization, and in particular as the human resources and work environment manager, cyber hate is an important area to keep track of for several reasons. Like many other organizations, communication and interaction mostly takes place on the internet today.

That is why it is important to remember that the responsibility I have for how staff treat each other, for example, or other potential external threats that they receive is not different online or offline.

Public opinion organizations are more affected

As a feminist and anti-racist equality foundation that works with advocacy and public opinion, cyber hate is unfortunately a common phenomenon we deal with. Over time, this has given us solid experience and the possibility to develop methods for preventing and counteracting cyber hate. 

Actively taking responsibility

An example of my responsibility for dealing with cyber hate in practice is when an employee or other active member’s safety and well-being in the organization is negatively affected by cyber hate. Good questions to ask yourself are: Can we, as an organization, prevent that people are alone when dealing with attacks on the internet?

What do our crisis routines look like if someone is subjected to cyber hate in their role as a representative for the organization? How do we follow up and support them afterward? 

How Make Equal works

At Make Equal, this has meant developing a crisis plan for social media and organizing the communication team that handles social media so that they are more than one person, so that they don’t have to deal with potential cyber hate alone. We also ask ourselves who the front figure is in case we lift views that can provoke strong counter-reactions—preferably more than one person does this, in these cases. 

‘Threats and hate’ is a standing point in our internal meetings. Then, there is the opportunity for us to share things that have happened since last, related to cyber hate (both toward ourselves as individuals, the organization, or against a third party but that still affects us in some way.)

Another preventative routine is that we avoid writing posts that normally provoke counter-reactions in the evening or before the weekend so that cyber hate does not stay visible without us seeing it for longer than necessary. 

Why our preventative work is effective

A factor in our successful work with cyber hate has been connecting it to other parts of our internal development and security work. For example, when it comes to internal treatment, our active core values create a good foundation to stand on. 

We also put time and resources toward annually reworking our code of conduct on how we want internet treatment to be. These rules apply when we meet each other and other people on the internet, of course. 

In our internal documents, it clearly states that I, the CEO, have the primary responsibility in case someone feels vulnerable or offended, but we also give practical tips in our code of conduct about how others who witness or experience violations can react. 

We know that far from all violations and closed-minded comments are made on purpose. That is why an important part of our safety work is to practice making each other aware of when we say, write, or do things that do not feel good. Often, it is enough to say that something is not okay to get the behavior to stop. But if this is not the case, it is of course my job as the operational manager to act more decisively. 

Regular mapping is good

At Make Equal, we regularly map the work environment through anonymous surveys, curing employee dialogues, and during security rounds. Capturing experiences of cyber hate is best done by connecting these issues to already existing ways of working, instead of creating new channels. 

The internet is real

The days are gone when we could excuse our ignorance or not dealing with cyber hate by saying that the internet was a new phenomenon. The key is not to see the internet as an area separate from others, but rather as another “room” in the organization that we are responsible for.

Frida Hasselblad, CEO Make Equal