By taking part in the group’s insights, you will get a solid foundation to stand on in relation to where to invest your resources in your work to prevent and react to cyber hate.

Consider

It is important to consider that there will always be active members or staff that are not comfortable with saying what they are thinking in a group discussion, especially if the group is larger. Therefore, a good thing to do is vary the conversation methods. This way, people who need more time to think or do not want to speak in a large group can also be heard.

It can also be good to have other opportunities to be heard, for example by sending in opinions anonymously, via email, or an opinion box in your office or meeting room.

Make sure that you collect these suggestions during a fixed period of time, so that you can also finish the mapping within a reasonable time, and after that, plan your efforts. Otherwise, there is a risk that you get stuck mapping and never come to actually making changes.

Do this:

1. Appoint a conversation leader who will be in charge of the conversation and be responsible for making sure that everyone is able to speak. 
2. A good idea can be to appoint someone/a few people to be ‘time watchers’ and ‘democracy watchers,’ so that the conversation leader does not have all the responsibility.
3. Develop rules for how you want the discussion climate to be, so that everyone feels safe and has their needs met.
4. Use the questions below or come up with your own to present the theme of cyber hate from different perspectives. 
5. Compile the most important things that come from the conversations in a mutual document, so that you can include this information in an action plan.

Suggestion Questions:

• Where are staff and members active online?

  • For example, where do we communicate with each other online?

• What is the tone of your conversations?

• Do you think that everyone feels included and safe when speaking to each other?

• Is everyone invited when you talk about events or other things that you do together?

• What common cyber rooms do you have in the organization?

  • A common room can be a Facebook group, a Facebook page, a comment section, a WhatsApp thread or email thread, Instagram, etc.

• Have you seen or experienced cyber hate in your common spaces on the internet?

• Cyber hate affects people in different ways which can be connected to power structures or oppression. What forms of discrimination or unfair treatment do you think exist in your group?

  • For example, you can be exposed to unfair treatment based on sex, sexuality, ethnicity/racialization, disability, religion/belief, age, gender identity and/or gender expression.

• How can you help each other and support each other against cyber hate?

• Do you know where to turn in the case of internal cyber hate?

  • For example, between people in your own organization, in your own channels, where you speak to each other.

• Do you know where to turn in case of external cyber hate?

  • For example from trolls, people with different opinions, or others.

• What do you think can be done to prevent hate and threats?

  • For example, rules, approaches, treatment.

• What kind of support or help would you want if you were exposed to cyber hate?