Social Media and Online Hate Speech

More than a fifth of young people in Germany would vote for a populist party in the next general election. Extremist movements therefore currently have more than enough momentum in the political climate. The general consensus in society is that social media is primarily to blame. However, social platforms are not inherently right-wing or left-wing. They benefit much more from polarizing content that causes user engagement to skyrocket. Populist content achieves this feat by, for example, shortening complex contexts and bordering on clickbait. The aim of this session is to show that these mechanisms can also have a productive impact on democracy and what we can do to combat hate speech and hatred.