My Voice is Louder Than Hate
My Voice is Louder Than Hate, MediaSmarts’ latest resource, uses digital storytelling and meme making tools to encourage youth to push back when they encounter hate online.

My Voice is Louder Than Hate, MediaSmarts’ latest resource, uses digital storytelling and meme making tools to encourage youth to push back when they encounter hate online.

This lesson is designed to be delivered after students have completed at least one of the following lessons: Thinking About Hate, Scapegoating and Othering and Hate or Debate. In groups, students research an online environment (such as social networking sites) and a particular example of that environment (such as Facebook) to learn the issues, strategies and tools relating to online hate in that environment.

The last few weeks have shed an unprecedented light on the use of digital media to spread and inspire hatred. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the perpetrator in the attacks on Canada’s National War Memorial and Parliament buildings, appears to have been motivated in part by exposure to online postings by a self-described member of the Islamic state[1], and the Federal government has already stated that it intends to create tools to remove online content that promotes the “proliferation of terrorism.”[2]

In this lesson students learn about the ways that propaganda techniques are used to promote hatred and intolerance online.

There are two main strategies for addressing online hate and cultures of hatred in the classroom: teaching youth to recognize and deconstruct it, and empowering them to intervene by answering back to it.

In this lesson, students develop a deeper understanding of scapegoating and othering and how these factors may contribute to the promotion of hatred and intolerance.

In this lesson students learn about the inherent tension within democratic societies between freedom of expression and freedom from hatred. They also learn how Canada has addressed these issues within the Criminal Code of Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights legislation in Canada, then discuss different methods that platforms could use to moderate hate speech.

In this lesson, students learn about the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate.