The Less Hate, More Speech Project, Winner at the Hate Awards Gala

Median Research Centre‘s Less Hate, More Speech project was among the winners of the first edition of the Hate Awards Gala, organized by ActiveWatch and Roma Center Romani Criss.

The research project, which at its core is focused on a comment moderation system, was mentioned as one of the “champions of responsible public discourse”. The prize (called “We debate, we comment, we swear, but we also moderate”) was awarded to both MRC and GSP, the media partner of the project, in recognition of the good collaboration between the two teams.

The award was shared with the Adevărul daily.

The project ends in April 2017, and a central objective is to test to what extent and in what situations we can reduce online hate speech, by implementing the comment moderation system on two national websites, gsp.ro and tolo.ro.

The project is financed through the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, EEA Research Programme and represents a partnership between MRC, University of Bergen and Central European University in Budapest.

Other winners of the Gala were:

• The Romanian Football Federation, the “Penalty against racism” Award
• Accept, the “Rainbow over the People’s Cathedral” Award
• The Pata Rât Community Movement, the “Bulldozer against inhumanity” Award
• Aferim, the “History without curtains” Award

And the negative awards were given to two Members of Parliament (Mădălin Voicu, Bogdan Diaconu), one journalist (Radu Banciu) and the former President of Romania, Traian Băsescu.