Launching a counter or alternative narrative campaign on social media means that you have to engage with users digitally. The aim of your campaign is to raise awareness about an issue you care and are passionate about. You want to initiate a discussion – so you should be prepared to actually have this discussion.

While you might get lots of support measures, not everyone on social media will be supportive of your campaign. On the contrary, efforts for human rights, diversity and progress, either in counter or alternative narrative campaigns, are sometimes met with a lack of understanding, hate speech and violent attacks by other users.

However, before focusing on how to respond to negative feedback, let’s first discuss how to cultivate positive comments and how to respond to the support of your community.

 Tools provided by the platforms

All social media platforms have community standards, which can further guide page managers and moderators when responding to hate speech. Depending on the platforms you are using for your counter or alternative narrative campaign, it might be useful to familiarize yourself with the already existing standards. Additionally, in some countries, such as Germany, national laws might exist to guide you further.

 Measures to take before launching your campaign

Prior to launching your campaign, you should come up with a set of rules for your social media channels, a so-called netiquette (see the definition box), to support and guide the community management of your channels. The netiquette should not only include that respectful discussion is appreciated, but also mention that racist slurs and violent language will not be tolerated.

In addition to a netiquette, which should be publicly available either on your website or via the respective social media channels, it is highly recommended to formulate internal guidelines and a list of common arguments by haters to use in the response to hate comments, just to be prepared. The internal guidelines should include the general tone of your community management (Are you polite and distanced? Playful and humorous?), but also responses to the above mentioned common arguments as well as a list of relevant studies and articles that you can refer to.

Establish security protocols if you or your NGO are continuously threatened, either on social media or via email or phone calls (or even in person). The following questions can guide you when setting up a protocol, but of course you might need to adjust them:

• Who needs to be notified of possible threats? Protagonists, project partners or team members?
• Who can help with community management?
• Do you want to defend or delete the post in question? There is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed and, as a consequence, decide to delete content; just communicate it transparently. It is brave to admit to be overwhelmed – and to prioritize your (and your team’s) mental health over hateful comments.
• Which other organizations and activists can be asked for help?

 Cultivate support & positive feedback

While your narrative and visuals are important for the performance of your campaign, it is also beneficial to reach out to supporters, such as like-minded civil society organisations, activists, influencers and other relevant stakeholders before launching your campaign, to make them aware and ask for their support. They might share your content with their community, pick up your slogan and hashtag or just generally interact with your campaign.

Furthermore, it is just as important to respond to supportive and positive comments as it is to negative ones, maybe even more so as thereby you can generate a dynamic and engaged community. You should engage with and mobilise your community on social media as this is, most likely, one of the objectives of your campaign. Having an engaged community further helps you once critical and hateful voices appear. We tend to pay more attention to negative feedback, and lose sight of support and appreciation. So actively remind yourself to first focus on the good stuff, also to recharge your mental batteries.

In addition:

• Show your community and audience that you appreciate their support.
• Interact with your audience& ask their feedback.
• Highlight positive responses (and maybe use them for future campaigns or future projects, especially if you apply for grants).
• Screenshot supportive messages and keep them close, as darker days may lie ahead and motivational boosts are urgently needed.

Example: The EU-funded project Detect then Act initiated a campaign called the #1DayOfOnlineHappiness, which engaged more than 200 volunteers and activists across the globe. To showcase the activists engagement, the project team created videos throughout the day as well as after finalizing the campaign.

 Watch the video on how to create a movement

Positive responses can also be very helpful to contextualise hate speech: There is nothing wrong with deleting hateful comments (especially since they might trigger more hate speech), but sometimes they can spark fruitful discussions and engage your community, so it might be good to “keep” them (if they are moderated).

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