Still more extremist ideologies are manifesting, unfolding, and prospering online. The online world is increasingly becoming a platform for bigotry, hate towards minorities and women and a means for radicalizing young people.

There is a need to consider the online world as an arena, where extremist attitudes, hatred, and racism flourish, and where actions and statements can have an equally harmful effect on people in the form of statements, images, memes, and videos, as direct statements or actions that take place offline.

Over the last few years, the internet, and parts of social media, have become a breeding ground for extreme attitudes, sharing false information, and echo chambers for conspiracy theories and hatred, which have been able to influence and move the people who frequent them towards more extreme attitudes and groups.

While more and more people are online, the Nordic intelligence services have all pointed out in their latest threat assessments that misinformation, extremism, and radicalization on the internet are among the biggest areas of focus.

Such a complex problem can’t be resolved by any singular method. Instead, the preventive approach must be multifaceted and dynamic. Equally as important is to build the preventive methods on a solid basis of facts, knowledge, and insight.

Safe Digital City is rethinking the way local actors approach the prevention of extremism and hatred online and improve efforts to safeguard digital democracy. 

We do so by enabling cities to better map and understand safety on social media and enable various forms of digital prevention. This is carried out by instigating a precise analysis of threats against democracy, of hatred and extremism in the digital city, in terms of quantity, level, and who online hatred and extremism is directed at. This further enables participating cities to have a tangible conversation about who the hatred is directed at, what underlies the hatred, and where it unfolds on social media.

Based on knowledge of the hateful narratives that exist online, the ideology and motives behind the hatred, cities can have a targeted conversation about creating new initiatives to address these challenges. Thus, the conversations and actions become not an abstract discussion of online presence, but a joint effort in the areas, forums, and places where there is an unusually high amount of hatred and extremism, to create solutions and make these places safer.

At the Safe Digital City deep dive seminar, we dig deep into the general importance of knowing how to navigate an increasingly hateful online community and understand how online and offline life intersects. We discuss the Safe Digital City projects potential and the preventive frameworks it offers city officials and practitioners alike. At the online seminar selected cities who are already enrolled in the project will present their learnings and experiences and unfold how it has provided them with a toolbox adjusted at improving their preventive online initiatives and approaches. Here we will also present the key findings from the National digital analysis from Norway which will be presented to the public for the first time this March.

The two-hour seminar will be divided into two parts. The first hour welcomes any interested who wishes to get a better understanding of the growing threat posed by the internet’s potential of spreading mis/dis-information, hate and extremist & radicalizing convictions. This part, however, also introduces the Safe Digital City project and its outputs in selected involved cities thereby presenting different methods to an all-around preventive approach to the problem at hand.

The last hour is for members only. Here there will be given effective time to the member cities to discuss learnings, challenges, and successes in-depth. This will provide a forum to spar on their involvement in- and further innovation of preventive measures initiated and implemented as a result of the Safe Digital City project.