At this week's Round Table, Divya, Isaiah, Olivia, and Madeline continued our series on creating healthy discourse online in conversation with Cathy Buerger,Director of Research at the Dangerous Speech Project at American University. Today, many fear that free speech can go too far and feel it should be regulated in some way--but who do we trust to make decisions about what we can say and not say to prevent hate speech?Dangerous speech is a more specific term than hate speech, defined as speech that can inspire violence. DSP works to find ways to counter dangerous speech without constraining free speech--which we found SUPER interesting and empowering, as we are proponents of ensuring that discourse allows for dissent and representation of different views.
Over the past few years, Cathy has been investigating user-led counter speech efforts from around the world. She’s interviewed over 50 individuals globally, and recently completed a digital ethnography of one of the largest groups of counter-speakers, which has over 74,000 members currently working to improve online discourse in Sweden. As an anthropologist by training, Cathy brings valuable lenses to this work and ones we greatly benefitted from in this conversation with her. Thank you for joining us!
