How Facebook Could Stop

The platform is an accelerant for extremist thought.Can it  also be a deterrent?

- Jeremy Kahn 

Last summer, Johannes Baldauf, an anti-hate-speech activist from Berlin, got a request for help from an unexpected place: Facebook Inc. When it came to stemming the spread of extremist messaging, Baldauf was accustomed to seeing the giant social network as part of the problem. Now it was asking him and other activists to act as a kinder, gentler, online version of Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi hunting Inglourious Basterds squad. Their mission was to come up with a social media campaign that might make Germans less susceptible to the wave of fake news and right-wing propaganda scape goating Europe’s growing population of immigrants and refugees.

Baldauf, 36, and his team at the nonprofit Amadeu Antonio Foundation specialize in an esoteric internet art known as “counter narrative.” The basic idea is to exploit the same online tools extremists use but in a way that undermines their hateful messages. During a day long brainstorming session, the group came up with a meme that subtly mocks people who blame minorities for the mundane frustrations of daily life, such as packed subway cars.

They released images of everyday setbacks—a bad hair day, a cracked iPhone—accompanied by the phrase Kein Grund, Rassist zu werden (“No Reason to Be Racist”). Before long, internet users started contributing their own photos of scenarios that might, absurdly, spark bigotry. The hashtag began trending on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Baldauf says it was “sort of fun.” It was also a good demonstration of how Facebook thinks social media can combat the vitriol it’s so often accused of spreading.