Moderated by Ms Albana Shala, Chair, UNESCO International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), the panel included well-known experts such as Professor Divina Frau-Meigs, Professor, Université de Paris 3-Sorbonne nouvelle, France. Ms Duygu Özkan, Journalist, Die Presse, and Member, Austrian Press Council, Austria, Ms Amukelani Mayimele, outgoing Executive Director of ZAYRAH, a youth led development agency, South Africa and Mr Brandon Oelofse, Senior Trainer and Coordinator, Radio Netherlands Training Center (RNTC).

Professor Frau-Meigs reminded the audience of how often in recent history emerging media have been blamed for causing radicalization, hatred and violence. She therefore highlighted the need to understand that there is no cause-effect relationship between Internet and youth radicalization.

In certain contexts, radicalization should not even be seen as a negative phenomenon, “because youth needs to be radical,” stated Ms Mayimele who used the example of Nelson Mandela’s radical movement in his early days.

Professor Meigs explained that ideology or religion are rarely central factors in radicalization for violent extremism, and that the context, psychological and external factors play always an important role. While social networks can be amplifiers and facilitators, they rarely trigger radicalization. The offline world and individual experiences remain the key to understanding radicalization processes.

Combatting the spread of online hate speech, extremist propaganda and recruitment for terrorism and radicalization ills should not be at the expense of freedom of expression, underlined Ms Ozkan and Mr Oelofse.

Panelists also discussed possible solutions for current use of the Internet as a vehicle for hate-speech and, although one size does not fit all, they agreed that Media and Information Literacy (MIL) can empower young people to use media critically. Intensified efforts are therefore necessary in this field.

Ms Shala played then a video on the online harassment of female sports reportershttps://youtu.be/9tU-D-m2JY8, which shows the offensive language that is commonly used on-line against women. Participants then discussed how to effectively counter those who use the Internet to disseminate hatred with awareness-raising messages.

Pictures the session are now available online here. The recordings can be accessed here. To download the recording as an mp3 file, please use this link: http://soundflush.com/8alR5g.