South Sudan has received €1 million from the European Union to combat “hate speech” online.
Via the initiative titled “Defy Hate Now”, founded by Berlin-based NGO r0g_agency, the EU aimed to find “community-based and data-driven solutions to the problem of hate speech, disinformation and misinformation”, German news outlet Nius reported on August 5.
The agency’s full title is: r0g_agentur für offene Kultur und kritische Transformation gGmbH (r0g_agentur for Open Culture and Critical Transformation).
The project can be found on the European Commission’s European Transparency Register.
According to its own statements, the project aimed to “strengthen the voices and actions of peace- and youth-oriented civil society organisations in South Sudan”.
It hoped to raise awareness of hate speech, conflict rhetoric and online calls for violence on social media and to develop means to curb them. “The South Sudanese diaspora is also to be involved in the online peace process,” the NGO said.
The basis for this is the funding programme Global Europe: Instrument for Neighbourhood, Development Cooperation and International Cooperation. Some €214,300 have already flowed from 2020 to 2022, Nius reported.
Some may question the focus on the online element in South Sudan, observers said.
As of early 2024, internet penetration reached 12.1 per cent in the country, according to DataReportal, with approximately 1.36 million users. The total population of South Sudan stood at around 12 million people.
German news outlet Apollo News found that the project’s social media channels had a low reach: The YouTube videos published last year recorded between eight and 164 views and the Instagram channel had 816 followers. Most posts received few interactions.
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries globally and has been wrecked after suffering a civil war between 2013 and 2018.
In recent years, the Berlin NGO received funding from the German Federal Foreign Office and the Ministry of Development Aid.
The agency operates under the philosophy of “open knowledge for open societies”.
In 2019, the “#defyhatenow Community Organisation in South Sudan” was legally registered and “further crisis intervention initiatives” were also established in Cameroon and Ethiopia.
Nius noted that the sub-item “South Sudan” on the homepage of Defy Hate Now had also not shown any new publications since December 2023.
The German media outlet said it was unclear what exactly would happen to the EU money and what successes the project had achieved in recent years to curb “hate speech” in South Sudan.
The head of the project was named as Marina Modi, who said she saw herself as an “enthusiastic advocate of social change, journalist for development aid and feminist”.
In the past, she reportedly worked as a “project manager for several local NGOs in South Sudan”.
According to media, she said, “hate speech is widespread on the internet” and combating that required “comprehensive and well-funded public relations work”.
