Peacebuilding online.

Norwegian Church Aid works in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. When the organisation saw an increased need for digital tools in their global peace work, they asked Semcon for support to find the way forward. The initiative is called Tech for Peace and will counter online disinformation and polarisation through participation and dialogue. Semcon’s participation in the project is a part of the company’s CSR-program.

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has worked to eradicate poverty and injustices in the world since the 1940’s. A large portion of their work involves trying to build peace with dialogue and participation in countries with on-going armed conflicts. This has proven increasingly difficult, because a growing number of conversations nowadays take place in digital channels where local leaders and peacekeepers don’t have access. NCA realised that they needed to find new ways of working, and welcomed the support of Semcon’s experts within idea generation and innovation to help map out the way forward.

Semcon has helped NCA with innovation processes by clearly defining problems and then find the best way forward. The cooperation between NCA and Semcon has led to the creation of an Advisory Board, with the purpose to find new solutions that can meet the challenge of fake news and hate speech in digital channels. It will consist of actors from business and academia who will collaborate to innovate together. Semcon will contribute by gathering them and by facilitating dialogue and collaboration.

The problem with fake news and hate speech is significant and growing fast. They both spread quickly in digital channels and are often a driver of violent conflict. They occur both on personal channels and closed groups, which makes it difficult to follow how these conversations develop. Also, most social media platforms show you more content in line with what you have previously liked, but spares you counterarguments and dialogue. And although the knowledge of this problem is widespread, there is really no effective solution available. Most large actors use censorship to counter these issues, but according to Fernando Pineda Pinzon at the NCA, that’s not the right way to go.