Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) is an independent harm prevention charity established in 2012 and based in Australia.

Overview

OHPI is recognised by the Government of Australia as a Harm Prevention Charity, listed on the Harm Prevention register by the

Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs The former Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) was a department of the Government of Australia located in Greenway in Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia ...

. OHPI tackles a wide variety of forms of

online hate speech Online hate speech is a type of speech that takes place online with the purpose of attacking a person or a group based on their race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and/or gender. Online hate speech is not easily defin ...

. Work on

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

has been undertaken for the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, while work on Islamophobia has been used by the

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

. The Institute is recommended as a source of specialist information on cyber Racism by the

Australian Human Rights Commission The Australian Human Rights Commission is the national human rights institution of Australia, established in 1986 as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and renamed in 2008. It is a statutory body funded by, but opera ...

, and the eSafety Commissioner. The harm prevention charity also publishes a range of briefings and reports documenting examples of online hate. During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, OHPI published a special series of reports documenting the slew of hate speech targeting people of Asian descent and misinformation surrounding the origin of the virus.

Notable events

On 10 July 2014, Andre Oboler accused

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

of refusing to enforce its community standards by allowing hate speech to remain online, stating that content is removed in the country where the report originated only and is still visible to others when viewed overseas. After Facebook decided to remove

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

content in October 2020, Oboler welcomed cautious optimism about the shift of policy on the platform. Oboler called the changes "certainly very welcome" to ''

The New Daily ''The New Daily'' is an online, non-paywalled, Australian newspaper founded in 2013 The founding editor is Bruce Guthrie, currently the editorial director (as at the beginning of June 2019), who was formerly the Editor-in-Chief of the ''Herald ...

'', but mentioned the public has to "

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to see it delivered on, to make sure the change isn't just words." Oboler presented to the Asia Pacific Regional Forum on Hate Speech, Social Media and Minorities on 20 October 2020. The forum, organised by the Tom Lantos Institute and the United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur, sought to address human rights in the greater Asia-Pacific. Oboler spoke alongside representatives of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and the Asia Centre. Oboler presented at the United Nations' thirteenth session of the Forum on Minority Issues on 20 November 2020. The forum focused on the theme of "Hate Speech, Social Media and Minorities" and was organised by the United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur on minority issues. Oboler's presentation was part of the agenda item "Towards a safer space for minorities: positive initiatives to address online hate speech: the role of national human rights institutions, human rights organizations, civil society and other stakeholders" where he represented civil society alongside the Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia and the Director of the Facebook Oversight Board Administration. Among other recommendations, Oboler called for governments to support a wider program of work by civil society to tackle online hate. The Inter-Parliamentary Task Force on Online Antisemitism also featured Oboler in late 2020, alongside Congresswoman and former Democratic National Committee chair

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Deborah Wasserman Schultz (née Wasserman; born September 27, 1966) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from , first elected to Congress in 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former chair of the Democrat ...

, Member of Parliament

Josh Burns Josh Burns (born May 15, 1978) is an American professional mixed martial artist and current bare-knuckle boxer. Since 2017, Burns has competed in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. Mixed martial arts career Bellator MMA Burns faced TNA ...

, and former Canadian Member of Parliament

Michael Levitt Michael Levitt, ( he, מיכאל לויט; born 9 May 1947) is a South African-born biophysicist and a professor of structural biology at Stanford University, a position he has held since 1987. Levitt received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistr ...

, among many others. The task force addressed vulnerability of Jewish communities, the nature of online Semitism and recommendations for law makers and social media platforms.

Fight Against Hate

The Online Hate Prevention Institute developed a web based application titled ''Fight Against Hate'' to track response times by social networks such as

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

in responding to reports of hate speech.

References

{{reflist

External links

Online Hate Prevention Institute
website
Fight Against Hate
website 2012 establishments in Australia Anti-homophobia Anti-racist organizations in Oceania Australian companies established in 2012 Charities based in Australia Medical and health organisations based in Victoria (Australia) Cyberbullying Opposition to Islamophobia