How to combat hate speech among children and young people?

Racism, prejudice, anger, or fascism are elements that have been present intermittently throughout history. But it is true that today, through social media and influencers, young people have greater access to content from all over the world, content—sometimes more biased than others—that sometimes leaves a notable mark on their thoughts and beliefs. In the words of illustrator and photojournalist Jordi Borràs, these discourses "do not take root in them solely because they are young, but because they have less experience, less training, and less cultural and ideological foundation, and they lack the vital and historical perspective that we adults have."

In Borràs's view, the most remarkable fact of all this is that the slogans young people receive through social media "are often unidirectional messages and information, which they have no way of verifying, and that is what makes them vulnerable." And, stresses the specialist in social issues—especially in national movements and the far-right throughout Catalonia and Europe—, young people do not listen to the radio nor do they read newspapers in print or digital format. To verify this, one only needs to try going to high schools and asking young people how they get informed. "The majority will tell you that they do it through social media, TikTok, or Instagram, and therefore, there is a very clear generational bias in how we all get informed," he points out.

Borràs is the author of the book Feeding the beast. A young person's guide to standing up to hate speech, recently published by Elastic Books. It is a practical manual for adolescents to learn the mechanisms used by the far-right to spread and normalize hate speech on social media, as well as to empower them and provide them with resources to question what the algorithm wants them to see.

Emotional distance and historical memory

Beyond the misinformation that often accompanies the new generations and which could be mitigated by taking a historical approach to aspects such as fascism, a movement that the author explains extensively in his book, Borràs also pays attention to another key factor: the emotional and historical distance, in our case, towards Francoism.

Despite having been born in the 80s of the last century and not having lived through Francoism firsthand, Borràs has knowledge of it: his parents had run from the 'grises' (secret police) and his grandfather had fought in the war and had been in prison and concentration camps. The emotional distance towards the dictatorship was very short. On the other hand, for his children's generation, the Civil War remains "galaxies away, and that is a problem," he points out. Borràs insists that "if education does not insist on historical memory to prevent future hate speech, things will not improve." "If we are not capable of remembering the disasters of the past, it is very likely that we will repeat them in the future," he states.

Borràs also explains how, in recent years, he has been able to grasp in his talks a growing concern on the part of the families of adolescents and teaching staff regarding the reactionary attitudes of some of these young people. The author, however, advocates for betting on the youth of our country, for believing in them. And that is because, in his opinion, "reactionary attitudes among the youth have become a very big snowball and this has led to a lot of generalization on the subject, which is not entirely fair." Borràs cites a percentage of between 15% and 18% of the youth and highlights how, within this figure, there is a significant gender bias, and notes that boys are much more reactionary than girls. "It would be good to insist that the majority of the youth do not have reactionary attitudes, but it must be clarified that this majority does not have many ideas of their own and that should also worry us," he points out. There is an ever-increasing disinterest in politics and the society that surrounds them. While paraphrasing the writer Joan Fuster, Borràs reminds us that "either you do politics or it is done to you."

Content with a clear intentionality

In a context in which, according to data from Fad Juventud for 2025, three out of four young people encountered hate speech on the internet and, according to the Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia (OBERAXE), during the same period more than 845,000 pieces of hate content were identified on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X, with the book Feeding the Beast. A youth guide to standing up to hate speech, Borràs aims to provide a series of elements and knowledge that can make young people reflect and understand why things are the way they are. Also to make them ask themselves why that influencer of the moment repeats the message over and over again, why that content goes viral, why classmates think the way they do and why they often go along with it. "The main goal, however, is to foster critical spirit," he highlights. And the fact is, he continues, everyone, "regardless of their age," must understand that social networks are not something free: there are people who make money from them. "We must understand that many times the content is not trivial, but rather there is a clear intentionality behind it," continues Borràs.

The photojournalist also emphasizes the fact that all of us –“not just young people”– must be aware that we can at any moment become the target of some group that spreads hate speech. In turn, he continues, groups vulnerable due to religion, sex, language, sexual orientation, etc., “must be clear that they can turn into the other group, that of the executioners, that of those who practice hate speech”. And the fact is, he warns, “that you are part of a vulnerable group or that you have been vulnerable at some point does not mean that you cannot become like those who persecuted you, because that is part of the human condition”. Borràs states that we must all be very clear about this, just as empathy must be fostered. “If we are not empathetic people, we are destined to create a society of psychopaths, and that is the worst thing that can happen to us”, he concludes.

The potential of leisure education

One of the environments that works most firmly in peace education is that of leisure education. This is the case of the Catalan Federation of Leisure Centers (Federació Catalana de l’Esplai), which will promote that nearly 55,000 children and young people participating in its leisure centers carry out activities for education in democracy and coexistence. This initiative is part of the educational proposal Amb Veu i En Peu, promoted by Fundesplai and FundiPau to foster peace, democratic values, and coexistence among children, young people, and families, and even more so in a global context like the current one, in which, as pointed out by the federation, “exclusionary and authoritarian narratives are gaining more and more resonance, especially on social networks and among young people”.

For Daniel Sotomayor, from the Espurnes leisure center in Esplugues de Llobregat, it is “evident” that social networks have a great influence on children and young people, “from an increasingly young age”. In this sense, the monitor states that he does not believe that education needs to be rethought from scratch when it comes to training them to prevent the hate speech that is rampant everywhere, “but rather to see what things we are already doing that work, of which there are many, as well as what shortcomings we have as teams and what we can do to improve and alleviate these shortcomings”. Consequently, the teams leading leisure education, he highlights, are “constantly in a process of learning, training themselves and holding meetings to share resources and ideas”. The young people who end up becoming monitors also play a crucial role in this process of continuous improvement, since, according to Sotomayor, “they are young people who bring a very updated and very different perspective on how society and its closest environment evolve”.

Creation of safe and trusting spaces

“From the perspective of leisure, we always work based on respect, diversity, and inclusion, values that clearly help us combat hate speech,” states Sotomayor. It is a preventive effort that has been carried out transversally for some time, from early childhood up to young people of eighteen years old or older. This transversality allows the teams leading the youth clubs to establish “a foundation to foster critical thinking when they enter adolescence and even into adulthood.” The instructor also emphasizes that they work based on trust: "We create safe spaces that we generate with children and young people, and always starting from their interests, their fears, and their concerns, which is what they encounter in their day-to-day lives and what motivates them most to participate and be able to talk about these topics."

At Esplai Espurnes, in recent years they have worked on initiatives such as Edufilms, an initiative based on making short films with a social perspective, and Educlips, the objective of which is precisely social media. “At the same time, we work and participate in the educational proposal Amb Veu i En Peu to promote the values of democracy and peace among children and young people also in the digital world”. It was within this framework that last March they held the March for Peace, “to mobilize society and also children and young people,” adds Sotomayor. “Work is always done in a very open and receptive way, trying not to censor any topic, precisely because we are aware that many times at school or at home they might not talk about a certain topic because they don't dare to,” she insists. The role of the counselors, therefore, becomes key when creating spaces for debate and will be key in one of the challenges that Sotomayor plans to achieve in the short term: working with the families that participate in the youth clubs. “Precisely this year we will try to create a family committee in which some of us will create spaces closer to them in order to work together, since, after all, networking is super important,” she concludes.