"Counter Speech" at Digital Humanism 2025
The project team presented their work on online hate and counter speech at this year’s Digital Humanism Conference in Vienna
The team behind the WWTF-funded research project "Counter Speech: Young People Against Online Hate" took part in the Digital Humanism Conference in Vienna from May 26–28, 2025. The project is based at the Institute of Creative Media Technologies at St. Pölten UAS.
Interdisciplinary approach to online hate
In the "Exhibition and Lightning Talks" session, project lead Matthias Zeppelzauer presented the project’s goals and results.
He explained how counter speech can be used to combat online hate and highlighted the interdisciplinary collaboration between social scientists, computer scientists, and students from various schools.
Empowering young voices
The project aims to empower young people to stand up against hate speech on social media. "Almost every juvenile is confronted with hate speech online. Platform measures like banning and reporting are not enough. We need smart tools tailored to young users," said Zeppelzauer.
AI-based tools and mobile app
To address this, the team developed AI-based methods to detect and categorize hate and counter speech, along with a mobile app that provides context-sensitive counter speech suggestions specifically designed for young users.
FH-Prof. Priv.-Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Mag. Dr. Matthias Zeppelzauer
Head ofMedia Computing Research Group
Institute of Creative\Media/Technologies Department of Media and Digital Technologies