#XenophobiaZero

International Organization for Migration

#XenophobiaZero provides a community space for institutions, civil society organisations and individuals interested in raising their voice against xenophobia, helping them to detect and counterweight discriminatory messages. With this initiative, IOM seeks to contribute to maintaining international solidarity and community cohesion in a time of particular uncertainty and fear linked to the spread of Covid-19 as well as a pre-existing xenophobic backlash in a number of countries.

Through the community and project website (in Spanish language), users can find elements, arguments, and content to counterweight discriminatory messages. The initiative targets eight countries based in Central America and the Caribbean: Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Mexico.

The #XenophobiaZero community is based on three pillars:

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#XenophobiaZero offers a space for its community to find and share content about migrants and migration, allowing them to counterbalance xenophobic narratives
using their social media accounts. The project engages with companies, influencers, institutions, and civil society organizations to encourage the production and sharing of assertive content that balances the narrative on migration.

2. Acting

A social listening system provides the #XenophobiaZero community with the capacity to alert its members about trending xenophobic messages and disinformation about migrants. Community members can also report acts of xenophobia that have occurred outside the digital world, to facilitate the monitoring of xenophobia levels in the countries covered by the #XenophobiaZero initiative. The community members also receive advice on how to report to their local authorities in charge of responding to xenophobic situations.

3. Analyzing

The social listening system, complemented by community reports and a news clipping service, allow for building a xenophobia index. Quarterly reports on this index and analysis on hate-speech trends will provide academy, grassroots organizations, and governments with invaluable inputs to develop fact-based activities and policies. Under specific conditions, the social listening tool could also identify localized calls to violence against migrants, alert local authorities, and save lives.