About CHASE
Combating online HAte Speech by engaging online mEdia (CHASE) is an EU-funded project addressing gender-based hate speech across Cyprus, France, Greece and Italy.
Whilst monitoring efforts have focused primarily on social media platforms, CHASE examined the role of online media in relation to harmful narratives targeting women and LGBTQIA+ people. These forms of abuse and violence threaten the physical and psychosocial wellbeing of affected communities. The project recognised that online media play a critical role in shaping public dialogue and influencing societal norms.
Working alongside civil society organisations and human rights defenders who serve essential watchdog functions, CHASE developed targeted solutions. The project conducted rigorous research uncovering patterns of abuse, created an advanced ICT tool for real-time detection and established a voluntary Code of Conduct setting professional standards. Together these elements form a comprehensive mechanism to support media organisations in detecting, countering and preventing online violence.
Research results
Multi-country research uncovered how hate speech targeting women and LGBTQIA+ communities operates across digital spaces. The patterns range from overt slurs to insidious portrayals of individuals as mentally ill or dangerous to society. This content weaponises gendered insults and perpetuates harmful stereotypes. It normalises rape culture and victim blaming whilst systematically questioning the competence and intelligence of targeted groups. The abuse deploys both explicit and veiled threats through increasingly sophisticated means. What makes such content particularly difficult to combat is how perpetrators employ metaphors, irony, slang, emojis, memes and coded language to evade detection whilst inflicting harm.
The research exposed critical failures in current media responses. Platforms lack proactive prevention and respond only after damage occurs. They provide inadequate staff training and demonstrate tolerance for hostile engagement. These findings shaped the interventions CHASE developed to address systemic gaps in how online media handle gendered abuse. Read the result research and report below.
ICT Tool
CHASE created an intelligent detection system that goes far beyond simple keyword filtering. The tool combines data mining, text analysis and visualisation to identify gender-based hate speech in real time, recognising patterns and contextual meaning that extend beyond explicit language. Supporting multiple languages and assigning severity scores, the system prioritises the most harmful content for immediate attention.
The autumn 2025 pilot provided validation as the tool processed thousands of live comments from actual media environments and demonstrated strong detection of explicit hostility. Yet the pilot also confirmed something crucial: technology alone is not enough. Human judgement remains essential for interpreting context, understanding cultural nuance and making proportionate decisions. The combination of human insight and automated detection forms the core of CHASE’s approach, strengthening moderators’ work without replacing their judgement. Find more detailed info about the tool below.
Code of Conduct
CHASE developed a voluntary Code of Conduct establishing human rights based standards for online media organisations combating gender-based violence.
The Code promotes improved moderation combining automated detection with human judgement, accessible reporting with clear timelines and confidentiality protections, transparent guidelines, proactive interventions and regular capacity building. Signatories commit to gender-sensitive reporting practices, awareness campaigns and civil society collaboration.
Aligned with EU frameworks including the Digital Services Act and Istanbul Convention, the Code protects users, supporting gender equality and safer digital environments while maintaining editorial independence.
Bring me to the Code of Conduct website.
Timeframe: March 1 2024 – February 28 2026
Region/countries: Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy and the wider EU region
Lead partner: Media Diversity Global Institute (MDIG)
Partners:
Symplexis / Greece
Proto Thema /Greece
European Center for Human Rights (ECHR) / France
WAN-IFRA/ France
Center for Social Innovation (CSI) / Cyprus
Alpha TV/Cyprus
ITML / Greece
CESIE / Italy
Funding: This project is funded by the European Union.
