Countering Hate Speech in the digital era through a pedagogical-philosophical approach in teaching practice

Hate speaks through what are defined as Hate Speech, which aim to foment or encourage denigration and defamation towards individuals or groups, subjecting them to verbal and non-verbal violence based on ethnic, physical, cultural, sexual, or religious diversity. Specifically, the introduction of Social Media in our digital era has contributed to the spread of this phenomenon, through their online version, called Online Hate Speech. Supporting the pedagogical position according to everyone, by nature, is educable, and that one of the promoting factors of HS is a miseducation in critical thinking, to counter this fact are necessary a re-education towards assuming a critical and deep stance facing reality, to the discernment of one’s own truth, and to the relationship with others. Therefore, schools and universities should be a fertile ground for educating future citizens to think critically about the world we live in, maybe supported by educational and learning activities which can promote this need through the acquisition of soft skills useful for the purpose, experimenting active and participative teaching strategies for fostering active learning. Relating to this, an important aspect to further reflect on corresponds to Faculty Development programs.