Hate Unplugged
Nadace Varietas (CZ) & Hello World (UK)
Issue 57 | December 2020
Agency
McCann Prague
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer: Razvan Capanescu Group Creative Directors: Jan Benda, Joseph Martin, Filip Kukla Copywriters: Jan Benda, Razvan Capanescu Art Directors: Martin Kraus, Jarmila Šafránková, Jiri Horut PR & Communications Manager: Alice Reindlova Technology & IT: Tomas Kysel Senior Designer Developer: Katerina Egerová
Production Team
Film editor: Jiri Horut
Other Credits
Account Manager: Iva Nyklesova Media Planner: Jan Suda Data Analytics: ZoomSphere External Affairs & PR Consultant: Mihnea Miculescu PR Director: Ivo Pur
Date
August 2019
Background
According to recent studies (Cambridge, at European Union level) The Czech Republic has been recorded as the most racist and nationalistic country in Europe. Living there, they can say that the people are mostly accepting and nice. Unfortunately, people aren’t quite as nice online. The internet has become a breeding ground for awful, hateful messages, made worse by anonymity. Usually made toward those who are most vulnerable - the refugees. Nadace Varietas - the Czech NGO for an open society and supporting the integration of foreigners - decided to do something to challenge and change mentalities.
Idea
“Hate Unplugged” – a project that evaluated all the negative energy wasted online (by writing hateful posts) and transforming it into positive by donating free electricity and data to the people in need (the exact people that were targeted by that online hate). Using a mixture of social listening and complex sentiment analysis tools, the idea was to monitor the internet for months, recording the most hateful comments and negative energy, and calculate how much energy was wasted in the process. Applying a simple algorithm (how much a human being consumes as energy in a hateful manifestation + the energy consumed by the device he used, multiplied by the number of hateful post found every day = 259 300 watts per year, was found. The equivalent of this “wasted” negative energy was used to donate it to the people in need – the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda, where Hello Hubs were built (hubs that’ll give free electricity and data) with the help of the Hello World organisation.
Results
Enough wasted-through-hate energy was gathered to build up and power up 2 Hello Hubs, giving free energy and data for a period of 2 years and a half.