Lisa Schirch 25 Spheres of Digital Peacebuilding and PeaceTech 19 During the COVID-19 pandemic, Listenly offers free emotional support sessions for those affected by the virus, noting, “Our Trained Listeners are Here for you. Relieve Stress and Improve Mental Clarity with a Listening Session.”74 There are a range of organisations using evidence-based communication skills. The Dangerous Speech Project, an organisation that aims to improve responses to hateful speech that can incite violence, offers guides for “counterspeech” that can respond to online hate speech and disinformation.75 Project Over Zero advances the uses of communication skills to address identity-based conflict.76 The project grew out of their publication Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech.77 The organisation Braver Angels offers a free online course to help Americans learn active listening and speaking skills to increase understanding and depolarisation.78 Smart Politics offers online training in communication skills for progressives, so that they may better communicate with conservatives to depolarise conversations on policy issues.79 Search for Common Ground runs a variety of online peace campaigns and works on digital rumour management and amplifying constructive peace narratives. In Sri Lanka, Search for Common Ground developed a program called “Cyber Guardians” to empower youth to combat online hate speech. The program aimed to create active mediators on social media with a “3C” process where youth would learn how to create positive content on social media, how to counter hate speech and fake content on social media, and then how to sustain the process by retaining the cyber guardians as champions.80 The peacebuilding NGO Build Up runs a digital communication project called “The Commons” to improve digital communication to depolarise political conversations in the US on Facebook and Twitter and to strengthen the “civic fabric” in the US through “increasing listening, respect, and understanding across the political divide.81 14. Facilitating Intergroup Digital Dialogue There have been several ongoing efforts to engage people in a dialogue on online platforms, including virtual exchanges. The theory of change here is that when people have contact with each other, they learn to see each other in more complex ways, and can appreciate both what they have in common and also learn more about their differences. See the Listenly website at https://www.listenly.co/ For more information on Dangerous Speech Project see their website at https://dangerousspeech.org 76 For more information on Project OverZero see their website at https://projectoverzero.org/who-we-are 77 Rachel Brown. “Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech.” Washington DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016. 78 For more information on Braver Angels see their website at https://braverangels.org/our-story/ 79 For more information on Smart Politics see their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SmarterPolitics 80 Ramanaish Katheravelu. “Final Evaluation of Cyber Guardians: Empowering youth to combat online hate speech in Sri Lanka” Washington, DC: USAID, February 2020. 81 Build Up. “Scaling the Commons.” Medium. 12 December 2019. Found at https://medium.com/@howtobuildup/scaling-the-commons-969b15c98012 Accessed on 1 June 2020. 74 75