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Prevention Academy for British Columbia Municipalities on Countering Online Harms

 

 

Last updated:

02/06/2026

Publication Date:

02/06/2026

Content Type:

Policy Briefs

Across British Columbia (BC), municipalities are increasingly confronting the local impacts of online harms, including hate speech, disinformation, cyberbullying, online harassment and other forms of harmful digital content. These dynamics increasingly shape community tensions, public trust, democratic participation and community safety, often extending beyond digital spaces into civic life and local relationships.

In response, and with support from Charities Aid Foundation Canada (CAF Canada) and the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation, the Strong Cities Network launched the Prevention Academy for British Columbia Municipalities on Countering Online Harms in June 2025, a 20-month capacity-building initiative supporting mayors, councillors, municipal staff and community partners to better understand and respond to these challenges. Through a series of training and awareness-raising modules, the Academy explores how municipalities can strengthen prevention, coordination and community resilience in an increasingly complex digital environment.

This policy brief summarises key learnings from the first four modules, delivered in close cooperation with Canadian subject-matter experts between October 2025 and March 2026:

• Module 1: Introduction to Online Harms in British Columbia – Impacts on Municipalities
• Module 2: Identifying & Documenting Online Harms – Tracking Online Hate Speech and Understanding Disinformation Tactics 
• Module 3: Existing Legislation and Frameworks on Online Harms – Implications for BC Municipalities 
• Module 4: The Role of Municipalities in Addressing Online Harms – An Overview of Municipal Practices/Lessons Learned from across the Strong Cities Network and Beyond 

Key Takeaways

1. The distinction between online and offline harm is increasingly blurred. Online harms increasingly spill into local civic life and community relationships. Harassment, disinformation and hate-driven narratives can contribute to fear, social division and declining trust in institutions, including at the municipal level.
2. Municipalities already have relevant mandates that can support prevention and response efforts. Existing responsibilities related to community safety and wellbeing, anti-racism, public engagement and social cohesion can serve as entry points for addressing online harms in local contexts. The challenge is to extend these functions into digital environments, where dynamics are faster, less visible and often more difficult to interpret.
3. Effective municipal-led responses require a shift from reacting to incidents toward building early recognition and prevention capacity. Understanding how harmful content spreads, recognising early signals of escalation and strengthening reporting and response pathways all become part of this approach. In this context, trust is a critical asset: municipal governments remain among the most trusted institutions and play a key role in shaping local information environments.
4. Much of the harm municipalities have to confront falls into the ‘lawful but awful’ space. Many harmful behaviours fall short of criminal thresholds but still undermine community safety and wellbeing. In this space, municipalities, rather than law enforcement, are often best positioned to lead before escalation occurs, through prevention, trust-building and early intervention.
5. While the most immediate opportunities for action are local, they are shaped by broader provincial, national and global dynamics. Online harms are influenced by platform algorithms, political discourse and transnational narratives that municipalities do not control. Effective responses require both local grounding and awareness of the wider systems shaping these harms.
6. Addressing online harms requires cross-sector collaboration. No single actor can respond effectively alone. Local government, civil society, educators, community leaders and those already shaping online spaces, including moderators and informal community networks, all have a role to play.

Recommendations for BC Municipalities

1. Strengthen coordination with local partners, including community organisations, educators, law enforcement and provincial initiatives such as Shift BC, to support early intervention and response, for example, through regular information-sharing, joint protocols and coordinated reporting pathways.
2. Build local and regional capacity to identify and respond to online harms across municipalities, regional districts, provincial organisations and community partners, including UBCM and other regional bodies. This can include shared training, regional coordination, shared resources, improved awareness of online dynamics and the ability to recognise early signs of escalation across communications, community safety and frontline service teams.
3. Integrate online harms into existing municipal frameworks, including community safety and wellbeing plans, anti-racism strategies and broader social policy, rather than treating them as a separate or standalone issue.
4. Invest in prevention-oriented approaches that strengthen digital literacy, trusted community engagement and social cohesion at the local level.

Module Overview

Module 1: Introduction to Online Harms in British Columbia

Speakers:

• Heidi Tworek, Canada Research Chair and Professor of International History and Public Policy, University of British Columbia
• Steven Rai, Senior Research Manager, Institute for Strategic Dialogue

This session introduced the landscape of online harms in BC and their growing impact on municipalities, regardless of size or location. It set the foundation for the series by outlining how digital harms are evolving, how they affect local democracy and community safety and wellbeing and how they are no longer confined to digital spaces.

The Landscape of Online Harms

Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia) outlined the scope and scale of online harms in the provincial context.

According to a 2025 survey of 42 local officials across BC in both rural and urban settings:

• 81% of local officials in BC had experienced online abuse
• The average respondent reported two to three different types of harassment, including direct personal abuse, disinformation and identity-based attacks
• 57% reported that harassment and racism had a moderate or severe professional impact

Separately, research conducted at UBC’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions found that 44% of BC residents reported seeing or being targeted by hate online – the highest percentage in Canada. This trend was significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic: police-reported hate crimes in BC were 118% higher in 2021 than in 2019, compared to a national increase of 72%.

Online harms encompass a range of overlapping behaviours, including hate speech, incivility and online harassment. While some forms of harmful content may meet legal thresholds under Canadian law, Professor Tworek said that many fall into a broader space of harmful but lawful behaviour that can still undermine public trust, participation and community wellbeing.

These harms occur across a range of digital spaces beyond public social media platforms, including private messaging apps, email and closed online networks. Examples discussed during the session included:

• Threats;
• Doxing;
• Identity-targeted abuse;
• Sexualised harassment; and
• Reputational attacks.

Research also revealed that harassment frequently takes place via email, through private messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp and in closed networks, making such harms harder to monitor and address.

In some cases, online harassment is also accompanied by offline intimidation, including phone calls, in-person confrontations and legal threats.

Impacts on Individuals and Institutions

The session highlighted that the impacts of online harms extend beyond the content itself, including:

• Safety: online abuse can contribute to fear for personal safety and, in some cases, concerns about physical security
• Mental health and wellbeing: exposure to sustained harassment can negatively affect mental health, wellbeing and workplace functioning
• Professional impacts: targeted abuse can affect professional reputation, job security and willingness to remain in public-facing roles
• Chilling effect on participation: exposure to harassment may discourage civic participation and deter individuals from seeking public roles
• Policy and advocacy impacts: concerns about backlash or targeted harassment may limit public engagement on certain issues
• Democratic representation: sustained abuse can contribute to resignations from public office and reduce diversity in civic participation

These impacts are not evenly distributed. Individuals in highly visible roles, such as elected officials and public-facing staff, those working on politicised issues such as housing, immigration or public health and members of marginalised or underrepresented communities are more likely to be targeted and to experience more severe consequences.

Trends in Hate and Extremism

Steven Rai (Institute for Strategic Dialogue) presented findings from ISD’s Canadian Domestic Extremism Project, which monitors extremist activity and narratives across social media platforms in Canada. He noted that BC consistently ranks among the provinces generating the highest levels of extremist discussion online.

He emphasised that online narratives frequently translate into local impacts, shaping how communities experience division, tension and targeting. At the same time, local events can trigger spikes in online hate, reinforcing the dynamic relationship between online and offline environments.

Steven identified three major trends currently driving hate and extremism in BC and Canada more broadly:

• Mainstreaming of anti-migrant narratives: hostility toward migrants and newcomers is increasingly normalised online, rooted in conspiracy narratives such as the Great Replacement theory
• Increased hostility toward perceived political enemies: political polarisation is accelerating, with certain groups increasingly framed as threats or enemies in online discourse
• Rise of nihilistic violence and online subcultures: some online spaces, particularly among younger users, increasingly glorify violence, notoriety and social alienation. This form of extremism is harder to detect and predict than ideologically driven movements.

Online harms may originate beyond the local level, but their impacts are felt directly within communities. Municipal officials and staff are themselves frequent targets of online abuse, while local events, planning decisions and political debates can trigger coordinated online responses and heightened community tensions.

Speakers also noted that municipalities continue to navigate online harms in the absence of a comprehensive federal framework. At the same time, online abuse can discourage civic participation and public service, carrying implications for democratic representation and inclusion.

Discussions also highlighted how targeted communities and narratives can also shift quickly in response to local or global events, reinforcing the importance of ongoing awareness, coordination and prevention efforts at the local level.

Module 2: Identifying & Documenting Online Harms – Tracking Online Hate Speech and Understanding Disinformation Tactics

Speaker:

• Yusuf Siraj, Co-Founder, Foundation for A Path Forward

Module 2 built upon the understanding of the general online harms landscape by diving deeper into the specific harms experienced online, how harmful content spreads and contributes to radicalisation and what this means for municipalities working to strengthen social cohesion and community safety.

Forms of Online Hate

As Yusuf Siraj outlined during Module 2, online harms do not only appear as explicit hate speech. They often emerge through coordinated harassment, coded language, misinformation and symbolic forms of communication that can be difficult to identify and moderate, particularly across rapidly evolving digital platforms. Similar patterns were documented in the BCSMART 2024 Online Hate Report.

Examples discussed during the session included:

• Direct targeting: coordinated harassment campaigns, threats and AI-generated deepfakes that misrepresent public officials.
• Coded language: dog whistles, symbols and memes that obscure extremist messaging behind humour or ambiguity.
• Misinformation and disinformation: false or manipulated content, including conspiracy narratives and misleading images, that target specific communities or issues.

Understanding the difference between misinformation and disinformation, Yusuf shared, can help shape how responses are developed. Misinformation is often shared without intent to harm and may be addressed through public education, media literacy and clear communication. Disinformation, by contrast, is deliberately produced to mislead or cause harm, and responses may also involve identifying coordinated actors, engaging platforms and coordinating with law enforcement where appropriate. In both cases, the credibility and trustworthiness of local government can become a critical asset during moments of uncertainty or heightened tension.

How Harmful Content Spreads

The module explored how online platforms can amplify harmful content and accelerate the spread of conspiracy narratives, hate and polarising discourse. Content often moves across platforms, beginning in fringe online spaces before reaching more mainstream and local community channels.

The session outlined a pattern that often moves through the following stages:

• Seeding: narratives introduced and tested in fringe online spaces.
• Normalisation: ideas spread through humour and memes, becoming more socially acceptable.
• Targeting: narratives directed toward specific individuals or communities.
• Mobilisation: coordinated harassment, including doxxing and brigading.
• Real-world harm: threats and, in some cases, violence.

Municipalities and community organisations are often best placed to identify early warning signs. These may include sudden spikes in online activity, repetitive or coordinated messaging, rising tensions at public meetings or concerns raised by schools, faith leaders and community organisations.

Yusuf emphasised that most people exposed to harmful content do not radicalise and how protective factors such as strong social connections, critical thinking, community belonging and exposure to diverse perspectives can reduce vulnerability. By contrast, social isolation, unresolved grievances and sustained exposure to extremist communities or echo chambers can increase risk.

For municipalities, this reinforces the importance of prevention-oriented approaches that strengthen community connection, trust and digital literacy.

Module 3: Existing Legislation and Frameworks on Online Harms – Implications for BC Municipalities

Speakers:

• Cpl. Abdullah El Dalk, BC Hate Crimes Unit, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
• Sa’ed Abu-Haltam, Shift BC, Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Province of British Columbia

Module 3 shifted focus from understanding how online harms manifest and spread, including at the municipal level, to how they are defined, governed and responded to in practice. The session was structured in two parts: an overview of the existing federal legal framework and its limits, delivered by the RCMP BC Hate Crimes Unit, followed by an introduction to the prevention-focused work of Shift BC, a violence prevention initiative under the Province’s Collaborative Community Safety Programs.

Together, the session emphasised the implications for municipalities across the spectrum of harm. This includes their role in supporting and partnering with law enforcement where criminal thresholds are met, as well as their distinct role in addressing harms in the non-criminal (lawful but awful) space, where municipalities are often best positioned to lead prevention, convene local actors and take action before escalation occurs.

Part One: Legal Framework

The session highlighted the distinction between hate-motivated crimes and hate-motivated incidents. The former involves an underlying criminal offence where hate, bias or prejudice is a motivating factor, while the latter may still cause harm but does not meet the threshold for criminal charges.

Hate-motivated crime	Hate-motivated incident
Meets criminal threshold	Does not meet criminal threshold
Can involve police investigation and charges	May still cause significant harm without criminal enforcement

Hate is not treated as a standalone offence in Canadian law. Instead, when an offence is proven to have been motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, courts may treat this as an aggravating factor at sentencing. The Criminal Code also includes a limited set of hate-related offences, including hate propaganda provisions and specific provisions addressing the wilful promotion of antisemitism.

Local police are responsible for investigations, while the RCMP BC Hate Crimes Unit supports more complex or multi-jurisdictional cases. Speakers noted, however, that hate propaganda offences often carry high legal thresholds and, in some cases, may require the Attorney General’s approval before charges can proceed. Applying these provisions in online environments can also be challenging, particularly where questions arise around intent, context and whether online spaces are considered public under the law.

Speakers noted that criminal justice tools exist to address certain forms of online harm, including threats, harassment and hate propaganda, but legal thresholds are often high and many harmful behaviours fall outside the scope of criminal enforcement. As a result, communities and municipalities are frequently navigating a broader space of harmful but lawful behaviour where harm is real but legal options may be limited.

Barriers to Reporting

The session also highlighted persistent barriers to reporting, including fear of retaliation, distrust of institutions, language and cultural impediments and uncertainty about whether an incident is serious enough to report. Online environments add additional challenges, as many incidents are addressed through platform reporting systems rather than through local reporting or law enforcement channels.

Particularly given this context, speakers stressed the need to build trust with communities disproportionately affected by online harms. They emphasised the importance of accessible reporting pathways, trusted community intermediaries and stronger coordination among law enforcement, local government and community organisations.

Part Two: Lawful but Awful

Sa’ed Abu-Haltam of Shift BC focused on a space that legal frameworks alone cannot fully address. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of expression, including some forms of speech that may be offensive or harmful. As a result, not all harmful expressions can or should be addressed through legal intervention.

This was described as the lawful but awful space, where prevention, trust-building and early intervention become especially important. While these behaviours may not meet criminal thresholds, they can still undermine people’s sense of safety and wellbeing, contribute to community tensions and escalate conflict both online and offline.

Speakers noted that these dynamics are shaped by local context, including historical tensions, levels of trust and broader social conditions. Concerns were also raised about the growing role of digital environments in young people’s lives and the impacts of prolonged online exposure on wellbeing and social development.

Rather than focusing on changing individual beliefs, prevention efforts in this space aim to interrupt pathways to harm and reduce escalation. This includes strengthening community connection, supporting disengagement from harmful behaviours and building healthier norms around disagreement and online engagement.

Speakers pointed to several examples of what has worked in practice:

1. Community-based and restorative approaches: supporting responses to complex identity-based conflict where legal pathways may be limited
2. Prevention and public awareness efforts: strengthening digital literacy, awareness and engagement with parents, caregivers and communities
3. Strengthening community infrastructure: supporting accessible community spaces that reduce isolation and strengthen offline connections
4. Frontline training and coordination: building stronger coordination across community organisations, local services and law enforcement

Taken together, the session highlighted that legal and prevention frameworks serve complementary roles. The former set the threshold for law enforcement action, while the latter can address a broader range of harmful behaviours that do not meet that threshold.

For municipalities, this underscores the importance of strengthening reporting pathways, building local partnerships and supporting early, community-based interventions alongside law enforcement responses.

Module 4: The Role of Municipalities in Addressing Online Harms – An Overview of Municipal Practices/Lessons Learned from across the Strong Cities Network and Beyond

Speakers:

• Andrea Reimer, BC Advisor, Strong Cities Network; Adjunct Professor of Practice at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs; Founder, Tawaw Strategies
• Sebastian Jørgensen, Head of Digital Prevention, Nordic Safe Cities

Building on previous modules, Module 4 focused on the steps municipalities can take to counter online harms, identifying practical entry points for local governments navigating an increasingly complex digital environment.

The presentations highlighted how municipalities can often rely on existing mandates, including those related to community safety and wellbeing and countering racism and hate, which can be leveraged as municipalities consider their role in countering online harms. For example, this can include identifying and then extending relevant existing mandates into the digital space, building digital prevention capacity over time.

From Insight to Action

To illustrate how this can be done in practice, the session drew on the Safe Digital Cities program at Nordic Safe Cities. The approach centres on generating local data to understand the digital landscape, engaging a broad network of actors and translating insights into targeted interventions.

Sebastian Jørgensen (Nordic Safe Cities) highlighted the importance of enabling municipalities to move beyond assumptions and focus on the specific online dynamics affecting their communities. He pointed to the Nordic Safe Cities’ design digital streets programme as one way to do this. This allows a municipality to identify the main online spaces where local conversations take place and analyse how narratives and tensions circulate.

Sebastian shared that analysis across Nordic cities also highlighted several consistent online harm patterns. First, harm is not evenly distributed, with certain communities disproportionately targeted. Additionally, exposure to harmful content is widespread, particularly among young people and often occurs through everyday platform use. At the same time, a relatively small number of users are responsible for a large share of harmful content, suggesting that targeted interventions may be more effective than broad approaches.

He outlined a set of practical action types that some Nordic municipalities are using to translate insights into digital interventions. These include:

• Digital volunteers, working with moderators of large online communities to strengthen local prevention and response
• Digital outreach work, extending youth and community engagement into platforms such as Snapchat, Discord and Telegram
• Digital preparedness, building internal capacity within municipalities to understand and respond to online dynamics
• Safe moderation, developing tools and practices to support healthier online conversations
• Digital teams and upstander interventions, coordinating across actors to respond to harmful content and support constructive engagement

Sebastian, echoing what many of the presenters across Prevention Academy’s first four modules said, underscored that effective digital prevention is not the responsibility of a single local government department or non-governmental actor. Rather, it requires coordination across the municipal government, civil society, local media, educators and community members. As prevention moves online, the network of actors involved also expands.

Upcoming Modules

In the coming months, additional modules in the Prevention Academy for British Columbia Municipalities on Countering Online Harms will explore topics including:

• Engaging Diverse Voices and Building Trust
• Safeguarding Youth Online
• Supporting Victims of Online Hate and Harassment
• AI, Emerging Digital Threats and Content Moderation
• Managing Crisis Communication and Promoting Information Integrity
• Applied Local Prevention Strategies

Additional Resources

This appendix provides a curated list of selected resources referenced or shared across Modules 1–4 of the Prevention Academy.

Module 1: Introduction to Online Harms in British Columbia

• Foundation for a Path Forward – Inclusive Networking & Support for Public Officials in Rural Environments: https://foundation4ward.org/research-projects/inspire
• BC Human Rights Commissioner – From Hate to Hope: Report of the Inquiry into Hate in the COVID-19 Pandemic: https://bchumanrights.ca/wp-content/uploads/From-hate-to-hope_Inquiry-report-executive-summary_English.pdf
• Media Ecosystem Observatory – Processes, People and Public Accountability:
   https://www.mediatechdemocracy.com/all-work/processes-people-and-public-accountability-how-to-understand-and-address-harmful-communication-online
• University of British Columbia – Harmful Hallucinations: Generative AI and Elections: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/facultyresearchandpublications/52383/items/1.0445035
• Institute for Strategic Dialogue – Online Domestic Extremism in Canada Data Briefing (2025): https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/online-domestic-extremism-in-canada-data-briefing-march-to-may-2025/
• Institute for Strategic Dialogue – Monitoring Online Hate Speech in British Columbia: https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/briefing-monitoring-online-hate-speech-in-british-columbia/

Module 2: Identifying & Documenting Online Harms

• Resilience BC Anti-Racism Network: https://www.resiliencebc.ca/
• BC Human Rights Commissioner – Hate Speech Q&A: https://bchumanrights.ca/resources/hate-speech-qa/
• Province of BC – ERASE: Online Safety: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/erase/school-and-online-safety/online-safety
• BCSMART – Countering Online Hate & Polarization: Contact: [email protected]
• Public Safety Canada – Online Harms & Canada Centre: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/
• Canadian Race Relations Foundation – Reporting Hate, Finding Support Toolkit: https://crrf-fcrr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CRRF_WorkshopsToolkit_EN_web-1.pdf
• CASSA – #EradicateHate Toolkit: https://www.cassa.ca/eradicatehate/
• Federation of Canadian Municipalities – Online Hate & Cyber-Violence Brief: https://fcm.ca/en/resources/wilg/women-in-local-government-resource-library
• Strong Cities Network – Global Resource Hub: https://strongcitiesnetwork.org/resources/
• United Nations – Countering and Addressing Online Hate Speech (2023): https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/publications-and-resources/Countering_Online_Hate_Speech_Guide_policy_makers_practitioners_July_2023.pdf
• UNESCO – Addressing Hate Speech Through Education: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/addressing-hate-speech-through-education-guide-policy-makers
• Government of Canada – Countering Disinformation: A Guidebook for Public Servants
• Canadian Centre for Cyber Security – Identifying Misinformation and Disinformation

Module 3: Legislative and Policy Frameworks

• Shift BC: https://shift.gov.bc.ca/
• Province of BC – Report Hate Crime: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/anti-racism/reporthatecrime
• Resilience BC Anti-Racism Network: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/anti-racism/resiliencebc

Module 4: Municipal Practices and Digital Prevention

• Safe Digital City Malmö (Nordic Safe Cities): https://nordicsafecities.org/malmo/
• Safe Digital City Bodø – Digital analysis examples: https://nordicsafecities.org/bodo/
• Nordic Safe Cities – Digital Democracy Initiatives: https://nordicsafecities.org/safe-digital-city/
• Media Ecosystem Observatory – Conspiratorial Claims and Institutional Distrust in Canada’s Online Ecosystem: https://policycommons.net/artifacts/46482525/meo_conspiracies-brief_f04/47381298/