A migration headline appears. Within minutes, the comment thread fills: demographic change, invasion, traitors. What begins as news shifts into existential warning.
In Cyprus, where politics is dominated by debates about territory, identity and survival, the language of threat feels familiar. What is new is the speed — and scale — at which fear now spreads. Social media has turned anxiety into a constant: a set of narratives that frame society as divided between those who belong and those who endanger it.
Researchers in Cyprus, working within the EU-funded ARENAS project launched in 2023, are examining how those narratives take shape — and whether they can be interrupted.
“We focus on extremist narratives, how to detect them and how to prevent them, especially through education,” said Professor Fabienne Baider of the University of Cyprus.
Their concern extends beyond overt hate speech to the narratives that frame some people as threats.
The space below hate speech
“Hate speech is very clear. It is a public call for hatred or violence against specific communities,” Baider said, referring to the European Union framework.
Extremist narratives, however, often operate below that legal threshold. They may not explicitly call for violence. Instead, they frame society as divided between a legitimate “us” and a dangerous “them”, constructing outsiders as demographic, cultural or moral threats.
“If you don’t have counter-speech, you normalise hate speech,” Baider warned.
In Cyprus, this kind of framing draws on a long history of division.
A ready-made template of division
The Cyprus problem provides a narrative structure into which new anxieties can easily be inserted.
“It’s about an entity against another. So, homogeneity is very important,” Baider said.
Within that logic, migration debates take on existential overtones. Researcher Alexandros Gregoriou pointed to recurring claims of an “orchestrated plan for the demographic change of Cyprus” — rhetoric that mirrors wider European populist discourse.
What stands out, the researchers say, is not escalation but repetition. Referring to material collected over several years, Baider observed: “It’s exactly the same as in 2017 — the same language about immigration and invasion. I do not see any difference.”
Fear, in this context, becomes self-reinforcing. It circulates, resurfaces and stabilises.
The researchers caution against equating online rhetoric with everyday interaction. In daily life, Cypriots are often less confrontational than the comments sections of digital platforms suggest. It is online, especially in anonymous and politically charged spaces, that the language becomes harsher.
Speed and amplification
Extremist narratives are not new. Their acceleration is.
Gregoriou described how reactions to news events can spread “like wildfire”. Social media blur the distance between event and reaction, allowing hateful commentary to build rapidly.
Anonymity lowers restraint. Meme pages and ideologically aligned networks reproduce similar frames across platforms. “It’s propaganda,” Gregoriou said.
At the same time, platform moderation has weakened in recent years, reducing friction for inflammatory discourse. In such an environment, narratives of threat encounter fewer obstacles before entering mainstream discussion.
Survey data within the project suggest correlations between lower institutional trust and susceptibility to certain extremist narratives. In periods of crisis, people are more likely to question religious leaders, scientists and politicians — and to ask who can truly be trusted.
Counter-speech as intervention
Rather than focusing solely on detection and removal, the Cyprus team is investing in counter-speech — engaging harmful narratives with alternatives.
“What we believe in is counter speech,” Baider said.
The researchers have manually annotated large volumes of transphobic and homophobic discourse to train an application capable of identifying recurring frames. The longer-term aim is to enable responses — potentially deployed by civil society organisations — that introduce facts, context and empathy into online platforms.
Baider is realistic about expectations.
“Counter-speech will not necessarily make ELAM supporters less extreme,” she said.
The intervention is aimed less at committed extremists than at bystanders — those who scroll, read and absorb tone.
“It’s for the people who don’t comment but are reading,” she said.
The researchers found that aggressive replies often make people dig in further, while calmer, more personal responses are sometimes more effective. That strategy, however, is not without controversy — especially at a time when automated replies and digital bots raise concerns about who is speaking and why.
For Baider, the benchmark remains societal.
“What matters is the impact on society,” she said.
A broader European climate
Cyprus does not stand apart from similar phenomena in other European countries. Wars, renewed nationalism and debates over migration have reinforced narratives of loyalty and belonging.
In such climates, exclusionary rhetoric is framed as protective rather than radical.
The anxieties visible in Cyprus — over demographic change, institutional trust and online outrage — can be seen across Europe. The island’s history may sharpen them, but it does not make them exceptional.
Fear is not novel in Cyprus. What is new is the infrastructure through which it travels.
The challenge, as the researchers see it, is not to eliminate fear from politics, but to prevent it from becoming the only language available.
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