Daniel de Torres

Dani is creating a movement of inclusive cities, organizations, and active citizens in Europe and beyond, who collectively identify their community's most prominent prejudices and stereotypes to gradually transform the prevailing discriminatory social norms into an intercultural space that values diversity and positive relationships.

Combatting the spread of stereotypes and misinformation about immigrants and less representative communities in a time when information (regardless of accuracy) spreads far and quickly due to social media and highly polarized political environments requires a response of equal magnitude to the problem. Dani and his team are supporting cities to build that response with The Anti-Rumors Strategy (ARS), a highly networked city-based movement system to prevent discrimination, improve coexistence, and harness the ethos of diversity by triggering a change in perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors within a city, region, or even a country. The ARS, that was first launched in Barcelona in 2010, is a new approach to fostering intercultural understanding within communities based on the premise that we all have prejudices and stereotypes and that, given the right tools and frameworks, we can all examine where are they coming from and change them collectively to reduce these preconceptions, which are the roots of discrimination attitudes and hate speech .

Instead of rationally trying to dismantle rumors like standard disinformation and fact-checking services, this strategy involves an intensive ground approach, organized actions across different fields, and a sustained commitment from municipalities. To achieve this, Dani and his team, work across city governments (or regional and national) to develop a shared vision to combatting prejudice and builds anti-rumor networks engrained into the social infrastructure of cities, including diverse social actors such as schools, cultural centers, sports centers, senior homes, hospitals, faith communities, companies, libraries, museums, media, prisons, and more. Individuals as diverse as city leaders, teachers, clergy, young people, business executives, police officers, and others become part of a collective effort with specific objectives to fight prejudice and promote critical thinking and empathy, ultimately transforming socio-cultural diversity into a positive resource for the community.

With training, guidance, and organizing around the specific issues that a given city faces, the ARS model takes off because with so many diverse city stakeholders engaged, the potential ideas for advancing the goals are endless. The movement gets its power from the creativity and initiative of those engaged. A wealth of examples from cities with ARS strategies show how people creatively take up the effort: the city council of Erlangen, Germany, teaming up with the company Siemens to host a massive public picnic for refugees and neighbors; theater schools in Bilbao, Spain, adopting anti-rumors as a theme for their artistic works; various schools in Portugal, integrating it into teacher training; youth leisure and cultural events in Patras, Greece, co-organized with youth as a space to advocate for better policies related to discrimination and prejudice; a renowned rap singer helping schoolchildren in Sabadell, Spain, write anti-rumours raps; campaigns to equip citizens against disinformation through hospitals in Tenerife, Spain.

When a city adopts an ARS approach, it must implement it across its municipal departments and train a community of anti-rumor agents across diverse sectors of the city, to ensure that the approach creates numerous touchpoints for citizens and organizations. The cities involved have reached direct agreements with local actors (NGOs, universities, multidisciplinary experts, companies, etc.) for the development of some 500 anti-rumors resources and materials for training, awareness, communication, and knowledge of anti-rumor practices and tools. The effect is a creative force deploying strategies to defend a city from the spread of misinformation and collectively shifting attitudes. It works because it is not a singular campaign but a united and sustained front to drive a cultural embrace of diversity.

With over 100 cities and regions around Europe implementing the anti-rumors approach and 10,000 trained policymakers, public officials, teachers, professionals from social, health, sport and cultural organizations, business executives, and other diverse profiles as anti-rumor agents, Dani's work has solid sustainability, even amidst political changes in local government.

In 2022, 40% of Spanish society claimed to be frequently exposed to disinformation and fake news, and globally, it is estimated that 4 in 5 citizens have been exposed to false information. Disinformation, and the increased dissemination of false rumors and populist narratives and discourses, stigmatize vulnerable individuals and groups—usually people from less represented communities, such as immigrants, LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities, etc.—and reinforce prejudice and social polarization. Overall, this limits the spaces for critical thinking and rational debate, ultimately being an enabler for the rise of extremist ideologies and movements that neglect the value of diversity.

However, the unprecedented speed of the spread of false news and toxic narratives is just a symptom of the decreased social cohesion our world has experienced amidst globalization. In the global economic crisis in 2008, unemployment rates rocketed while contractionary economic policies were put into place. This inevitably led to global unrest, and, among numerous consequences, many cities experienced growing rumors against immigrants, that they were unfairly enjoying public benefits, tax reliefs and affirmative action. Living in Barcelona and involved in public policymaking, Dani and his team at the City Council of Barcelona identified that these rumors were sourced from some politicians, journalists, and social reference points and disseminated through TV channels, newspapers, and especially social media dripping down to neighborhood conversations. After consulting objective and rigorous information from different sources, it became clear that these rumors were not true and that they gave a distorted picture of reality. Unfortunately, these rumors contain elements that make them attractive, and many people give them credibility. They offer simple answers to complex realities and identify groups as scapegoats. They also reinforce prejudices and emotions such as fear and the perception of threat.

The existence of prejudice and rumors was identified as a serious problem in many European cities, but no policies had been implemented to address this issue. The few initiatives that existed were expensive communication campaigns attempting to give a positive image of immigration, often by “canceling” rumor-spreaders, campaigns which could have counterproductive results.

Dani´s findings mirror the reality of many countries and institutions, in which the approach to social challenges, such as the integration of immigrants or minorities, is limited and, above all, fragmented, and do not focus on shared strategies based on building consensus and shifting narratives. Therefore, an integrated yet decentralized approach is required, integrating public policies and civil society engagement with a long-term vision.

The ARS has shifted the accepted and common sporadic strategies to promote tolerance and diversity in communities – one-shot campaigns led single-handedly by one political party or public department – to a multi-stakeholder and sustained collaboration approach: combining the expertise, resources and ideas of different sectors and when possible, political parties, to guarantee its sustainability in the medium and long term.

The ARS is based on the creation of a shared identity and a collective sense of belonging to a city strategy with common objectives to fight prejudice and rumors, promote critical thinking and empathy, and value the diversity of society. It combines the public policy dimension with the promotion of a social movement in which social entities, educational, cultural and sports centers, associations of migrants, neighbors, places of worship, hospitals, companies, media and social and community referents are involved in the design and implementation of ARS.

The ARS strategy includes the following combination of elements to ensure the transformation to inclusive communities:

1. Political Commitment: Dani’s work is rooted in continuity and for that, the success of the ARS begins with genuine political support and commitment from the local government. Rather than being the responsibility of a single department, the ARS requires cross-departmental collaboration and even cooperation across parties.

2. Anti-Rumors Task Force: Every ARS builds on a diagnosis to identify key organizations, individuals and/or institutions core to the city’s social, cultural and economic activity who are willing to lead the identification of their city’s most prominent prejudices, rumors and discriminatory actions, to later develop actionable multi-stakeholder inclusion initiatives. Members range from public administration officials, to schools, companies, civil society organizations, religious groups and others.

3. Training and capacity building: The Task Force is given a specific training and accompaniment to conduct a thorough diagnosis of diversity issues through information analysis, focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires to identify problems, prejudices, and needs of different groups, but also the initiatives, projects and policies that already exist and identify social players that can be key potential allies of the ARS.

4. Development of the context-specific ARS: With the resulting diagnosis, validated by diverse stakeholders, the municipality and members of the Task Force proceed to develop methodologies and tools adapted to various contexts and needs: including school activities and teacher trainings, city-wide events, specific initiatives in segregated neighborhoods, new urban planning policies, new recruiting processes by companies, awareness-raising campaigns with media partners etc.

5. Shared identity, the ARS owned by the whole city: To ensure wide implementation and impact of the ARS, the Task Force identifies existing initiatives and trains influential actors with tools to incorporate the anti-rumors´ approach into their interventions and focus on communication skills for anti-rumor dialogue.

6. New narratives: With the implementation of the ARS from diverse sectors, it is essential that these influential agents transfer their learnings, impact and stories to the wider community such as media campaigns, anti-rumor summits, etc.

To ensure scalability and long-term impact in all spheres of society Dani and his team have identified and trained four key sectors of social influence to join and lead the ARS Task Force: 1) policymakers and public administration, 2) civil society organizations, 3) youth and schools, and 4) media and communications. The task force is guided through a train-the-trainers program to identify and train a network of anti-rumors agents-key organizations, individuals, and/or institutions core to the city’s social, cultural, and economic activity to lead the diagnosis of their city’s most prominent rumors through information analysis, focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires. Dani and his team have trained more than 3,000 anti-rumors agents, and thanks to this model, more than 10,000 people have participated in diverse anti-rumors training in several cities and countries.

Policymakers are the first key stakeholders in the ARS task force and strategy. ARS aims to influence how institutions operate by promoting inclusivity and new narratives through a collaborative approach that requires the involvement of different municipal areas. This strategy has effectively influenced public policies in sectors such as education, youth, culture, health and sports. Initially supported by external funding, 90% of municipalities have continued to finance anti-rumor activities from their own budgets, reflecting a commitment to transversality and shared responsibility that has led to hundreds of sustained initiatives. For instance, the Basque Anti-Rumors Network, established in 2015, includes multiple municipalities, the Basque government, universities, and social organizations, and it provides training and support for local anti-rumor efforts, all backed by a budget approved by the Basque Parliament. Today, the Spanish national government has recognized the ARS as a best practice and has supported its development through grants to municipalities and organizations.

Dani and his team also position youth as vital partners in fostering connections among diverse groups, which can create positive impacts that extend beyond their age group, including teachers, school directors, and families. Various cities have established anti-rumor youth networks composed of motivated young people who engage in different methodologies to combat prejudice. In Bilbao, Spain, Amadora, Portugal and Patras, Greece, among others, schools piloted the anti-rumor approach by collaborating with students and staff to diagnose prevalent prejudices and the implementation of sensitization activities, such as art workshops that included photography, theater, and music. Given its proven success--increased awareness of diversity among students and participation in community activities--the anti-rumor strategy was integrated into the schools' pedagogical projects, and its success has inspired other schools to do so too. Over 500 schools in various countries have conducted anti-rumor training or activities and have reached more than 15,000 young people enhancing critical thinking about prejudice and discrimination. Additionally, for seven years, the Anti-Rumors Youth Summit has gathered young people from 12 Spanish cities for three days to share experiences, receive training, and design new anti-rumor campaigns. Last year, the first international Anti-Rumors Youth Summit took place in Lublin, Poland, featuring participants from several European countries.

In addition to various types of civil society organizations, companies can also play an important role in the development of an ARS, as was the case in Erlangen in Germany, where the municipality partnered with Siemens, a major local employer with over 23,000 employees representing 25% of the city's workforce. The campaign highlighted the value and potential of asylum seekers and refugees, who constitute a significant portion of Erlangen's population, and increased interactions between refugees and local residents, while guiding refugees in navigating the German labor market. This methodology included a peer-to-peer learning experience between Siemens employees and asylum seekers around corporate employment skills and powerful life stories of participant migrants. The initiative resulted in a reduction in the number of rumors against refugees among Siemens' employees, higher valuation of intercultural exchange and awareness from both sides, and an improvement in workplace capacity for asylum seekers.

Lastly, the ARS has to address the communicative dimension and the relationship with the media to promote creative, innovative, and positive narratives that challenge prejudices and rumors. The concept of "anti-rumor" itself has proven to be intriguing, generating substantial media interest. This approach has resulted in over 3,000 news items, videos, reports, and references to the ARS across various media platforms. Through collaborative efforts with cities, there has been a noticeable increase in positive news coverage about diversity. As an example, in 2024, Dani was a member of the advisory board of the new Diversity Plan of Catalan public television due to his long experience with the ARS. Given its influential power on narratives, stereotypes and public opinions, Dani partnered with Facebook to train and promote an awareness campaign with Communications students to dismantle stereotypes and prejudices based on the prompt "Without diversity there is no life." It was launched in 2018 and in a short time, the videos had more than 2 million views, reaching audiences in various countries around the world with a very positive reception.

Dani launched the first Anti-Rumors Strategy in 2010 in Barcelona as a key initiative of the city’s Intercultural Plan while he was working as Migration Commissioner. The Anti-Rumor Network of Barcelona has more than 1,000 members (social entities, associations, sports centers, merchants, libraries, etc.) that are organized through different working groups (communication, training, strategy, awareness-raising actions). Together with the City Council, they have created a catalog of anti-rumors activities to raise awareness on racism and discrimination, anti-Gypsyism, gender issues, historical memory, and more. Schools and organizations can apply for activities and workshops from the catalog that are carried out by city entities and funded by the local government. After 14 years and four changes of government, the strategy in Barcelona is still being sustained.

Since then, more than 100 cities in Spain and 20 different countries have promoted their own ARS. The ARS expanded significantly through a collaboration with the Council of Europe and the European Commission in the C4i-Communication for Integration project, which scaled the ARS from Barcelona to 10 European cities, including Bilbao, Amadora, Loures, Sabadell, Patras, Limerick, Botkyrka, Lublin, Erlangen, and Nuremberg. The project employed a three-stage impact measurement process, which involved mapping initial behaviors and knowledge gaps, conducting two-wave surveys during implementation, and evaluating long-term impacts and behavioral changes.

The evaluation revealed positive shifts in community attitudes across all participating cities, which were crucial for replicating the strategy in other countries. Notably, there was a significant increase in rumor dismantling behavior regarding three specific rumors about migrants; after 18 months, 30-40% of the surveyed population disapproved of these rumors, compared to only 20% at the start. Additionally, the willingness to share public spaces with individuals of different nationalities rose to 52%, up from less than 40% initially. Furthermore, 82% of respondents reported good relations with migrants in their communities, a marked improvement from 40% at the beginning of the project.

With these and other ARS experiences, Dani developed in collaboration with the Council of Europe the Anti-Rumors Handbook published in 2018, a practical step-by-step guide to designing and implementing an ARS from the ground up collecting the practices from schools, theaters, and multinational companies, to prisons, universities and country-wide applications that generate a positive multiplier effect in diverse cities. To date, it has been translated into 9 languages. More than 60 cities in the Council’s Intercultural Cities network have received some form of anti-rumors training and based on the ARS impact report, 80% of cities that promoted their strategies more than 5 years ago, are still doing so

Given its proven effectiveness in fostering and building multi-stakeholder networks that create and spread alternative narratives and the shifting of the norm within institutions at a local level, 2024 marks the first time the ARS will be implemented at a national level in Malta with its government approval. Malta is one of the countries with one of the highest rates of negative public perceptions of immigration in the EU.

Dani was born to young parents immersed in activism for social justice at a crucial point in Spanish history where conciliation and commitment were key: the Transition from dictatorship to democracy.

His father was very active in the pro-democracy movements but also as a doctor, he pioneered an innovative approach to treating drug addicts in Spain. Long conversations with his grandfather about the challenges of democracy and social justice, but also the more creative vision of his artist grandmother and his contemporary dancer mother, were also the grounds for his intrinsic motivation and interest in social transformation and the importance of creativity to explore new and innovative ways to address complex challenges. His academic pursuits in Economics and Intercultural Education, coupled with experiences living in culturally diverse cities like London and Barcelona, further fueled his passion for diversity and inclusion.

His career trajectory, from working in a university bookstore to leading immigration policies at the Barcelona City Council, reflects his commitment to addressing social issues and fostering intercultural understanding. The realization that diversity management policies could have tangible impacts on communities led him to develop the first Anti-Rumors Strategy in 2010 in Barcelona as a key initiative of the city’s Intercultural Plan while he was working as Migration Commissioner. Since then, it has become the hub and referent for the ARS.

Becoming a father deepened Dani's understanding of how stereotypes and prejudices are ingrained in society, even among children, but also highlighted the potential for promoting critical thinking and empathy from a young age. This personal experience reinforced his dedication to creating spaces for reflection and dialogue that challenge biases and foster inclusivity.