Public Discourse Foundation

What Public Discourse Foundation does

Public Discourse Foundation is a Zurich-based, Swiss non-profit foundation established in 2023 that develops science-based tools and programs to strengthen freedom and diversity of opinion in digital public discourse. Its core deliverable is the Public Discourse Indicator, a weekly dashboard that monitors 70,000–135,000 submitted comments from major Swiss news platforms, classifying 13.8–20.8% as toxic and 2.9–6.6% as hate speech and surfacing user-behavior patterns (notably that 5% of users produce 78% of hate content). Underpinning the Indicator is the proprietary Bot Dog Algorithm — a BERT-multilingual classifier developed jointly with ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, trained on more than 420,000 annotated Swiss German and French comments, fine-tuned weekly with LLM-based debiasing, and benchmarked at AUC=0.95 on hate-speech detection.

The foundation's product portfolio also includes Stop Hate Speech (national counterspeech project), the Public Discourse Forum (a workshop, training, and Community-of-Practice platform for moderators and decision-makers from media, public authorities, NGOs, and academia), the Empower to React / Connect to Protect youth program, an expert Codebook for annotation, and a body of peer-reviewed research. The organization serves three primary constituencies: media organizations and discussion platforms that need evidence-based moderation tooling, civil-society stakeholders and adolescents needing protection from online violence, and academic researchers studying discourse. Media data partnerships with 20 Minuten and Ringier, combined with research collaborations across ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, UCL, and others, give the foundation privileged access to Swiss-specific multilingual training data.

The foundation operates as a grant-funded non-profit with no commercial pricing. Revenue comes from institutional funders including Stiftung Mercator, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Volkart Stiftung, Drosos Foundation, the Swiss Federal Offices for Gender Equality (EBG) and Communications (BAKOM), Migros Pionierfonds, and Leenaards Foundation, plus research partnerships. Workshops, training, and the public dashboard are provided free of charge to civil-society stakeholders, platforms, and the public, and the operating model is governed by a Foundation Council, a Scientific Advisory Board, and a staff of approximately six led by Managing Director Sophie Achermann and Foundation Council President Dominik Hangartner.

Name

Public Discourse Foundation

Legal name

Public Discourse Foundation

Website

https://public-discourse.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Public Discourse Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that develops AI-powered hate speech detection and monitoring tools for German- and French-language Swiss digital discourse, serving media organizations, civil-society groups, youth, and academic researchers through research, training, and the Public Discourse Indicator dashboard.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Content Moderation Research and Hate Speech Detection

NAICS

Human Rights Organizations (813311), Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (541720)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Social Media & Community Moderation (BPAAALAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Cyberbullying Prevention, Reporting & Case Management (EDAFALAG)

Keywords

• Hate speech detection
• Content moderation
• Online discourse research
• Counterspeech strategies
• Toxicity classification

Headquarters

HQ city

Zurich

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Foundation Grants and Institutional Funding: The Public Discourse Foundation is a non-profit and independent foundation that operates through grants and institutional support from various Swiss foundations and government bodies. No commercial revenue streams.
2. Research Partnerships: Collaborative research with academic institutions including ETH Zurich and University of Zurich, funded through research grants and institutional partnerships.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

The Public Discourse Foundation develops and operates AI-based hate speech detection tools and a real-time monitoring dashboard for Swiss media platforms, while providing professional content moderation training, community-of-practice exchange, and research-driven counterspeech programs. It also runs the Empower to React youth protection project and partners with academic institutions on empirical studies of online discourse. All offerings are delivered through a non-profit foundation model funded by Swiss institutional grants.

Product overview

The Public Discourse Foundation is a non-profit organization that operates as a unified platform combining research, technology, and civil society engagement to strengthen public discourse. The core offerings include: the Public Discourse Indicator (a weekly monitoring dashboard of Swiss media comments), the Stop Hate Speech project with its Bot Dog Algorithm (a multilingual hate speech detection system), the Public Discourse Forum (a community platform for moderators), and the Empower to React project (youth protection tools). The foundation also provides supporting resources including the Codebook (annotation guidelines) and published research studies. Together, these products enable monitoring, detection, and intervention against online hate speech while fostering professional exchange among content moderators.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Public Discourse Indicator A weekly monitoring dashboard that aggregates and displays comment data from the largest Swiss news portals, tracking toxic and hate speech proportions and user behavior patterns. Used by media organizations, researchers, and the public to monitor trends in online discourse.
• Stop Hate Speech
• Bot Dog Algorithm
• Public Discourse Forum
• Empower to React. Connect to Protect
• Toxicity and Hate Speech Classifiers
• Codebook
• Studies

Quantifiable outcome

• Counterspeech appealing to empathy reduced hate speech authors' propensity to write hateful content (2021 field experiment with 1,350 Twitter users)
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• ETH Zurich (ETH Zürich)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023Primary research partner; developed the Bot Dog Algorithm and hate speech classifiers in collaboration with foundation researchers. Professor Dominik Hangartner serves as President of Foundation Council. Foundation grew out of project Stop Hate Speech developed in close collaboration with ETH.
• University of Zurich (UZH)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch partner in hate speech studies; contributed to Bot Dog Algorithm development. Professor Fabrizio Gilardi (Chair) and Professor Karsten Donnay (Vice Chair) serve on Scientific Advisory Board.
• 20 Minuten (20Minuten Gruppe)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMedia partner providing comment data for Public Discourse Indicator. One of the largest Swiss news portals contributing to hate speech monitoring dashboard.
• RingiercoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMedia partner providing comment data for Public Discourse Indicator. Major Swiss media company contributing to hate speech research and monitoring.
• Stop Hate SpeechcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPredecessor project from which the Public Discourse Foundation grew; led by Morgane Bonvallat. Provides ongoing hate speech research and counter-speech initiatives.
• Ville de Genève (City of Geneva)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSwiss city government partner supporting public discourse initiatives
• Fondation Égalité de Genre (FEG)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSwiss foundation for gender equality partnership on public discourse and online safety issues
• INACH (International Network Against Cyber Hate)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational network partner for anti-cyber hate initiatives and knowledge exchange
• Der StandardminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAustrian quality media partner with German-language coverage
• University College London (UCL)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic research partner; Professor Gloria Gennaro from UCL co-authored key hate speech distribution and counterspeech studies published in Political Science Research and Methods and Nature Scientific Reports

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Spectrum Labs: Provides AI-based toxicity, hate speech, and grooming classifiers to online communities and gaming platforms. Operates in the same content-moderation AI category as the Public Discourse Foundation's Bot Dog and toxicity classifiers.
• Jigsaw: Google's Jigsaw unit builds Perspective API, the industry reference toxicity/hate-speech classifier that Public Discourse Foundation's Bot Dog Algorithm is positioned against and claims to outperform for the Swiss multilingual context. Same product category (online toxicity detection), same deployment model (free API to platforms and researchers).
• Logically: Combines AI and human review for content integrity, misinformation, and hate speech detection across platforms. Comparable in offering a multi-stakeholder (platforms, governments, researchers) approach to harmful content detection and analysis.
• Two Hat Security (Microsoft): Acquired by Microsoft in 2021, Two Hat built AI-powered content moderation for online communities, including toxicity detection — a closely comparable capability stack to Public Discourse Foundation's classifiers.
• TrustLab: European-based trust & safety measurement and research organization providing data and analysis on content moderation, platform integrity, and harmful content. Operates in the same 'science-meets-moderation' space as Public Discourse Foundation, with similar stakeholder mix of platforms, regulators, and researchers.
• ActiveFence: Trust & safety platform offering AI-based content moderation, hate speech detection, and policy enforcement for online platforms. Directly comparable to Public Discourse Foundation's content-moderation tooling, but at commercial scale across many languages and markets.
• Hive: Provides pre-trained AI models for content moderation, including toxicity and hate speech classification, sold to platforms and trust-and-safety teams. Direct commercial analog to the Bot Dog Algorithm's underlying capabilities.

Emerging players

• HateAid: Germany-based non-profit supporting victims of online hate speech and advocating for stronger platform accountability. Comparable to the civil-society and youth-protection aspects of Public Discourse Foundation's Empower to React / Connect to Protect program, with a DACH focus that mirrors PDF's Swiss position.
• Moonshot CVE: Social enterprise focused on redirecting individuals away from violent extremism and harmful online ecosystems using evidence-based interventions. Comparable in applying research and data-driven methods to online harms, though focused on extremism rather than hate speech specifically.

Others

• INACH (International Network Against Cyber Hate): International network of cyber-hate reporting organizations — a listed strategic partner of Public Discourse Foundation. Closely thematically aligned (anti-cyber-hate) but organized as a network/coalition rather than a research-and-tech operator.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/public-discourse-foundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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