A group of students from Utrecht University are through to the last six of an international competition launched by the US government and Facebook to counteract extremism.

The aim of the Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism competition is to ‘create and execute digital media campaigns’ to empower people to ‘counter the social media presence and effectiveness of extremist’s online messaging’.

In total, 45 universities from all over the world took part in the preliminary rounds.

The Dutch project is called ‘Dare to be Grey’ and aims to give the ‘grey majority’ a voice by highlighting the fact that society is not black and white.

‘People want to think in extremes or think they can only express an opinion if they go as far as they can,’ said team member Rick Knol. ‘We want to give the middle ground a voice. Moderate opinions should become cool again.’

The students will present their strategy to the judges in Washington in June.