Shibboleth
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Compilation of data is all well and good, and I’ve no doubt of the ability of the tech community to handle such an aggregation efficiently. The real weakness in such an endeavor is in the verification steps, of which precious little was mentioned either here or on the website. Per the site:

We’re assembling a trove of data provided by law enforcement, community groups, local jurisdictions, news reports, search trends, social media and other nonprofit organizations. Volunteers, including journalism students throughout the country, will follow-up to fill in data and authenticate the social media reports. Our database will be available, with privacy and security restrictions, to civil-rights groups and journalists, to enrich a national understanding and conversation about hate crimes and bias incident.

From a reliability of data standpoint, news reports, search trends, and social media are well and truly worthless. In such an outrage culture as we exist in now, and in particular one where news reporters are biased towards sensationalism, the one thing you can be sure of in any given news or social media report is that you have not been given the full story. Follow that up with the fact that volunteers and students will authenticate the reports (how, by what standards, from where?) and you have a recipe for a compiled list that tells us nothing much at all.

These issues are exactly why the reports from the SPLC carry no weight at all, because their list relies on aggregation of news reports combined with self reporting of incidents.

I have no qualms about the creation of a project like this, I’m just curious what kind of verification you intend to employ.

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