Partnering with Amnesty International’s #ToxicTwitter Troll Patrol
Data for Democracy has a new project in partnership with Amnesty International to expose online abuse.
Background
Recent Amnesty research revealed the silencing impact that violence and abuse on Twitter is having on women. Everyone should be able to express themselves online without fear, and Amnesty International wants social media companies to do more to protect women from the rampant abuse.
How Amnesty’s Troll Patrol project works
Amnesty researchers collected tweets sent to 1,000 women politicians and journalists in the last year and they are working with volunteers to detect abusive content in these tweets. It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and as little as 30 seconds to start detecting online abuse. We will give you a quick training on the site. Your research will then be verified and pieced together with thousands of other people’s work.
In just a few weeks, 5,500 dedicated digital activists have already joined Troll Patrol and analyzed more than 450,000 tweets exposing sexist, racist and homophobic abuse against women — but there is still work to be done. To aid in identifying abusive tweets, Data For Democracy is partnering with Amnesty International on this project.
Impact
With your help, we will create a massive database of examples of online abuse against women, which will help us answer questions like: who receives online violence and abuse and what are the triggers of abuse? Who are the perpetrators? And most importantly, what more can Twitter do to stop it?
The data generated will be used to develop an algorithm that detects online abuse and create a gold standard for social media platforms to use machine learning to monitor and tackle online abuse. If you are interested in participating this project, register and join Data For Democracy.
This is a great project for participants at any level. We need your help to make a difference on social media. Interested volunteers should join the #amnesty-intl channel and register with the #ToxicTwitter project to get started.
You can read more about Amnesty International’s #ToxicTwitter research and see some feedback from volunteers below:
“It is a thrill to participate in this creative, clever, digital, feminist effort”
Jacqueline, United States
“I used to be very active but in more recent times have picked up a disability which makes me more or less housebound. Thank you for the opportunity to stay engaged and making me make me feel like I am still contributing to society despite my disability”
Teressa, UK
“I feel excited and humbled to join your team. I have always been a zealous advocate for women empowerment. This is an opportunity for me to add my voice and make a difference for women globally”
Onyinye, Nigeria
