TOMORROW, Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, 8am EDT / 15:00 EAT
Google Hangout on air - (will also be recorded)
The Umati (Swahili for “crowd”) project, a collaborative initiative between Ushahidi and iHub Research, monitors dangerous speech on new media. Dangerous speech is a subset of hate speech that has the highest potential to catalyse violence. Using a combination of technology platforms, six human monitors collect incidences of dangerous speech from identified online sources and categorize them into our database.
Our hope is that the work of this project will be used to educate the Kenyan public on what type of speech has the potential to disrupt peace and security in the country. Through this project, we aim to create a process that can be replicated in other countries to monitor dangerous speech leading up to pivotal national events, such as elections and referendums.
This Google Hangout will present our project and general trends from the 8 months of monitoring thus far, especially looking at our most recent findings from our March report. The Research Manager, Angela Crandall, and Research Lead, Kagonya Awori, of the project will be available for any questions.