Online Hate Barometer
What is the tone of online discourse, in particular political and human rights relevant discussion? To what extent does intolerance and discrimination shape the social media landscape, and what is the impact on disadvantaged groups? Rania has been supporting Amnesty International Italy’s annual social media monitoring campaign Barometro dell’odio (“Hate Barometer”) as data scientist in charge since 2019.
Amnesty International Italy’s “Barometro dell”Odio” project has been active since 2018. Through this project, the human rights impacts of two social media platforms – Twitter and Facebook - have been investigated. Data is collected from public accounts – of politicians, major media and national organisations, or leading influencers: these data are evaluated by Amnesty Italy volunteers for topic, level of offensiveness, and type and target of offense. Based on this labelling, various analyses are made: for example, evaluating how the topic of discussion affects the tone and the popularity of a post; determining if there are communities that are particularly targeted by offensive comments, or by hate speech; or comparing the accounts of public figures of various genders, to determine if some are more subject to personal attacks than others.
The analyses are also shared with a variety of experts – linguists, sociologists, legal and human rights experts, who help Amnesty Italy analyse the potential impact, and derive appropriate responses. The final results and analyses are published on Amnesty International Italy’s website, and are shared with major Italian news outlets.
Link to project:
Barometro dell'odio: Contrasto all’Hate Speech online (amnesty.it)
Image source: Nick Sokolov - unsplash.com