Umati: Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech: October 2012 Findings
Umati: Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech: October 2012 Findings
Umati: Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech: October 2012 Findings
Goals of Umati Following the need to dene, identify and deal with hate speech, the goals of the Umati project are: To set a denition of hate/dangerous speech that can be incorporated into the constitution. To forward incidences of dangerous speech to Uchaguzi to limit further harm. To dene a process for election monitoring that can be replicated elsewhere. To further civic education on hate speech.
Why Online? While most projects related to hate speech have been looking at mainstream media, we are aware of the inuencepositive and negativethat New Media such as the blogosphere and online forums had on the 2007 Post Election Violence in Kenya. Therefore, our agship project seeks to monitor and report, for the rst time, the role New Media plays on a Kenyan election. Our project will have citizens at the core and use relevant technology to collect, organise, analyse, and disseminate the information that we receive. Monitoring Process Over a period of 10 months beginning September 2012 and ending June 2013, the Umati project will monitor online content and record incidences of hate and dangerous speech. This process is being carried out by ve monitors, representing the ve largest ethnic groups in Kenya to enable the translation of cited incidences from vernacular to the countrys official language, English. Monitors use an online categorisation process that enables them to sort each collected statement into its respective category. Impact
Category One: Offensive speech Category Two: Moderately Dangerous speech Category Three: Extremely Dangerous speech
We hope that the work of this project will lead to the inclusion of a
more elaborate denition of illegal speech in the current constitution of Kenya, and that ndings 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 referenda. Outputs The following section presents a consolidation of all incidences of hate speech that have been identied in Kenyas webosphere from three main sources: Social media (Facebook and Twitter), online blogs and comments sections of online newspaper
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Moderately dangerous speech is the most rampant category of dangerous speech
Moderately Dangerous speech 35%
For the Umati project, the rst three criteria of dangerous speech were used to sort collected statements into the three hate speech categories. We were able to sort the statements by considering three questions about each of them:
n=774
- The observable response from the audience, it is little, mid or large. - How inammatory the statement is, whether mildly, moderately or highly inammatory. - The inuence the speaker has on the crowd, whether little, some or a lot of inuence.
Extremely The graph here shows that in October 2012, most statements fell in Dangerous speech the moderately dangerous speech category. These were statements 34% that called the audience to at least one call to action ( see page ) Important to note here is that extremely dangerous statements have the highest potential to stir violence. Examples of statements in October that fall in the three categories, are listed below:
Offensive speech: I saw it coming, its only in [political party]** that ppl are used and thrown away like condoms. Moderately dangerous speech: F*ck u all. [Religion1]** WIL Prevail. VICTORY Extremely dangerous speech: Hawa [tribe]** wana shida ya ulimi .watawekwa kamba wote.keep up [political party].
** In an effort to avoid fuelling hateful speech, we have deliberately omitted the naming of any tribes, political parties or politicians when writing this report. For example, when we quote statements verbatim from our study, we replace the named tribes with the terms [tribe1], [tribe2] etc.
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Identiable commenters are most active users of dangerous speech
Surprisingly, the highest use of dangerous speech from the Kenyan online Umati is monitoring, is by identiable commenters. Identiable commenters are online users who leave comments in response to a Facebook post, an online news article, a forum or blog post. They are identiable in that they use their own name or a pseudoname. The lack of caution when speaking online suggests that the speakers are not considering the negative impact their statements could have, nor are they worried about being associated with the dangerous statements they make.
a blogger
6%
an identifiable commenter
53%
a politician
2%
an anonymous commenter
39%
n=776
an elder/community leader
0.05%
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Most noted call to action is the call to discriminate
According to research carried out by Professor Susan Benesch of the American University, speech that contains certain calls to action can be deemed dangerous. Based on the audience and the speaker, these calls to action can generate varying degrees of incitement to violence. The calls are to discriminate, to steal, to riot, to beat, to forcefully evict and nally to kill. In the month of October, the most frequent call to action on monitored Kenyan blogs, newspapers, Facebook pages and tweets was to discriminate members of another group.
Discriminate
87%
Topic
Tribe Political party Religion Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) supporters
Other topics along which dangerous speech occured were against women, MRC supporters, homosexuals, MPs and politically backed criminal gangs. Some examples are listed below:
Forcefully evict
1%
Beat
1%
Riot
1%
Against people of a certain tribe: Tell those sleeping dogs to wake up to the reality, time is for [presidential candidate] to lead this country. So [tribe1], [tribe2] and all the Haters of [presidential candidate], no one from your tribe can lead this nation as per now so accept the fact and stop non-sensing here and if you want to see then wait for 2013. Against homosexuals: ..Gay?u shld b dead yesterday from a thorough beating...u dsav the worst u big Ass. I hate gay wil all my breath...may u b knocked by a lorry as u cross the road...proud to b a gay my vomit Against women: Hii mambo ya direct nomination for women really disheartens me,kazi ni kupeana kuma ndo ukue governor ama women rep, surely. when will men take us seriously? Of all women mps only a few who can even stand up and be counted...the rest are panty droppers.
Kill
10%
We also found that dangerous speech was centerd around particular topics with the top three being tribe, political parties and religion:
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Events had a inuence on the occurence of dangerous speech online
In relation to who was being targeted, key events took place in October that increased the frequency of dangerous speech circulated in the online space. Notable events are: Feuds by rival gangs in Kisumu ( American Marines and China Squad) Re-emergence of Mungiki sect Ko Annans visit to Kenya Party hopping and political party alliances Ruto, Uhuru, Raila, Imanyara Hefty package to MPs Mombasa Republican Council ( MRC ) insecurity Sexual orientation of political candidate David Kuria 2013 Political elections Killing of Kenyan businesswoman in Southern Sudan Defection from ODM by Gitobu Imanyara Killing of Shem Kwega
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Kill Most serious call to action highest with identiable speakers
Forcefully evict
Kill
Beat
Forcefully evict
Riot
Beat
*
Kill 6.5 0 0 4.3 0 89.1 0 0 0 0 100
6.5 0 0 4.3 0 89.1
Riot
Discriminate
Discriminate
a blogger a journalist
a blogger a journalist
Riot Riot 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
Beat 0 0 0 0 0 100
a politician a politician
1.71.7
38.6 38.6
an identifiable commenter
an identifiable commenter
0.70.7 51.3
51.3
100
100
The calls to action rank from the most severe which is to kill, to the least severe which is to discriminate. Commenters (both anonymous and identiable) reported the highest number of discriminatory statements. Identiable commenters showed a clear lead with statements that exhibited a call to kill another group. This was an interesting observation because the most serious call to action was highest amongst speakers that could be identied either by their Facebook names, or pseudonames used on public blogs and forums.
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Calls to discriminate across the three categories of dangerous speech
Offensive speech Discriminate Riot Beat Forcefully evict Kill 98.80% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.20% Moderately Dangerous Speech 0.80% 1.10% 0.50% 0.00% 8.40% Extremely Dangerous Speech 75.20% 1.80% 1.80% 1.80% 13.30% Offensive speech
Given the context, speaker, and audience of the statement, the noted calls to action fell into different categories of dangerous speech. As a comparison, these three statements below are all calls to discriminate a particular tribe yet they fall in the three different categories of dangerous speech.
Offensive speech
Category 1: Offensive speech A [tribe1] will always be smarter and a good thinker that a [tribe2]... watch the outcome, [politician1] will run back like a hunted antelope after he has been duped by the [politician2]. Category 2: Moderately Dangerous Speech [tribe1] GO BURY YOUR MOTHERS ALIVE OR KIDNAP YOUR NIECES. SHAME. Category 3: Extremely Dangerous Speech Hawa [tribe1] wana shida ya ulimi .watawekwa kamba wote
Moderately Dangerous Speech 0.80% 1.10% 0.50% 0.00% 8.40%
This reiterates that the extremity of an inammatory comment, whether it falls under category 1 or 3, relies on a combination of facOffensive speech tors; 98.80% the inuence the speaker has over the audience, 0.00% how inciteful the statement is to the audience 0.00% and how harmful it is to the targeted group.
0.00% 1.20%
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Number of identiable commenters increased with the severity of dangerous speech
From the above graph, two trends can be noted:
Anonymous commenters and identiable commenters were the most active amongst the speakers.
Anonymous commenters reduced as the severity of hateful speech increased, while identiable commenters increased with the severity of dangerous speech. Identiable commenters were the largest users of extremely dangerous speech. This could be because an identiable commenter likely has greater inuence over an audience than an unidentiable commenter (the audience feels a stronger connection with an identied person rather than an anonymous stranger). The inuence of the speaker has an impact on our categorisation of the level of danger of the text.
Extremely Dangerous Speech 59.40% 0.80% 26.10% 0.40% 3.40% 1.90% 8.00%
10
dentifiable commenter
elder/community leader
Moderately Dangerous Speech 55.90% 0.70% 35.20% 0.00% 1.90% 0.00% 6.30%
anonymous commenter
olitician
urnalist
0.00% 6.30%
ogger
OCTOBER 2012 FINDINGS Most dangerous speech incidents were found in blog/forum comments
The greatest number of dangerous speech incidents was comments in response to a public blog article or forum. Facebook posts on a public group discussion or page closely followed.
Platform
A Facebook post in a private group/ page A Facebook post in a public group/page A blog article in a private blog/forum A blog article in a public blog/forum
Category
Offensive speech 1% 29% 0.4% 0.4% Moderately Dangerous Speech 16% 30% 0.4% 5% Extremely Dangerous Speech 22% 30% 3% 9%
11
A comment in response to a private blog article/forum A comment in response to a public blog article/forum A comment in response to an online news article A comment in response to an online news article or blog A tweet An online news article
5% 17% 2% 12% 1% 1%
Suggest that some people are spoiling the purity or integrity of another group
35%
12
1.0% 4.3%
26%
Suggest that the audience faces a serious threat or violence from another group
0.3%
0.3%
The diagram here shows that from the 302 sampled statements in October, most ( 35.4%), suggested that some people were spoiling the purity and integrity of another group.
* For further information and articles on the hallmarks and on Dangerous Speech generally, see www.voicesthatpoison.org
33%
Compare a group of people with animals, insects or a derogatory term in mother tongue
7.1%
2.0%
1.0%
Compare a group of people with animals, insects or a sects or a derogatory term in mother tongue 41.8% derogatory term in mother Compare a group of people with animals, insects or a derogatory term in tongue
mother tongue
48.0%
41.8%
Compare a group of people with animals, insects or a derogatory term in mother tongue
11.4%
Suggest that the audience faces a serious threat or violence from another group
1.3%
Suggest that the audience faces a serious threat orSuggest that the audience faces a serious threat or violence from erious threat or violence violence from fromanother another group 25.3% group another group
11.4%
13
1.3%
62.0%
25.3%
a blogger
a journalist
2.8%
Suggest that some people are group spoiling theof purity or integrity Suggest that some people are spoiling the purity or integrity of another group iling the purity or integrity another group 37.4% of another group
4.7% 1.9%
Suggest that some people are spoiling the purity or integrity of another
4.7%
1.9%
a politician
2.8%
37.4%
53.3%
53.3%
an anonymous commenter
an elder/community leader
an identifiable commenter
politician
Across the speakers, the three hallmarks were contained in speech that we collected in October.
an anonymous commenter
an elder/community leader
an identifiable commenter
What is interesting to note here is that politicians were only present in the third hallmark i.e. suggest that some people are spoiling the purity or integrity of another group. while public gures were found to have said statements that suggested that the audience faces a serious threat or violence from another group.
Identiable Commenter: A person who responds to an online article, blog post or Facebook post who can be identied by a name, regardless of whether the name is real or fake.
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http://www.thekenyanpost.com/2012/12/big-boost-for-raila-as-iman-
http://adrempress.com/ko-annan-claims-success-in-syria-peace-plan/. Accessed 12th December 2012. http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2012/09/kisumu-falls-to-china-andamerica-gangs/2/?wpmp_switcher=mobile. Accessed 12th December 2012. http://www.the-star.co.ke/sites/default/les/styles/node_article/public/ images/articles/2012/01/12/34409/pwanisikenyawr.png#.UMrUyYP64rU. Accessed 12th December 2012.
Umati Project Team iHub Research Nairobi, Kenya [email protected] www.research.ihub.co.ke | Twitter: @iHubResearch