Syrian activists, Arab and international human rights organizations and journalists have been collecting information to document crimes committed by the Syrian security forces against Syrian citizens. YouTube videos, reports by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), demanded of the United Nations (UN), interview transcripts, and news reports: all such sources of information exist independently, left unorganized and thus unable to make an optimal impact on advocacy for an international response to the crisis in Syria. This website, Syria Tracker, was developed to leverage information that is produced by citizen reporters and in collaboration with a variety of entities and made publicly available in disparate locations to produce a free centralized source of information. Hereinafter, we refer to this method of harnessing labor and information contributed by a large group of people as opposed to an employee or an expert contractor as crowdsourcing.
The UN recently released a report analyzing casualty figures from 7 sources reporting deaths in Syria. The report estimates that nearly 60,000 deaths have occurred, more than previous estimates from non-government sources of around 40,000. It finds that violence can reduce reporting and that each source likely has its own biases. While crowd-sourced data is imperfect, it provides valuable near real-time information in such a constrained environment. Syria Tracker endorses the report and analysis of strengths and limitations of using crowd-sourced data.
GIS is a discipline that heavily relies on data. In this presentation we highlight all the geospatial data sources for crime mapping.
Visit https://expertwritinghelp.com/gis-assignment-help/ for quality gis assignment aid
This document provides information on various resources for local research, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics which contains data on unemployment, employment, wages, and prices; the Bureau of Economic Analysis for GDP and income data by state and region; Eurostat for European subnational statistics; local news sources; The Atlantic Cities for analysis and data on major cities; SBA SizeUp for industry benchmarks and competitor mapping; and the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics for crime data. It also lists tools for cost of living comparisons and the ResearchOnMainStreet.com website as a collection of links organized by research topic.
What is an "Independent Journalist" is this someone who can be trusted with telling the truth or disinformation propaganda strategies. Armed with social media and internet this "Queen of Disinformation" along with her loyal cult following has taken over Social Media Syria narratives with their brand of the truth. In the war of words and propaganda, Syria wasn't as prepared as they are as physically fighting passionately for their motherland. Who will win the war of words?
This document provides a literature review on the role of social media during conflicts. It discusses how social media was used during the Arab Spring uprisings to spread information and build online communities. Previous research found that social media helped magnify protester voices and assist in overcoming barriers, but the will of protesters was most important. The document then examines how social media impacted citizen journalism and the ability to share perspectives outside of mainstream media narratives. It reviews literature on both the positive and negative impacts social media can have on social movements. Overall, the literature establishes that social media is an important tool but not the sole reason for protests, and that face-to-face interaction remains very important.
The document summarizes the findings of an investigation by The Sentry into corruption and wealth accumulation among top South Sudanese officials responsible for mass atrocities during the country's civil war. The investigation found that these officials have amassed significant personal wealth through involvement in lucrative business sectors and deals involving state assets, despite modest official salaries. They have used international banks and facilitators to move money out of the country and acquire foreign properties and assets, fueling their violent kleptocratic system and civil war for personal financial gain.
The corresponding video is at https://youtu.be/ztNHKLTHBrA AIISC conducts foundational and translational research in AI. In this talk, we review part of the AIISC's research in Social Good, Social Harm, and Public Health.
This talk was given to the UofSC College on Information and Communication.
Additional project details at http://wiki.aiisc.ai
The document analyzes media coverage of South Africa's 2019 national and provincial elections over a three month period from March to May 2019. It monitored over 10,000 news stories across various media platforms. The summary is:
1) Party politics, political campaigning, and national politics made up over a third of the news coverage, while important citizen issues like service delivery, poverty, and inequality received much less attention.
2) Sources in the news coverage were disproportionately from political parties and the government, while citizen voices and other groups received far less representation.
3) While citizen voices saw a rise in representation compared to previous elections, the media's coverage still focused more on political voices and rhetoric rather than addressing
The UN recently released a report analyzing casualty figures from 7 sources reporting deaths in Syria. The report estimates that nearly 60,000 deaths have occurred, more than previous estimates from non-government sources of around 40,000. It finds that violence can reduce reporting and that each source likely has its own biases. While crowd-sourced data is imperfect, it provides valuable near real-time information in such a constrained environment. Syria Tracker endorses the report and analysis of strengths and limitations of using crowd-sourced data.
GIS is a discipline that heavily relies on data. In this presentation we highlight all the geospatial data sources for crime mapping.
Visit https://expertwritinghelp.com/gis-assignment-help/ for quality gis assignment aid
This document provides information on various resources for local research, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics which contains data on unemployment, employment, wages, and prices; the Bureau of Economic Analysis for GDP and income data by state and region; Eurostat for European subnational statistics; local news sources; The Atlantic Cities for analysis and data on major cities; SBA SizeUp for industry benchmarks and competitor mapping; and the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics for crime data. It also lists tools for cost of living comparisons and the ResearchOnMainStreet.com website as a collection of links organized by research topic.
What is an "Independent Journalist" is this someone who can be trusted with telling the truth or disinformation propaganda strategies. Armed with social media and internet this "Queen of Disinformation" along with her loyal cult following has taken over Social Media Syria narratives with their brand of the truth. In the war of words and propaganda, Syria wasn't as prepared as they are as physically fighting passionately for their motherland. Who will win the war of words?
This document provides a literature review on the role of social media during conflicts. It discusses how social media was used during the Arab Spring uprisings to spread information and build online communities. Previous research found that social media helped magnify protester voices and assist in overcoming barriers, but the will of protesters was most important. The document then examines how social media impacted citizen journalism and the ability to share perspectives outside of mainstream media narratives. It reviews literature on both the positive and negative impacts social media can have on social movements. Overall, the literature establishes that social media is an important tool but not the sole reason for protests, and that face-to-face interaction remains very important.
The document summarizes the findings of an investigation by The Sentry into corruption and wealth accumulation among top South Sudanese officials responsible for mass atrocities during the country's civil war. The investigation found that these officials have amassed significant personal wealth through involvement in lucrative business sectors and deals involving state assets, despite modest official salaries. They have used international banks and facilitators to move money out of the country and acquire foreign properties and assets, fueling their violent kleptocratic system and civil war for personal financial gain.
The corresponding video is at https://youtu.be/ztNHKLTHBrA AIISC conducts foundational and translational research in AI. In this talk, we review part of the AIISC's research in Social Good, Social Harm, and Public Health.
This talk was given to the UofSC College on Information and Communication.
Additional project details at http://wiki.aiisc.ai
The document analyzes media coverage of South Africa's 2019 national and provincial elections over a three month period from March to May 2019. It monitored over 10,000 news stories across various media platforms. The summary is:
1) Party politics, political campaigning, and national politics made up over a third of the news coverage, while important citizen issues like service delivery, poverty, and inequality received much less attention.
2) Sources in the news coverage were disproportionately from political parties and the government, while citizen voices and other groups received far less representation.
3) While citizen voices saw a rise in representation compared to previous elections, the media's coverage still focused more on political voices and rhetoric rather than addressing
The document is a study guide for the Human Rights Council that discusses two topics: the right to privacy in the digital age and addressing the increase in domestic violence. For topic A on the right to privacy, the summary provides background on worldwide surveillance programs like the Five Eyes alliance and how digital technology has impacted privacy. It outlines different bloc positions, with China and Russia expressing concerns about privacy violations and data collection, while the UK and US take different regulatory approaches. The timeline highlights key events in surveillance programs and social media privacy issues.
Fake news detection for Arabic headlines-articles news data using deep learningIJECEIAES
Fake news has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. The evolution of social websites has spurred the expansion of fake news causing it to a mixture with truthful information. English fake news detection had the largest share of studies, unlike Arabic fake news detection, which is still very limited. Fake news phenomenon has changed people and social perspectives through revolts in several Arab countries. False news results in the distortion of reality ignite chaos and stir public judgments. This paper provides an Arabic fake news detection approach using different deep learning models including long short-term memory and convolutional neural network based on article-headline pairs to differentiate if a news headline is in fact related or unrelated to the parallel news article. In this paper, a dataset created about the war in Syria and related to the Middle East political issues is utilized. The whole data comprises 422 claims and 3,042 articles. The models yield promising results.
The document provides an analysis of the January 6th 2021 Capitol riots using open-source intelligence (OSINT). It summarizes the context of recent riots in the US, describes how OSINT was used in the pre-event, during the event, and post-event periods. It analyzes social media data and identifies persons of interest. It also discusses how OSINT tools like social network analysis and automated social media monitoring can help law enforcement identify agitators and prevent future violence at demonstrations.
This document discusses the growing influence and potential threats of social media. It argues that while social media has enabled greater communication and mobilization, it can also be used to infringe privacy and destabilize governments if left unregulated. The document outlines how social media was used in events like the Arab Spring and recent protests. It suggests measures like monitoring, censorship, and identifying online influencers that countries could take to regulate social media and prevent its misuse. The document also discusses how social media has enabled new forms of currency like Bitcoin and their association with illegal activities like money laundering and terrorism financing on the dark web. It argues that if social media and new currencies are not properly governed, they could come to dominate the global order
Crowdsourcing crisis information in Kenya using mobile phones. The goals were to allow Kenyans to report violence via mobile phones, create an archive of related news/reports, and map where most violence occurred. Ushahidi was created in 2008 for this purpose and has since been used for mapping other crises and community issues in Kenya such as health services, stockouts of medicines, and monitoring events in Kibera.
Scraping the Social Graph with Ushahidi and SwiftRiverUshahidi
This document discusses Ushahidi, an open-source platform for crowdsourcing and visualizing data on maps. It was created in 2008 to allow Kenyans to report incidents via SMS during an election crisis. Ushahidi has since been used to monitor many global crises. The challenge is effectively managing the large amounts of real-time data. The SwiftRiver initiative aims to help discover credible information from public reports. It uses algorithms and a global trust database to augment but not define human decision making.
Civil Rights Division Report of Activity 2015 The pas.docxMARRY7
Civil Rights Division Report of Activity 2015
The past year proved to be very challenging on the civil rights front. The year 2015 saw more people in the United
States killed by right-wing and domestic Islamic extremists than in any year since 1995, the year of the Oklahoma
City bombing. The United States also experienced spikes in vitriolic dialogue and stalled reforms on immigration;
burgeoning hatred spread via the Internet and social media; violence against and ongoing challenges to the rights
of African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, women, LGBT communities and other minorities; legislative restrictions
on voting rights; and threats to religious freedom and educational equity. We also witnessed disturbing anti-
Semitic incidents and increased anti-Israel activity that often crossed the line into anti-Semitism.
Under the leadership of Chris Wolf, National Civil Rights Chair, and Deborah Lauter, Civil Rights Director, ADL
responded vigorously, promoting the civil rights and security of the Jewish community and all Americans,
addressing obstacles to justice and equality, responding to discrimination and bias, and investigating and
addressing the activities of extremist and terrorist groups and individuals. This report summarizes much of the
critical work done in 2015 by our attorneys, investigators, researchers, analysts and lay leaders to advocate,
investigate, litigate, legislate and educate.
ADL’s dual mission to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all” has
never been more relevant and important. As our new CEO and National Director, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote
when he took over leadership of ADL in July, “When fair treatment is secured for all, democracy is strengthened
and this is good for Jews and other minorities. And when Jews and other minorities can live safely and securely,
that is good for our country.”
If you would like further information about any of the information found below in this report, please go to our
website, http://www.adl.org which contains links to relevant programs and resources or contact us at
www.adl.org/contact.
CONTENTS (click on subject to go to page)
PROTECTING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY ........................................................................................................2
Anti-Semitism .............................................................................................................................................2
Anti-Israel Activity on Campus ...................................................................................................................2
Jewish Institutional Security ......................................................................................................................3
SECURING JUSTICE AND FAIR TREATMENT FOR ALL......................................................................................3
Anti-Muslim Prejudice................................. ...
AIDS/HIV Awareness through Maps and MashupsSusieQuinn
This assignment was created for the class LIBR 220 : Maps, GIS, and Map Librarianship, Fall Semester 2008, taught by Dr. Susan Aber at San José State University, School of Library and Information Management http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/.
The information discussed here highlight how visual information (map and cartogram displays) is helpful in making the public aware of health issues, specifically in AIDS / HIV.
This report analyzes data on security incidents and civilian casualties in Syria from January to October 2015 to determine which armed groups are causing the most harm. The key findings are:
1) The Government of Syria initiated the majority (72%) of security incidents and caused the most civilian casualties (77%), including the vast majority (81%) of women and children killed.
2) Opposition armed groups initiated 14% of incidents but caused 7% of civilian deaths. ISIS initiated 7% of incidents and caused 10% of civilian deaths.
3) Civilian populations most at risk are those living in opposition-controlled areas targeted by government forces, particularly in Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Idlib governorates.
This document provides a summary of a capstone project proposal for developing a social media plan for the Nevada Emergency Alert System (EAS). Key points:
- Social media has become an important tool for emergency communication during disasters due to its immediacy and ability to share information in real-time.
- The proposal recommends Nevada EAS develop a social media plan and presence to effectively utilize social media for mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery efforts.
- If implemented properly with training and practice, a social media plan could help Nevada EAS become a leader in using social media to communicate with the public during emergencies.
The document discusses the challenges of foreign state-sponsored disinformation in the digital age. It provides context on how disinformation spread on social media and Russian propaganda during the Ukraine conflict. The key points made are:
1) Social media has disrupted traditional media and allowed for easy spread of disinformation by states and individuals.
2) Disinformation exploits vulnerabilities in the information ecosystem, including how platforms are designed to optimize viral content, use of bots and fake accounts, and exploitation of human biases.
3) On average, false stories spread much more quickly than the truth on social media, especially for political topics, undermining trust in information. Understanding the interplay between technology, media and human behavior is needed to
Volunteer Mappers: Building community resilience with citizen mediaUshahidi
Building community resilience with citizen media
Canadian Risks and Hazards Conference
October 18, 2011
Presented by Heather Leson, Director of Community Engagement, Ushahidi
Intelligence collection methods are used by U.S. intelligence agencies to gather information and protect national security. Different agencies employ various collection disciplines including signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, and human intelligence. Open source intelligence is also widely used, accounting for 80-90% of information. Intelligence collection requires balancing resources, time constraints, and the needs of different agencies to provide policymakers with needed information through diverse techniques.
A FRAMEWORK FOR A SMART SOCIALBLOOD DONATION SYSTEM BASEDON MOBILE CLOUD COMP...hiij
Blood Donation and Blood Transfusion Services (BTS) are crucial for saving people’s lives. Recently,
worldwide efforts have been undertaken to utilize social media and smartphone applications to make the
blood donation process more convenient, offer additional services, and create communities around blood
donation centers. Blood banks suffer frequent shortage of blood;hence, advertisements are frequently seen
on social networks urging healthy individuals to donate blood for patients who urgently require blood
transfusion. The blood donation processusuallyconsumesa lot of time and effort from both donors and
medical staff since there is no concrete information system that allows donorsand blood donation centers
communicate efficiently and coordinate with each other tominimize time and effort required for blood
donation process. Moreover, most blood banks work in isolation and are not integrated with other blood
donation centers and health organizations which affect the blood donation and blood transfusion services’
quality. This work aims at developing a Blood Donation System (BDS) based on the cutting-edge
information technologies of cloud computing and mobile computing. The proposedsystem facilitates
communication between blood donorsand blood donation centers and integrates the blood information
dispersed among different blood donation centers and health organizations acrossa country.Stakeholders
will be able to use the BDS as an application installed on their smartphones to help them complete the
blood donation process with minimal effort and time. Thisapplication helps people receive notifications on
urgent blood donation calls, know their eligibility to give blood, search for the nearest blood center, and
reserve a convenient appointment using temporal and/or spatial information. It also helps establish a blood
donation community through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Privacy, Security and Motivation of CrowdsUshahidi
Ushahidi is an open-source platform for crowdsourcing and mapping data. It was created in 2008 during unrest in Kenya to allow citizens to report incidents via SMS. Ushahidi has since been used in major crises around the world. As data collected grows, organizations face challenges in managing real-time data and discovering credible information. The SwiftRiver initiative aims to help organizations address these issues. Effective crowdsourcing relies on existing social networks and building trust through transparency, consent, and protecting privacy and identity while verifying reported data. Motivating participation includes making it easy with low risk of failure while offering social benefits.
Technology has enabled new types of white-collar crimes and increased opportunities for traditional crimes. Criminals can now commit embezzlement, corporate espionage, and identity theft more efficiently using tools like viruses and social media monitoring. Victims of these technology-enabled crimes can suffer devastating financial and personal effects due to the wealth of data available online. Law enforcement aims to address these issues by using surveillance technology and data mining tools to uncover criminal plans and activities in online conversations and vast amounts of information.
The document discusses the rise of new media and citizen journalism. It provides examples of how social media and mobile technologies have enabled ordinary people to actively participate in sharing news and information, especially in times of crisis or political unrest. New media tools like Twitter, YouTube, and Ushahidi have allowed protesters in Iran and Haiti to spread information and coordinate efforts when traditional media was restricted or non-existent.
The document discusses the rise of new media and citizen journalism. It provides examples of how social media and mobile technologies have enabled ordinary people to actively participate in sharing news and information, especially in times of crisis or political unrest. New media tools like Twitter, YouTube, and Ushahidi have allowed protesters in Iran and Haiti to spread information and coordinate efforts when traditional media was restricted or shut down.
Analysis of sources and effect of fake news on society Arpit Khurana
This report reviews the relevant literature to provide a definition of fake news, its potential impact and recent responses to this phenomenon. Finally, the report provides a summary of the research and important findings concerning fake news in the conclusion.
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
The document is a study guide for the Human Rights Council that discusses two topics: the right to privacy in the digital age and addressing the increase in domestic violence. For topic A on the right to privacy, the summary provides background on worldwide surveillance programs like the Five Eyes alliance and how digital technology has impacted privacy. It outlines different bloc positions, with China and Russia expressing concerns about privacy violations and data collection, while the UK and US take different regulatory approaches. The timeline highlights key events in surveillance programs and social media privacy issues.
Fake news detection for Arabic headlines-articles news data using deep learningIJECEIAES
Fake news has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. The evolution of social websites has spurred the expansion of fake news causing it to a mixture with truthful information. English fake news detection had the largest share of studies, unlike Arabic fake news detection, which is still very limited. Fake news phenomenon has changed people and social perspectives through revolts in several Arab countries. False news results in the distortion of reality ignite chaos and stir public judgments. This paper provides an Arabic fake news detection approach using different deep learning models including long short-term memory and convolutional neural network based on article-headline pairs to differentiate if a news headline is in fact related or unrelated to the parallel news article. In this paper, a dataset created about the war in Syria and related to the Middle East political issues is utilized. The whole data comprises 422 claims and 3,042 articles. The models yield promising results.
The document provides an analysis of the January 6th 2021 Capitol riots using open-source intelligence (OSINT). It summarizes the context of recent riots in the US, describes how OSINT was used in the pre-event, during the event, and post-event periods. It analyzes social media data and identifies persons of interest. It also discusses how OSINT tools like social network analysis and automated social media monitoring can help law enforcement identify agitators and prevent future violence at demonstrations.
This document discusses the growing influence and potential threats of social media. It argues that while social media has enabled greater communication and mobilization, it can also be used to infringe privacy and destabilize governments if left unregulated. The document outlines how social media was used in events like the Arab Spring and recent protests. It suggests measures like monitoring, censorship, and identifying online influencers that countries could take to regulate social media and prevent its misuse. The document also discusses how social media has enabled new forms of currency like Bitcoin and their association with illegal activities like money laundering and terrorism financing on the dark web. It argues that if social media and new currencies are not properly governed, they could come to dominate the global order
Crowdsourcing crisis information in Kenya using mobile phones. The goals were to allow Kenyans to report violence via mobile phones, create an archive of related news/reports, and map where most violence occurred. Ushahidi was created in 2008 for this purpose and has since been used for mapping other crises and community issues in Kenya such as health services, stockouts of medicines, and monitoring events in Kibera.
Scraping the Social Graph with Ushahidi and SwiftRiverUshahidi
This document discusses Ushahidi, an open-source platform for crowdsourcing and visualizing data on maps. It was created in 2008 to allow Kenyans to report incidents via SMS during an election crisis. Ushahidi has since been used to monitor many global crises. The challenge is effectively managing the large amounts of real-time data. The SwiftRiver initiative aims to help discover credible information from public reports. It uses algorithms and a global trust database to augment but not define human decision making.
Civil Rights Division Report of Activity 2015 The pas.docxMARRY7
Civil Rights Division Report of Activity 2015
The past year proved to be very challenging on the civil rights front. The year 2015 saw more people in the United
States killed by right-wing and domestic Islamic extremists than in any year since 1995, the year of the Oklahoma
City bombing. The United States also experienced spikes in vitriolic dialogue and stalled reforms on immigration;
burgeoning hatred spread via the Internet and social media; violence against and ongoing challenges to the rights
of African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, women, LGBT communities and other minorities; legislative restrictions
on voting rights; and threats to religious freedom and educational equity. We also witnessed disturbing anti-
Semitic incidents and increased anti-Israel activity that often crossed the line into anti-Semitism.
Under the leadership of Chris Wolf, National Civil Rights Chair, and Deborah Lauter, Civil Rights Director, ADL
responded vigorously, promoting the civil rights and security of the Jewish community and all Americans,
addressing obstacles to justice and equality, responding to discrimination and bias, and investigating and
addressing the activities of extremist and terrorist groups and individuals. This report summarizes much of the
critical work done in 2015 by our attorneys, investigators, researchers, analysts and lay leaders to advocate,
investigate, litigate, legislate and educate.
ADL’s dual mission to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all” has
never been more relevant and important. As our new CEO and National Director, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote
when he took over leadership of ADL in July, “When fair treatment is secured for all, democracy is strengthened
and this is good for Jews and other minorities. And when Jews and other minorities can live safely and securely,
that is good for our country.”
If you would like further information about any of the information found below in this report, please go to our
website, http://www.adl.org which contains links to relevant programs and resources or contact us at
www.adl.org/contact.
CONTENTS (click on subject to go to page)
PROTECTING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY ........................................................................................................2
Anti-Semitism .............................................................................................................................................2
Anti-Israel Activity on Campus ...................................................................................................................2
Jewish Institutional Security ......................................................................................................................3
SECURING JUSTICE AND FAIR TREATMENT FOR ALL......................................................................................3
Anti-Muslim Prejudice................................. ...
AIDS/HIV Awareness through Maps and MashupsSusieQuinn
This assignment was created for the class LIBR 220 : Maps, GIS, and Map Librarianship, Fall Semester 2008, taught by Dr. Susan Aber at San José State University, School of Library and Information Management http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/.
The information discussed here highlight how visual information (map and cartogram displays) is helpful in making the public aware of health issues, specifically in AIDS / HIV.
This report analyzes data on security incidents and civilian casualties in Syria from January to October 2015 to determine which armed groups are causing the most harm. The key findings are:
1) The Government of Syria initiated the majority (72%) of security incidents and caused the most civilian casualties (77%), including the vast majority (81%) of women and children killed.
2) Opposition armed groups initiated 14% of incidents but caused 7% of civilian deaths. ISIS initiated 7% of incidents and caused 10% of civilian deaths.
3) Civilian populations most at risk are those living in opposition-controlled areas targeted by government forces, particularly in Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Idlib governorates.
This document provides a summary of a capstone project proposal for developing a social media plan for the Nevada Emergency Alert System (EAS). Key points:
- Social media has become an important tool for emergency communication during disasters due to its immediacy and ability to share information in real-time.
- The proposal recommends Nevada EAS develop a social media plan and presence to effectively utilize social media for mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery efforts.
- If implemented properly with training and practice, a social media plan could help Nevada EAS become a leader in using social media to communicate with the public during emergencies.
The document discusses the challenges of foreign state-sponsored disinformation in the digital age. It provides context on how disinformation spread on social media and Russian propaganda during the Ukraine conflict. The key points made are:
1) Social media has disrupted traditional media and allowed for easy spread of disinformation by states and individuals.
2) Disinformation exploits vulnerabilities in the information ecosystem, including how platforms are designed to optimize viral content, use of bots and fake accounts, and exploitation of human biases.
3) On average, false stories spread much more quickly than the truth on social media, especially for political topics, undermining trust in information. Understanding the interplay between technology, media and human behavior is needed to
Volunteer Mappers: Building community resilience with citizen mediaUshahidi
Building community resilience with citizen media
Canadian Risks and Hazards Conference
October 18, 2011
Presented by Heather Leson, Director of Community Engagement, Ushahidi
Intelligence collection methods are used by U.S. intelligence agencies to gather information and protect national security. Different agencies employ various collection disciplines including signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, and human intelligence. Open source intelligence is also widely used, accounting for 80-90% of information. Intelligence collection requires balancing resources, time constraints, and the needs of different agencies to provide policymakers with needed information through diverse techniques.
A FRAMEWORK FOR A SMART SOCIALBLOOD DONATION SYSTEM BASEDON MOBILE CLOUD COMP...hiij
Blood Donation and Blood Transfusion Services (BTS) are crucial for saving people’s lives. Recently,
worldwide efforts have been undertaken to utilize social media and smartphone applications to make the
blood donation process more convenient, offer additional services, and create communities around blood
donation centers. Blood banks suffer frequent shortage of blood;hence, advertisements are frequently seen
on social networks urging healthy individuals to donate blood for patients who urgently require blood
transfusion. The blood donation processusuallyconsumesa lot of time and effort from both donors and
medical staff since there is no concrete information system that allows donorsand blood donation centers
communicate efficiently and coordinate with each other tominimize time and effort required for blood
donation process. Moreover, most blood banks work in isolation and are not integrated with other blood
donation centers and health organizations which affect the blood donation and blood transfusion services’
quality. This work aims at developing a Blood Donation System (BDS) based on the cutting-edge
information technologies of cloud computing and mobile computing. The proposedsystem facilitates
communication between blood donorsand blood donation centers and integrates the blood information
dispersed among different blood donation centers and health organizations acrossa country.Stakeholders
will be able to use the BDS as an application installed on their smartphones to help them complete the
blood donation process with minimal effort and time. Thisapplication helps people receive notifications on
urgent blood donation calls, know their eligibility to give blood, search for the nearest blood center, and
reserve a convenient appointment using temporal and/or spatial information. It also helps establish a blood
donation community through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Privacy, Security and Motivation of CrowdsUshahidi
Ushahidi is an open-source platform for crowdsourcing and mapping data. It was created in 2008 during unrest in Kenya to allow citizens to report incidents via SMS. Ushahidi has since been used in major crises around the world. As data collected grows, organizations face challenges in managing real-time data and discovering credible information. The SwiftRiver initiative aims to help organizations address these issues. Effective crowdsourcing relies on existing social networks and building trust through transparency, consent, and protecting privacy and identity while verifying reported data. Motivating participation includes making it easy with low risk of failure while offering social benefits.
Technology has enabled new types of white-collar crimes and increased opportunities for traditional crimes. Criminals can now commit embezzlement, corporate espionage, and identity theft more efficiently using tools like viruses and social media monitoring. Victims of these technology-enabled crimes can suffer devastating financial and personal effects due to the wealth of data available online. Law enforcement aims to address these issues by using surveillance technology and data mining tools to uncover criminal plans and activities in online conversations and vast amounts of information.
The document discusses the rise of new media and citizen journalism. It provides examples of how social media and mobile technologies have enabled ordinary people to actively participate in sharing news and information, especially in times of crisis or political unrest. New media tools like Twitter, YouTube, and Ushahidi have allowed protesters in Iran and Haiti to spread information and coordinate efforts when traditional media was restricted or non-existent.
The document discusses the rise of new media and citizen journalism. It provides examples of how social media and mobile technologies have enabled ordinary people to actively participate in sharing news and information, especially in times of crisis or political unrest. New media tools like Twitter, YouTube, and Ushahidi have allowed protesters in Iran and Haiti to spread information and coordinate efforts when traditional media was restricted or shut down.
Analysis of sources and effect of fake news on society Arpit Khurana
This report reviews the relevant literature to provide a definition of fake news, its potential impact and recent responses to this phenomenon. Finally, the report provides a summary of the research and important findings concerning fake news in the conclusion.
Similar to Syria Tracker: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information (20)
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
Goodbye Windows 11: Make Way for Nitrux Linux 3.5.0!SOFTTECHHUB
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Syria Tracker: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information
1. Syria Tracker: Crowdsourcing Crisis
Information
Taha Kass-Hout MD MS 1, Hend Alhinnawi MA 1, Leila Samy, MPH 1, Jeanne B. Kamali 2,
Patrick Meier PhD 2,3, David Scales MD, PhD 4,5,6, Clark C. Freifeld, MS 4,5,6, John S.
Brownstein, PhD 4,5,6,7, and David Kaye, JD 8
1 Syria Tracker, United States of America
2 International Network of Crisis Mappers
3 Ushahidi, Nairobi, Kenya
4 Children's Hospital Informatics Program at Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Division of
Health Sciences and Technology, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
5 Division of Emergency Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of
America
6 HealthMap, United States of America
7 Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
8 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, United States of America
January 5, 2012
Background: Syrian activists, Arab and international human rights organizations and journalists
have been collecting information to document crimes committed by the Syrian security forces
against Syrian citizens. YouTube videos, reports by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO),
demanded of the United Nations (UN), interview transcripts, and news reports: all such sources
of information exist independently, left unorganized and thus unable to make an optimal impact
on advocacy for an international response to the crisis in Syria. This website, Syria Tracker, was
developed to leverage information that is produced by citizen reporters and in collaboration with
a variety of entities and made publicly available in disparate locations to produce a free
centralized source of information. Hereinafter, we refer to this method of harnessing labor and
information contributed by a large group of people as opposed to an employee or an expert
contractor as crowdsourcing.
Ushahidi: The near-ubiquity of cell phones worldwide and enhanced access to the Internet over
the past few years indicates that the world can hear about and respond to reports of events
taking place, even inside repressive regimes. This activity and reactivity may occur in near real-
time. Individuals around the world can access volumes of data made easily digestible to a
diverse audience through live maps and other visualization techniques. Ushahidi, a small, non-
profit technology company based in Kenya provides free and open source software as a
platform through which one can leverage crowdsourced reports to generate live maps. At the
bleeding edge of new practices deploying live maps in conflict and crisis situations, Ushahidi
first launched its platform in 2008, which was used (in combination with Short Message Service
(SMS)) to document rising human rights violations and post-election violence in Kenya. In
2010, Ushahidi released Crowdmap, a public implementation of the Ushahidi platform hosted in
the Internet cloud. Anyone can construct a basic Crowdmap within minutes, centered upon the
location and extent of one’s choice, and generated with relevant, user-defined categories that
best fit the context. Subsequently, interested users around the world have generated thousands
of individual Crowdmaps tracking events or relief needed; such as tracking: oil spills, election
intimidation, corruption, tornados, power outages, civil wars, and food and water requests after
an earthquake.
2. The web-based Crowdmap allows users to crowdsource information from multiple channels,
such as email, Twitter, YouTube videos, online news, syndicated feeds (such as Really Simple
Syndication (or RSS)), webform, or mobile apps, among others. The Standby Task Force
(SBTF) (http://blog.standbytaskforce.com), an online volunteer community established at the
second annual International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM)
(http://www.CrisisMappers.net) in October, 2010, was activated in April 2011 for 2 weeks to help
Syria Tracker cope with the initial surge of crisis events from Syria.
Methodology: Using Ushahidi’s Crowdmap product, we developed Syria Tracker [See Figure 1:
http://syriatracker.crowdmap.com] to be a crowdsourced effort where citizen reporters on the
ground or abroad are reporting crimes in Syria either via direct web entry [See Figure 2], by
sending reports via email to syriatracker@gmail.com, by tagging their tweets with
#basharcrimes, or by leaving a voice message to US-based number “+1 931 682 6708”.
Additionally, at the beginning of the effort Syria Tracker adopted a Speak2Tweet service
(http://twitter.com/speak2tweet) that was developed by Google in light of the January 25 events
in Egypt. The service accepted voice messages from Syria to either “+16 50 4194 196” or “+39
06 62207 294” or “+44 20 3318 4514” and automatically posted the recorded messages to
twitter with hashtag #Syria.
Syria Tracker also incorporates complementary situation awareness information (news, blogs,
Facebook posts, etc.) from the HealthMap system [1-3], hereinafter referred to as “HealthMap
Crisis”. HealthMap is an information system that tracks disease outbreaks using unofficial
reports (e.g., informal interviews of clinicians, web-based health-related articles by news media,
amateur blogs). HealthMap Crisis was tailored to mine information in English for evidence of
crises (e.g., killing, torture, detainment). HealthMap Crisis is provided as a news stream that is
available to the public on the Syria Tracker’s website. Syria Tracker is collaborating with the
following crowdsourced efforts to further validate and disseminate the information: Middle East
Voices (Voice of America http://middleeastvoices.com/map-of-deaths-in-syrian-uprising-beta),
Syrian Martyrs اﻟﺳورﯾﺔ اﻟﺛورة ﺷﮭداء (http://syrianshuhada.com), Silmya (http://silmya.org), and Syrian
Youth Movement (http://mar15.info).
4. Figure 2: Submission via the Web
Syria Tracker provides a “voting” capability for eyewitness reports so that any ones with low
confidence levels can be identified by the community. Names of victims have been collected as
frequently as possible to reduce the chance of duplicate reports and to support the UN Human
Rights Council recommendations for documenting the crimes for future investigation.
Results: Syria Tracker was launched on April 23, 2011 and, as of January 9, 2012, has been
able to log aggregate or individual reports since March 18, 2011, including 550 reports for the
category “Killed (لِﺗُﻗ)” and 356 reports for the category “Missing-ﻣﻔﻘود or Detained-ﻌﺗﻘلُﻣ”. A total of
6,317 individuals killed [See Figure 3] over 286 days (March 18, 2011 thru January 8, 2012)
were documented and verified. Killing ranged from 1-210 killings per day (median of 17.5 (95%
CI:14-19)), in 463 cities [See Table 1], affecting all age groups (median age of 36 years old
(95% CI: 27-45)) with 427 individuals (~7%) less than or equal to 18 years old [See Figure 4],
and 289 individuals were female (~5%) and 6,028 were male (~95%).
Depending on the levels of violence in Syria, the typical amount of time for an eyewitness report
is 1-3 days, and aggregate reports are developed once a week. More than 88% of the current
6,317 entries in the Syria Tracker database through Jan 9, 2012 have names associated with
them, although in some of the more violent periods counts were located to sub-portions of the
city and dates to reduce the chance of duplicate reports.
Change Point Analysis (or CPA) [4] identified the following significant changes in the time series
[See Figure 3]: 74 individuals killed on 4/8/2011, 57 individuals killed on April 22, 2011, 162
individuals killed on April 29, 2011, 65 individuals killed on May 1, 2011, 33 individuals killed on
June 2, 2011,86 individuals killed on June 3, 2011, 56 individuals killed on 6/5/2011, 210
individuals killed on 6/10/2011, 140 individuals killed on July 31, 2011, 144 individuals killed on
5. August 7, 2011, 74 individuals killed on October 28, 2011, 122 individuals killed on December
19, 2011, and 146 individuals killed on December 20, 2011. As of January 8, 2012, a total of
407 killings have been documented since the Arab League observers began arriving in Syria on
December 26, 2011 to check on implementation of an Arab peace plan.
6. Figure 3: Total Number Killed in Syria Per Day, Mar 18, 2011 - Jan 8, 2012, Source: Syria
Tracker
7. Table 1: Top 20 Cities with Most Documented Killings, Source: Syria Tracker
City
English Arabic
Count
Hamah ﺣﻣﺎة 421
Hims ﺣﻣص 274
Baba Amr, Hims ﻋﻣر ﺑﺎﺑﺎوﺣﻣص ، 271
Daraa درﻋﺎ 258
Ar Rastan, Hims اﻟرﺳﺗنﺣﻣص ، 250
Jisr Ash-Shughur, Idlib اﻟﺷﻐور ﺟﺳرإدﻟب ، 232
Dayr az-Zawr اﻟزور دﯾر 197
Al Khaldeeye, Hims اﻟﺧﺎﻟدﯾﺔﺣﻣص ، 166
Al Hawleh, Hims اﻟﺣوﻟﺔ 138
Al Bayada, Hims اﻟﺑﯾﺎﺿﺔﺣﻣص ، 137
Al Qusayr, Hims اﻟﻘﺻﯾرﺣﻣص ، 132
Duma, Damascus Suburbs دوﻣﺎدﻣﺷق رﯾف ، 117
Dayr Baalaba, Hims ﺑﻌ دﯾرﻠﺑﺔﺣﻣص ، 104
Kafr Owayd, Idlib ﻛﻔرﻋوﯾدإدﻟب ، 103
Karam el-Zeitoun, Hims اﻟزﯾﺗو ﻛرمنﺣﻣص ، 102
Bab Alsebaa, Hims ﺳﺑﺎع ﺑﺎبﺣﻣص ، 99
Talbisah, Hims ﺗﻠﺑﯾﺳﺔﺣﻣص ، 90
Kansafra, Idlib ﻛﻧﺻﻔرةإدﻟب ، 88
Latakia اﻟﻼذﻗﯾﺔ 84
Talkalakh, Hims ﺗﻠﻛﻠﺦﺣﻣص ، 84
8. Figure 4: Syria Tracker: Age Distribution for Individuals Killed in Syria, Mar 18, 2011 thru Jan 8,
2012, Source: Syria Tracker
Reports in Syria Tracker were translated, georeferenced, coded and verified against other
sources or online posts [See Table 2].
9. Table 2: Validation Sources Used to Validate Reports in Syria Tracker
Validation Source (English Translation) Validation Source (Arabic) Validated Reports
Martyrs on Facebook ﻓﯾﺳﺑوك ﻋﻠﻰ ﺷﮭداء 2447
Martyrs from the beginning of the revolution اﻟﺛورة ﺑداﯾﺔ ﻣﻧذ ﺷﮭداء 931
Facebook ﻓﯾﺳﺑوك 869
Commission اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔ 559
The commission and On Islam و اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔاﻹﺳﻼم ﻋن 541
On Islam اﻹﺳﻼم ﻋن 231
The Syrian Revolution اﻟ اﻟﺛورةﺳورﯾﺔ 230
The Nation اﻟوطن 167
Local coordination committees اﻟﻣﺣﻠﯾﺔ اﻟﺗﻧﺳﯾق ﻟﺟﺎن 78
Email ) اﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾدإﯾﻣﯾل( 66
Aljazeera اﻟﺟزﯾرة 65
Friends of Humanity International اﻟدوﻟﯾﺔ اﻹﻧﺳﺎن أﺻدﻗﺎء 50
The committee and Facebook وﻓﯾﺳﺑوك اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔ 13
Orient اﻟﺷرق()أورﯾﻧت 11
YouTube اﻟﯾوﺗوب 12
Martyrs on Facebook and Email ﻓﯾﺳﺑوك ﻋﻠﻰ ﺷﮭداءواﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 9
Syrian Rights اﻟﺳورﯾﺔ اﻟﺣﻘوق 8
Baba Amr martyrs on Facebook ﻓﯾﺳﺑوك ﻋﻣرﻋﻠﻰ ﺑﺎﺑﺎ ﺷﮭداء 6
The committee and Rights واﻟﺣﻘو اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔق 4
Freedom martyrs on Facebook ﺑوك ﻓﯾس اﻟﺣرﯾﺔ ﺷﮭداء 4
The commission and On Islam and email و اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔاﻹﺳﻼم ﻋنواﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 3
Facebook and Email و ﻓﯾﺳﺑوكاﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 3
The committee and Email و اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔاﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 2
The committee and Facebook and Rights واﻟﺣﻘوق وﻓﯾﺳﺑوك اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔ 2
Facebook committees اﻟﻔﯾﺳﺑوك ﻟﺟﺎن 2
The committee and Facebook and Email وﻓﯾﺳﺑوك اﻟﻠﺟﻧﺔواﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 1
Barada ﺑردى 1
Martyrs from the beginning of the revolution and
Martyrs on Facebook
ﺷﮭداء و اﻟﺛورة ﺑداﯾﺔ ﻣﻧذ ﺷﮭداءﻋﻠﻰﻓﯾﺳﺑوك 1
Martyrs on Facebook and Email ﺷﮭداء ﻓﯾﺳﺑوكواﻹﻟﻛﺗروﻧﻲ اﻟﺑرﯾد 1
10. As of December 12, 2011, Syria Tracker had received visits from 1,071 cities (with the top three
being: Damascus Syria, Washington DC, and Riyadh Saudi Arabia) in 114 countries (~91% of
the visits from Syria were new visits). Approximately, 30% of the traffic to Syria Tracker was
indirect. For example, search engine results link to Syria Tracker for inquiries into specific
events or searches for loved ones that are missing or killed; and, ~65% direct or referral traffic
from other news outlets, social networking sites, or humanitarian websites (Voice of America,
Amnesty International, Major News Agencies, etc).
HealthMap endeavored to draw information from the widest range of media sources [See Table
3 and Figure 5] possible to reduce any potential reporting biases from news media with certain
political slants. From June 13, 2011, when HealthMap began providing meaningful data for
Syria Tracker, to January 8, 2012, over 43,000 news and blog articles were collected, drawing
from almost 2,000 unique sources writing in English across the globe. More than half of the
sources contributed four or more reports to the database [See Figure 5]. Sky News, Press TV
and the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) were excluded from data collection from June 30,
2011, though other pro-regime news sources remained.
11. Figure 5: Top 100 sources of HealthMap alerts by media type. Aggregators do not provide
original content but simply aggregate news from other sources. Online news sources are those
that use the Internet as the primary means for news dissemination.
12. Table 3: HealthMap Crisis Google News Query List
HealthMap Crisis Google News Query List
intitle:syria "dier al zour" OR "dayr al zour" OR "deir al zour" OR "dier az zour" OR "dier ez zour"
OR "dayr az zour" OR "dayr ez zour" OR "deir az zour" OR "deir ez zour" OR "dier al zawr" OR
"dier al zaur" OR "dier al zor" OR "dier al zur"
intitle:syrian "dier al zour" OR "dayr al zour" OR "deir al zour" OR "dier az zour" OR "dier ez
zour" OR "dayr az zour" OR "dayr ez zour" OR "deir az zour" OR "deir ez zour" OR "dier al
zawr" OR "dier al zaur" OR "dier al zor" OR "dier al zur"
intitle:"al assad" "dier al zour" OR "dayr al zour" OR "deir al zour" OR "dier az zour" OR "dier ez
zour" OR "dayr az zour" OR "dayr ez zour" OR "deir az zour" OR "deir ez zour" OR "dier al
zawr" OR "dier al zaur" OR "dier al zor" OR "dier al zur"
intitle:syria missing OR killed OR shaheed OR martyr OR arrested OR eyewitness OR report
OR basharcrimes OR daraa OR dera'a OR dara'a OR dara3a OR hims OR homs OR latakia
OR lattakia OR latakiyah
intitle:syrian missing OR killed OR shaheed OR martyr OR arrested OR eyewitness OR report
OR basharcrimes OR daraa OR dera'a OR dara'a OR dara3a OR hims OR homs OR latakia
OR lattakia OR latakiyah
intitle:"al assad" missing OR killed OR shaheed OR martyr OR arrested OR eyewitness OR
report OR basharcrimes OR daraa OR dera'a OR dara'a OR dara3a OR hims OR homs OR
latakia OR lattakia OR latakiyah
intitle:syria damascus OR damas OR baniyas OR banyas OR tartus OR jableh OR jabla OR
jebleh OR jabala OR jablah OR jabala OR zabadani OR harrasta OR harasta OR daraya OR
darayya OR daraiya OR darayia
intitle:syrian damascus OR damas OR baniyas OR banyas OR tartus OR jableh OR jabla OR
jebleh OR jabala OR jablah OR jabala OR zabadani OR harrasta OR harasta OR daraya OR
darayya OR daraiya OR darayia
intitle:"al assad" damascus OR damas OR baniyas OR banyas OR tartus OR jableh OR jabla
OR jebleh OR jabala OR jablah OR jabala OR zabadani OR harrasta OR harasta OR daraya
OR darayya OR daraiya OR darayia
intitle:syria zgharta OR madaya OR qaboon OR ba'alba OR hauran OR horan OR hawran OR
houran OR "abu kamal" OR "bou kamal"
intitle:syrian zgharta OR madaya OR qaboon OR ba'alba OR hauran OR horan OR hawran OR
houran OR "abu kamal" OR "bou kamal"
intitle:"al assad" zgharta OR madaya OR qaboon OR ba'alba OR hauran OR horan OR hawran
OR houran OR "abu kamal" OR "bou kamal"
intitle:syria douma -lebanon
intitle:syrian douma -lebanon
intitle:"al assad" douma -lebanon
intitle:syria hama -boureima
intitle:syrian hama –boureima
intitle:"al assad" hama -boureima
While duplicate articles were common, particularly syndicated articles from news agencies, the
range of sources was large. The top 100 media contributors represent sources headquartered in
33 different countries, making up 25,301 events, or 54.5% of the total events collected during
the time period. CPA identified the following significant events covered by media during the
course of the unrest in Syria from June 13 thru December 12, 2011 [See Table 4 and Figure 6]
13. Table 4: Significant events covered by media during the course of the unrest in Syria from June
13 thru December 12, 2011 as identified by Change Point Analysis
Date Significant Events Covered by Media
7/17/2011 3 dominating events:
● Attack in Zabadani and arrest of 500 by government
● Attack in Albukamal and the government having to losing the battle
● Meeting of opposition in Turkey to form the National Salvation Council
● The other events are less important:
○ Funerals in Damascus
○ Carnival in Damascus
○ Killings in Homs
7/31/2011 ● Major operations in Hama with killing between 40 and 120
● Hague, UA, France, UK condemn killing
8/20/2011 ● Tanks, shelling, killing in Homs
● Assad plans to address
● Iran appoints new ambassador
8/31/2011 ● Large number killed during Ramadan
● Government sweeps through Hama after Ramadan
● 88 killed during torture
● Attorney general resign
● Sanctions against the regime build up
9/17/2011 ● More resort to violence by protestors
● Large number killed that weekend: 20-40
● Jordanian-Palestinian Mossad spy helped Israel kill Hezbollah chief
● Opposition meets in Damascus countryside
● Refugees in Lebanon reach 4000
● Hussein Harmoush retracts his statements
● Russia active diplomatically trying to broker talks
9/27/2011 ● Lots do discussion of the position of Christians: leadership and community
● The formation of free army units
● Attack on Rastan where unit of free army is active
● Economic talk: Syria stops imports, oil export stops, worry about economic
collapse
● Killing of Zainab Housni
● Transitional counsel opens office in turkey
10/28/2011 ● 40-44 killed
● Protestors demand no-fly zone
● US firm admits aiding Assad Internet monitoring
● Assad meets Nasrallah and they disagree on funding the tribunal
● Syria adds ruble and yuan to convertible currencies
● Syrian free army active
11/13/2011 The repercussions to the suspension of Syria's membership in the Arab league:
● Attacks on embassies in Damascus: Qatari, Saudi, Turkish, French
14. ● Syria asks for a summit
● Russia to continue supporting Syria with arms
● Some opposition criticizes the suspension as internationalization of the
Syria issue
● UN welcomes the suspension
Figure 6: HealthMap Crisis: Syria Events per Day, June 13, 2011 - January 8, 2012. Red points
represent significant events covered by the media as identified by Change Point Analysis
(CPA).
Conclusion
Since April 23, 2011, the Syria Tracker (http://syriatracker.crowdmap.com) crowdsourcing
application has been collecting citizen reports of crimes against humanity as part of the Syrian
protests for reform. Supplementing these reports with multiple sources for verification, Syria
Tracker consolidates these eyewitness reports with, advanced mining and aggregation of
English news feeds, statistical reports and visualizations in Arabic and English. But Syria
Tracker’s ultimate goal is not to provide numbers, but to preserve the name, and the location of
each victim in this unfolding tragedy so that they will not have died in vain. Whenever possible,
each death is also linked with photo and video evidence which, although it may be graphic and
disturbing, does support the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Council to create a
documented record so that these crimes will not be forgotten.
A single place to pull disparate reports on human rights violations together in a crowdsourced
way is crucial to make sense of the broader pattern of abuse and demonstrate a widespread
and systematic attack on civilians, the legal qualification of crimes against humanity. Syria
Tracker documented and mapped thousands of reports. We hope these documentations serve
as an evidence on where harm was inflicted upon citizens in Syria. This is important in order to
change the nature of advocacy around the plight of the Syrian people – and not only advocacy,
15. but also long-term thinking about a post-Assad Administration transitional justice and shorter-
term thinking about accountability for the most senior members of the regime.
16. References
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