crowdsourcing and rumour: the double-edged sword of icts in conflict situations

Guy Collender, Senior Communications Officer,London International Development Centre

Crowdsourcing and rumour: The double-edged sword of ICTs in conflict situations

ICT: Africa’s Revolutionary Tools for the 21st Century? Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, 5 May 2010

Overview

• ICT experiment: audience participation required!• Changing ICT landscape• Birth and spread of crowdsourcing• Assessment of crowdsourcing• Mobile phones: Positive and negative implications• Conclusion: Complexity and convergence

ICT experiment

2. Online news

4. Text message3. Facebook/Twitter

1. Radio/TV

Changing ICT landscape

• Traditional media (TV/radio): One-to-many

• Social networking (Twitter, Ushahidi.com): Many-to-many

Crowdsourcing: Birth of Ushahidi.com

• Context: Violent aftermath of disputed Kenyan election 2007 o 1,000 killed and 600,000 displaced in six weeks

• Kenyan Pundit blog posting and response• Real-time, map-based view of incidents: riots, deaths,

rapes • Submission via email/texts, verification with NGOs

15 houses have been burnt in Molo/ Kuresoi area

Ushahidi

Assessement of Ushahidi in Kenya

• Ushahidi's strengths compared with mainstream media and cititzen journalism (Meier 2008).

• Democratising information (Hersman 2008)

• "Truth is not guaranteed - but the idea behind crowdsourcing is that with enough volume, a 'truth' emerges that diminishes any false reports." Ory Okolloh, Ushahidi

• Lack of local awareness: "We were not able to reach a critical mass of people in the country." Juliana Rotich, Ushahidi

• Pioneering platform: Replicated internationally

Beyond Kenya: Growth of Ushahidi platform

2008: Xenophobic attacks in South Africa; Violence in DRC2009: War on Gaza; Indian election; Swine flu2010: Sudanese elections

Pros and cons of crowdsourcing

• + Aggregates information to create comprehensive picture

• + Real-time on-the-ground coverage• + Circumvents censorship • + Global reach• - Unfiltered information: Misleading/propaganda• - Inequalities of access (rich/poor, local/global) • +/- Speed• +/- Anonymity • Importance of context

Future of crowdsourcing

• Gathering datao Validating and filtering crowdsourced information

(open source software platform SwiftRiver) o Variations: Open crowdsourcing, ‘bounded’

crowdsourcing (War on Gaza) • Disseminating data

o Subscription to specific location alerts (‘crowdfeeding')

• Reaction by the authoritieso Screening of content increasingly likely

Mobile phones: Spreading rumours• Text messages fanned the flames in

post-election Kenya (Osborn 2008), "weapon of war" (Bangre 2008)

• Rumours included:o Alert! Mungiki r hitting back n

slaughtering our pple ... Mungiki terror gang plan massacre by night raids

• Rumours were frequently perceived as truths in Kibera

• Government or media accounts were dismissed as propaganda

Mobile phones: Lifelines

• Irish charity Concern used M-PESA to transfer nearly three million Kenyan shillings to affected communities after Kenyan election

• Mobile phones enhance personal security in conflict/post-conflict settings

• Télécoms Sans Frontières: Communication hubs serve NGOs/affected communities during crises

• Interaction with other ICTs: Integral to Ushahidi.com etc

Complexity and convergence• Crowdsourcing/mobiles

supplement existing media

• Increasing convergence/ interaction between ICTs

• Importance of emotional/social responses (ICT experiment)

• Revolutionary tools = catalyst for revolutionary impact (yet to be realised)

• Perpetual innovation: mobile internet, MXIT

Resources and feedback

Presentation: www.slideshare.net/LIDC Email: [email protected] Twitter: @lidc_ukWebsite: www.lidc.org.uk

Thank you