Social Media and Conflict: How to mitigate online hate speech that fuels violence?
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Kovats, Stephen
Dolan, Theo
Mach, Achol Jok
Jaiksana, Amarüda José
Weber, Annette
Since gaining independence in 2011 the Republic of South Sudan has become embroiled in a protracted civil conflict claiming thousands of lives and displacing over a million people. When violent clashes between government and opposition forces erupted in the capital Juba on the eve of its fifth anniversary in July 2016 the role played by social media in stoking violence, fear and ethnic hatred came to the fore. Initiatives such as #defyhatenow, working with local communities to identify and mitigate social media hate speech, along with the surveying and monitoring of ethnic hate terminology by the Peace Tech Lab seek to create mechanisms to curb conflict rhetoric as urgent peace-building...
 So, welcome everybody. We have a train going over. And yeah, it's a bit hard to see you guys. It's very bright light up here. I'd really like to welcome everybody for coming to the first evening session on stage two at Republika 17. My name is Steven Kovats. I'm from the Rogue Agency for Open Culture and Critical Transformation. My organization has been involved in a number of peace building and open technology projects in South Sudan since 2012. And I'm just here to introduce a stunning range of guests. I'm very, very happy to have here. And just before doing so, I'd like to give a big thank you to Republika for giving us the opportunity to bring this topic in a theme here at Republika of Love Out Loud about the way social media influences hot conflict and creates real serious problems where the best response to that problem is to love out loud. So this panel will be also discussing those ways of doing that. I'd also love to give a big thank you to the gig, the global innovation gathering, because these folks are part of a global community that has grown out of Republika and now exists also in the life on its own. It's about 180 innovators, peace builders, open tech people from around the world who gather here also every year and in different places around the world. So thank you also to gig. And the panel takes place in the context of the defy hate now initiative. So if you will be tweeting about the event today, please tweet as one word defy hate now. So all together one hashtag. And supporting the defy hate now initiative against social media hate speech in South Sudan is Civic. A program of the IFA, the Institute for Auslands Betzion would support from the German Foreign Office. So without any further ado, you see I told you I shouldn't be talking at the beginning. I would like to introduce Annette Weber over here. Annette is from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Annette is a leading expert in the politics of the region of South Sudan and the Horn of Africa for many years. And she's also somebody who has had quite an interesting life also within the media arts and culture scene of Berlin for many, many years. So thank you Annette for coming to moderate the session tonight. She brings together both of those worlds of media culture and politics which is so necessary here. To my immediate left is Theo Dolan. Theo is the director of the Peace Tech Lab Africa. The Peace Tech Lab has been doing amazing work using open source software around the world for peace building amongst many other things. We are partners and collaborators in battling hate speech and online incitement to violence in South Sudan. And Theo will be showing some amazing work that they have been doing in the country. Next to Theo is Jixana Jambu Jackson Soro from South Sudan. Jixana is an incredible artist, activist, youth innovator who we've been working with in Juba, the capital of South Sudan for a couple of years. Jixana set up his own innovation lab in the town of Yeh in South Sudan which unfortunately had to shut last summer, last fall. And Jixana is now living in the Rhino Camp refugee settlement in northern Uganda. And he'll be showing us some of the incredible work that they're doing in this, I don't know really how to call it, unstable fluid situation of a refugee camp on the border. And at the extreme far end there is Achal Jokhmak. Achal is also a wonderful media activist. She's a podcaster, she's a reporter, cultural activist. She is the project manager for the Defy Hate Now initiative, has been working in and with South Sudan for many years, originally from South Sudan but then having spent part of her life in Cuba and in Canada. So this is my introduction to you guys. The theme you will take over, Annetta. So good luck. Annetta, thank you for the panel and I'm extremely excited to have this remaining 50 minutes with all of you. I don't want to talk for too long because really there's important people here that can lead us through the conflict in South Sudan but also the connection to social media and hate speech. I just thinking about tonight, I thought about 21 years ago was the first time when I went to South Sudan, back then it was part of Sudan, it wasn't a country by itself. And there was no social media because basically it didn't exist back then. But of course there were rumors and of course there were ideologies and it was clear that there's the right side and the wrong side and that the one-man side is fighting against the other side and has to win. But there was also a lot of frustration amongst the population thinking that maybe it's the next generation of our children who still have to fight this struggle and continue fighting against the North in order to be free. 2011, South Sudan became an independent country, became that free country two years later, two and a half years later. I would say a power struggle in the leadership started to unravel this very young, the youngest country again. And after trying to rescue the situation, after trying to bring this power leadership together, it unraveled again in 2016. And I think this is where I would like the two of you to join us in not only about getting that conflict closer to the audience here in Berlin, but also connecting what happened in a conflict and what happens when hate speech and social media is becoming part of a conflict that is more than just ideology or rumors. And what does that mean? What did it mean to you, but also where are we standing? After that I would like to then hopefully go into what can we do, but let's first start Achille maybe with where are we now. So my name is Achille Jockmatch and I was born in South Sudan. I left in 1986 and ended up in Cuba in 1989. I lived there for eight years and then in 1997 we moved to Canada. And in 2011 I went back to South Sudan because I wanted to go to that place that is called home because I had never experienced that. I wanted to go and meet my cousins and my brothers, people who I've never met because when we were in Cuba it was just my father, my mother and my brothers and sisters. While in South Sudan, I mean the first 2011, 2012 it was wonderful. We had just gotten independence. We were proud to be South Sudanese. Then in 2013, and I had never been in a conflict, but then in 2013 I actually experienced the first conflict ever in my life. I had never heard bombardment except in movies, but then I experienced it in real life. Then after that I went back to Canada for some time just because it was too much. And I remember while in Canada, I remember that a lot of our South Sudanese in Canada, they didn't really understand what was happening in South Sudan because they were not there. They just heard on the news or they read it on Facebook or on Twitter and they assumed these things to be true. So then they themselves thought that they were experts of what was happening in South Sudan and they were not. So then what happened is that a lot of people started to create all of these rumors. And you have to understand that in South Sudan because we have had so many conflicts, we haven't really had only 20% of our population is literate. So they don't question, the other 80%, they don't question it's not part of our culture, our tradition, we don't question as much. And a lot has to do with the 21-year-old war that we had. But what happened is when a lot of people started to make up things on Facebook, this is what's happening because you think that you're an expert, you think you know what's happening, then you would call back home and you say, oh, this place is being attacked. You would believe it. People would start believing it because they would call so they would think, oh, this person in the United States or in Canada or in Australia must know what's happening. And then people start getting paranoid and then something happens. So that was the experience that I had with Facebook within the diaspora and then within South Sudan and a lot of it had to do with education level, of course, because we didn't have a lot of, like I said, the literacy levels. And then also because a lot of people, just because you're using Facebook doesn't mean that you understand the impact or that when you're using social media doesn't mean that you understand the impact that it has on other people's lives. So that is the experience that I had in the diaspora and in South Sudan. Thanks, Achu. Xana, maybe you also want to chip in and talk from your perspective about that incident and also the realizing what social media does to a conflict in your experience. Yes, so I'm called Jaxana and I've spent like entirely half of my life in South Sudan and that's where I've gone to school. That's where I've stayed and worked and done stuff. So when the conflict actually started, it started when I was in Juba and I would just like to give a small background to South Sudan. So in South Sudan we have like up to 64 tribes and we have the largest tribes being the Dinka tribe which has like 35% of the population and then the second tribe is the Nuer tribe. So by then we had the president coming from the Dinka tribe and the first vice president who was sacked and was removed from his seat was from the Nuer tribe. So when the conflict started in 2013, it later took on the same pattern that the population had. So the Dinkas kind of supported the government and the Nuer was supporting the rebel movement so that was the kind of thing that happened. So from that time social media started taking the point from there and this same kind of statistic with population and stuff and this tribal thing was used to manipulate the whole situation. So there's one popular post that came up in 2015 when this whole conflict started and this was what was used in some way I would say inside or involve other communities that are not part of this, you know, communities that are participating in the war to come in or take action. There was a trade message that came on Facebook and it came from both sides. One was saying the Dinka said if they get done with the Nuer, they will come to the Equatorians. So it was a terrible trade message that the Equatorians were living in fear because soon or later something is going to happen to them and this kind of situation continued. Also messages coming from different places and you find that the cyber spaces like most especially on Facebook groups, people kind of express their disappointment or kind of react to these messages in a way that is not really good and you find that a kind of a culture or I would say a scenario of suspicion and mistrust is kind of created within communities and people look at themselves as enemies. So when I see a tribe, I mean I've read stuff about what you're planning to ask on Facebook and this is what came up so like from my own observation as a person who was in South Sudan when this whole thing grew up and started growing, this was the kind of observation that I had to the kind of scenario. Well thank you very much. Theo maybe I would like to ask you to show us a bit of the reactions that came and specifically what you will also explain to us later on. Trying to figure out not only what is that hate speech and how is it triggering to the conflict but also potentially what kind of remedies do we have and how can we deal with it and but also what kind of substance and what kind of substantial damage can it do to communities in what you just explained in this conflict scenarios. Thanks. Thank you Annetta and good evening everyone. Thank you Steve for the introduction. I'd just like to tee up my presentation with a short three minute video that will introduce you to the hate speech issue in South Sudan. This was released actually last week on World Press Freedom Day and it's intended for a South Sudanese social media audience to raise awareness and to offer some practical guidance. The hate speech has become a major issue in escalating South Sudan conflict. I want to feel the blood of the anger. I'm ready for my head to get cut but I want to feel the blood of the anger. In 2011, South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan becoming the newest country in the world. First, South Sudanese were very hopeful for the future but long standing political conflicts erupted into violence in December 2013 and again in July 2016. The emergence of hate speech online using platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp has helped to inflame tensions in South Sudan. Hate speech is defined as speech that can either incite others to discriminate or act against individuals or groups based on their ethnic, racial, religious, gender or national identity. A message was sent from USA by a guy, a South Sudanese who was in USA, warning the Equatorians that were in Juba that there was an unintended massacre of Equatorians that were in Juba. They sent a message to Equatorians saying Hormalong is planning to execute Equatorians within 24 hours. Today, Hormalong, our one, planning to kill Equatorians in Juba tonight. And this information was not true but what did it do to the larger population in Equatoria and in Juba? When they got the information, they believed it. They didn't know this was a false information. They spread the information. Equatorians, they have to come up now in advance to take either defense or attack before they are attacked. You can't really be relaxed because you never know what's going to happen next and even when you're removed from the situation, you still have friends and family back home. So it's a constant state of worrying. Mastering emotions is very important. I get upset but my strategy does not involve going online and saying, well, these people just started on the aga or getting on WhatsApp and saying something about it because there's also someone from my community saying the same thing about another community. If there are right time for us to preach peace, there's no right time. South Sudan is bleeding and we need to bring peace to South Sudan. You too can take action against hate speech by taking these steps. Understand the language being used to promote hate on social media. Check the origin and credibility of sources of information and verify the accuracy of information before discussing it or sharing it. And report instances of hate speech on social media like Facebook and Twitter. Which platform has a tool for reporting hate speech that is easy to use? Okay so my name is Theo Dolan and I'm with the Peace Tech Lab in Nairobi, Kenya. Peace Tech Lab is a recent spinoff from the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC and we work at the intersection of media, technology and data to resolve conflict around the world. One of the areas in which we work is to prevent media incitement to violence and hate speech. And as an American, I realized that I might lack some credibility when talking about hate speech given the current administration in the US. But please bear with me, I'll be talking about our work in South Sudan. So that's really the focus here. We first came across the issue of hate speech in South Sudan while working with local partners to produce the Sawa Shabab Peace Building radio drama for youth. Now in its fourth season, Sawa Shabab is a form of behavior change communication for peace building. In other words, it's an entertaining radio drama while also educating youth on the values and skills that they could use to build peace in South Sudan. And through the social media community and SMS platform that support the program, we were able to interact with youth across the country. And we began to understand the virulence of hate speech, particularly on social media, and its influence on events on the ground. So I won't belabor the point in terms of events on the ground. Here are some horrific statistics, but the situation is incredibly dire. The economy is on the verge of collapse. The peace process is in shambles. Women has now struck, and recently the United Nations warned that South Sudan is on the brink of genocide. But to be honest, I think we're already at that point. So against this backdrop, many have recognized the important role that hate speech has been playing in the conflict. Because in Rwanda, we saw radio being mostly used to propagate hate speech. In South Sudan, hate speech is occurring mostly through social media. And in fact, most of it is coming through diaspora communities in countries like Australia, the UK, the US, and Kenya. Although internet access is still relatively low in South Sudan, rumors, misinformation, and hate speech can travel at warp speed through mobile phone communication and word of mouth. So in July of last year, for example, when reported threats on social media came from the South Sudanese Army Chief of Staff Paul Malong that you saw in the hate speech video, that there would be an intended massacre of Equatorians in Juba, people believed the news, and many mobilized to try to prevent the reported attacks from taking place, even though it was completely false. So even though the problem of hate speech has been identified, it's much more difficult to find solutions. Many individuals and organizations have tried monitoring and countering hate speech in many countries. But what has been missing often is a common understanding of what hate speech language actually looks like. So to better understand the language of hate used online in South Sudan, PSTEC lab conducted research to analyze and contextualize hate speech on various social media platforms. And this project included several stages. First we identified hate speech terms and we did so through a survey of South Sudanese in the country and in the diaspora communities to understand what they felt were the most virulent hate speech terms and why these terms were inflammatory and what groups they were used against and which platforms they saw these terms used in. And based on that we developed this lexicon of hate speech terms. The second step was that we applied the terms from the lexicon to a series of social analytics tools to identify examples of hate speech surrounding the conflict and relevant trends based on this content. And to validate the findings, we conducted dialogues with South Sudanese diaspora communities and shared our findings through regular reporting to those interested. And lastly we began working with counter hate speech initiatives like Defy Hate Now and Anna Taban to support their efforts and understand their needs. And to share all of this we created a data portal so anyone interested in combating hate speech anywhere can access our findings and apply it to their specific context. So to give you an idea of what our reporting looks like, these are some examples of terms we've identified through the surveys and incorporated them into our monitoring. On the right you see example posts we were able to uncover through our monitoring. The term at the top, MTN, is the name of a mobile operator in South Sudan. And its tagline, its slogan is everywhere you go. Well, this term has been co-opted and used as a derogatory reference for the Dinka, which is the largest tribe in South Sudan. And it's been used both online and offline, also for specifically targeting Dinkas for attacks. In the latter part of last year, on the roadways in some of the Equatorian states in South Sudan, cars were stopped, drivers were asked, do you have any MTN in your vehicle? And if yes, these people were pulled out and violently attacked. So it's important to note, again, just like any language, these terms are obviously highly nuanced and it requires a strong understanding of the context in which they are being used to determine the links to conflict. And we've just taken a small step here. I don't pretend that the resources we're producing are all encompassing. They're not. But they're a step. So we've been able to develop a range of findings and visualizations from our analysis, including key themes that emerge in these conversations. These are word clouds showing conversations that identify on the left hate speech and on the right countering hate speech. The volume of hate speech and use of particular words, which we analyze alongside reports of violence against groups across the country, are shown here. And platforms and sites in which hate speech is occurring are shown here. And actually, this is just a brief snapshot from some references. But as you can see, online forums have a high prevalence of hate speech blogs. But actually, what's not shown is that Facebook is by far the most common platform for harboring hate speech. It's just that it's not public content. They're often in closed forums. So this is a kind of social network analysis. This shows how hate speech is disseminated from the different nodes that connect people. And you can see in some instances the strength of the connection by the width of the line. So you can literally see who's disseminating hate speech and whom they're influencing. I think this is particularly fascinating. And geography. So in this case, we can see where in the diaspora the hate speech is coming from and on the positive side where people are engaging with countering campaigns. So using these outputs, we've developed biweekly monitoring reports to share relevant information on recent events and findings on hate speech with partners working in South Sudan. We've also created a data portal to share live visualizations from this monitoring work as well as resources for other groups who want to be engaged in countering efforts. And just to wrap up, in terms of next steps, we're going to be working a lot more this year with DeFi, Hate Now and other groups in these areas. We'll continue to refine and expand the lexicon and update it with new terms. This language is always changing. We'll develop an online training module to help South Sudanese social media users check sources, verify information, and report instances of hate speech online on various platforms. We'll be conducting in-person trainings in partnership with local countering efforts. We'll be enhancing our reporting with new data and visualizations. We'll be engaging in dialogue with diaspora groups to validate our findings and explore information flows. And last but not least, we'll be expanding the work to develop predictive analytic capabilities with the aim of warning peace building and humanitarian response groups of likely outbreaks of violence and opportunities to prevent them. This to me is kind of the holy grail of our work in peace building and technology. If we can actually prevent violence based on some of our research, then we've actually gotten somewhere. Thank you. Thank you, Theo. Thank you. And I think from this analysis of making us understand better what is hate speech and what context and how you're going to work countering it. I would like to ask Ajoel to tell us more about how that countering hate speech really works or what kind of attempts, what kind of responses you're following and maybe also what you would hope for, you know, support from outside or support from inside, what you would hope for for the future for your kind of work. So with the fight hate now in South Sudan, we look at ways on how we can mitigate the effect of online hate speech in South Sudan. We do a lot of community engagement activities that have a lot of positive outcomes. We try to also, we also do trainings. We do a lot of trainings with journalists, with lawmakers who teach them about hate speech or to teach even journalists, to teach them how to protect themselves from hate speech because it is a very difficult position to be in, to be able to tell the audience but in a balanced way the news. We give a lot of trainings also in school. We work with radio producers and we do, we engage with community by, through dialogue. At the moment while working in Juba we're also working in Arua, in Uganda. We're working in the refugee camp, working with all of the refugees.
 So, welcome everybody.  We have a train going over.  And yeah, it's a bit hard to see you guys.  It's very bright light up here.  I'd really like to welcome everybody for coming to the first evening session on stage  two at Republika 17.  My name is Steven Kovats.  I'm from the Rogue Agency for Open Culture and Critical Transformation.  My organization has been involved in a number of peace building and open technology projects  in South Sudan since 2012.  And I'm just here to introduce a stunning range of guests.  I'm very, very happy to have here.  And just before doing so, I'd like to give a big thank you to Republika for giving us  the opportunity to bring this topic in a theme here at Republika of Love Out Loud about the  way social media influences hot conflict and creates real serious problems where the best  response to that problem is to love out loud.  So this panel will be also discussing those ways of doing that.  I'd also love to give a big thank you to the gig, the global innovation gathering, because  these folks are part of a global community that has grown out of Republika and now exists  also in the life on its own.  It's about 180 innovators, peace builders, open tech people from around the world who  gather here also every year and in different places around the world.  So thank you also to gig.  And the panel takes place in the context of the defy hate now initiative.  So if you will be tweeting about the event today, please tweet as one word defy hate  now.  So all together one hashtag.  And supporting the defy hate now initiative against social media hate speech in South  Sudan is Civic.  A program of the IFA, the Institute for Auslands Betzion would support from the German Foreign  Office.  So without any further ado, you see I told you I shouldn't be talking at the beginning.  I would like to introduce Annette Weber over here.  Annette is from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.  Annette is a leading expert in the politics of the region of South Sudan and the Horn  of Africa for many years.  And she's also somebody who has had quite an interesting life also within the media  arts and culture scene of Berlin for many, many years.  So thank you Annette for coming to moderate the session tonight.  She brings together both of those worlds of media culture and politics which is so necessary  here.  To my immediate left is Theo Dolan.  Theo is the director of the Peace Tech Lab Africa.  The Peace Tech Lab has been doing amazing work using open source software around the  world for peace building amongst many other things.  We are partners and collaborators in battling hate speech and online incitement to violence  in South Sudan.  And Theo will be showing some amazing work that they have been doing in the country.  Next to Theo is Jixana Jambu Jackson Soro from South Sudan.  Jixana is an incredible artist, activist, youth innovator who we've been working with  in Juba, the capital of South Sudan for a couple of years.  Jixana set up his own innovation lab in the town of Yeh in South Sudan which unfortunately  had to shut last summer, last fall.  And Jixana is now living in the Rhino Camp refugee settlement in northern Uganda.  And he'll be showing us some of the incredible work that they're doing in this, I don't know  really how to call it, unstable fluid situation of a refugee camp on the border.  And at the extreme far end there is Achal Jokhmak.  Achal is also a wonderful media activist.  She's a podcaster, she's a reporter, cultural activist.  She is the project manager for the Defy Hate Now initiative, has been working in and with  South Sudan for many years, originally from South Sudan but then having spent part of  her life in Cuba and in Canada.  So this is my introduction to you guys.  The theme you will take over, Annetta.  So good luck.  Annetta, thank you for the panel and I'm extremely excited to have this remaining 50 minutes  with all of you.  I don't want to talk for too long because really there's important people here that  can lead us through the conflict in South Sudan but also the connection to social media  and hate speech.  I just thinking about tonight, I thought about 21 years ago was the first time when I went  to South Sudan, back then it was part of Sudan, it wasn't a country by itself.  And there was no social media because basically it didn't exist back then.  But of course there were rumors and of course there were ideologies and it was clear that  there's the right side and the wrong side and that the one-man side is fighting against  the other side and has to win.  But there was also a lot of frustration amongst the population thinking that maybe it's the  next generation of our children who still have to fight this struggle and continue fighting  against the North in order to be free.  2011, South Sudan became an independent country, became that free country two years later,  two and a half years later.  I would say a power struggle in the leadership started to unravel this very young, the youngest  country again.  And after trying to rescue the situation, after trying to bring this power leadership  together, it unraveled again in 2016.  And I think this is where I would like the two of you to join us in not only about getting  that conflict closer to the audience here in Berlin, but also connecting what happened  in a conflict and what happens when hate speech and social media is becoming part of  a conflict that is more than just ideology or rumors.  And what does that mean?  What did it mean to you, but also where are we standing?  After that I would like to then hopefully go into what can we do, but let's first start  Achille maybe with where are we now.  So my name is Achille Jockmatch and I was born in South Sudan.  I left in 1986 and ended up in Cuba in 1989.  I lived there for eight years and then in 1997 we moved to Canada.  And in 2011 I went back to South Sudan because I wanted to go to that place that is called  home because I had never experienced that.  I wanted to go and meet my cousins and my brothers, people who I've never met because  when we were in Cuba it was just my father, my mother and my brothers and sisters.  While in South Sudan, I mean the first 2011, 2012 it was wonderful.  We had just gotten independence.  We were proud to be South Sudanese.  Then in 2013, and I had never been in a conflict, but then in 2013 I actually experienced the  first conflict ever in my life.  I had never heard bombardment except in movies, but then I experienced it in real life.  Then after that I went back to Canada for some time just because it was too much.  And I remember while in Canada, I remember that a lot of our South Sudanese in Canada,  they didn't really understand what was happening in South Sudan because they were not there.  They just heard on the news or they read it on Facebook or on Twitter and they assumed  these things to be true.  So then they themselves thought that they were experts of what was happening in South  Sudan and they were not.  So then what happened is that a lot of people started to create all of these rumors.  And you have to understand that in South Sudan because we have had so many conflicts, we  haven't really had only 20% of our population is literate.  So they don't question, the other 80%, they don't question it's not part of our culture,  our tradition, we don't question as much.  And a lot has to do with the 21-year-old war that we had.  But what happened is when a lot of people started to make up things on Facebook, this  is what's happening because you think that you're an expert, you think you know what's  happening, then you would call back home and you say, oh, this place is being attacked.  You would believe it.  People would start believing it because they would call so they would think, oh, this person  in the United States or in Canada or in Australia must know what's happening.  And then people start getting paranoid and then something happens.  So that was the experience that I had with Facebook within the diaspora and then within  South Sudan and a lot of it had to do with education level, of course, because we didn't  have a lot of, like I said, the literacy levels.  And then also because a lot of people, just because you're using Facebook doesn't mean  that you understand the impact or that when you're using social media doesn't mean that  you understand the impact that it has on other people's lives.  So that is the experience that I had in the diaspora and in South Sudan.  Thanks, Achu.  Xana, maybe you also want to chip in and talk from your perspective about that incident  and also the realizing what social media does to a conflict in your experience.  Yes, so I'm called Jaxana and I've spent like entirely half of my life in South Sudan and  that's where I've gone to school.  That's where I've stayed and worked and done stuff.  So when the conflict actually started, it started when I was in Juba and I would just  like to give a small background to South Sudan.  So in South Sudan we have like up to 64 tribes and we have the largest tribes being the Dinka  tribe which has like 35% of the population and then the second tribe is the Nuer tribe.  So by then we had the president coming from the Dinka tribe and the first vice president  who was sacked and was removed from his seat was from the Nuer tribe.  So when the conflict started in 2013, it later took on the same pattern that the population  had.  So the Dinkas kind of supported the government and the Nuer was supporting the rebel movement  so that was the kind of thing that happened.  So from that time social media started taking the point from there and this same kind of  statistic with population and stuff and this tribal thing was used to manipulate the whole  situation.  So there's one popular post that came up in 2015 when this whole conflict started and  this was what was used in some way I would say inside or involve other communities that  are not part of this, you know, communities that are participating in the war to come  in or take action.  There was a trade message that came on Facebook and it came from both sides.  One was saying the Dinka said if they get done with the Nuer, they will come to the  Equatorians.  So it was a terrible trade message that the Equatorians were living in fear because soon  or later something is going to happen to them and this kind of situation continued.  Also messages coming from different places and you find that the cyber spaces like most  especially on Facebook groups, people kind of express their disappointment or kind of  react to these messages in a way that is not really good and you find that a kind of a  culture or I would say a scenario of suspicion and mistrust is kind of created within communities  and people look at themselves as enemies.  So when I see a tribe, I mean I've read stuff about what you're planning to ask on Facebook  and this is what came up so like from my own observation as a person who was in South Sudan  when this whole thing grew up and started growing, this was the kind of observation  that I had to the kind of scenario.  Well thank you very much.  Theo maybe I would like to ask you to show us a bit of the reactions that came and specifically  what you will also explain to us later on.  Trying to figure out not only what is that hate speech and how is it triggering to the  conflict but also potentially what kind of remedies do we have and how can we deal with  it and but also what kind of substance and what kind of substantial damage can it do  to communities in what you just explained in this conflict scenarios.  Thanks.  Thank you Annetta and good evening everyone.  Thank you Steve for the introduction.  I'd just like to tee up my presentation with a short three minute video that will introduce  you to the hate speech issue in South Sudan.  This was released actually last week on World Press Freedom Day and it's intended for a  South Sudanese social media audience to raise awareness and to offer some practical guidance.  The hate speech has become a major issue in escalating South Sudan conflict.  I want to feel the blood of the anger.  I'm ready for my head to get cut but I want to feel the blood of the anger.  In 2011, South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan becoming the newest country in the  world.  First, South Sudanese were very hopeful for the future but long standing political conflicts  erupted into violence in December 2013 and again in July 2016.  The emergence of hate speech online using platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp  has helped to inflame tensions in South Sudan.  Hate speech is defined as speech that can either incite others to discriminate or act  against individuals or groups based on their ethnic, racial, religious, gender or national  identity.  A message was sent from USA by a guy, a South Sudanese who was in USA, warning the Equatorians  that were in Juba that there was an unintended massacre of Equatorians that were in Juba.  They sent a message to Equatorians saying Hormalong is planning to execute Equatorians  within 24 hours.  Today, Hormalong, our one, planning to kill Equatorians in Juba tonight.  And this information was not true but what did it do to the larger population in Equatoria  and in Juba?  When they got the information, they believed it.  They didn't know this was a false information.  They spread the information.  Equatorians, they have to come up now in advance to take either defense or attack before they  are attacked.  You can't really be relaxed because you never know what's going to happen next and even  when you're removed from the situation, you still have friends and family back home.  So it's a constant state of worrying.  Mastering emotions is very important.  I get upset but my strategy does not involve going online and saying, well, these people  just started on the aga or getting on WhatsApp and saying something about it because there's  also someone from my community saying the same thing about another community.  If there are right time for us to preach peace, there's no right time.  South Sudan is bleeding and we need to bring peace to South Sudan.  You too can take action against hate speech by taking these steps.  Understand the language being used to promote hate on social media.  Check the origin and credibility of sources of information and verify the accuracy of  information before discussing it or sharing it.  And report instances of hate speech on social media like Facebook and Twitter.  Which platform has a tool for reporting hate speech that is easy to use?  Okay so my name is Theo Dolan and I'm with the Peace Tech Lab in Nairobi, Kenya.  Peace Tech Lab is a recent spinoff from the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC and  we work at the intersection of media, technology and data to resolve conflict around the world.  One of the areas in which we work is to prevent media incitement to violence and hate speech.  And as an American, I realized that I might lack some credibility when talking about hate  speech given the current administration in the US.  But please bear with me, I'll be talking about our work in South Sudan.  So that's really the focus here.  We first came across the issue of hate speech in South Sudan while working with local partners  to produce the Sawa Shabab Peace Building radio drama for youth.  Now in its fourth season, Sawa Shabab is a form of behavior change communication for  peace building.  In other words, it's an entertaining radio drama while also educating youth on the values  and skills that they could use to build peace in South Sudan.  And through the social media community and SMS platform that support the program, we  were able to interact with youth across the country.  And we began to understand the virulence of hate speech, particularly on social media,  and its influence on events on the ground.  So I won't belabor the point in terms of events on the ground.  Here are some horrific statistics, but the situation is incredibly dire.  The economy is on the verge of collapse.  The peace process is in shambles.  Women has now struck, and recently the United Nations warned that South Sudan is on the  brink of genocide.  But to be honest, I think we're already at that point.  So against this backdrop, many have recognized the important role that hate speech has been  playing in the conflict.  Because in Rwanda, we saw radio being mostly used to propagate hate speech.  In South Sudan, hate speech is occurring mostly through social media.  And in fact, most of it is coming through diaspora communities in countries like Australia,  the UK, the US, and Kenya.  Although internet access is still relatively low in South Sudan, rumors, misinformation,  and hate speech can travel at warp speed through mobile phone communication and word of mouth.  So in July of last year, for example, when reported threats on social media came from  the South Sudanese Army Chief of Staff Paul Malong that you saw in the hate speech video,  that there would be an intended massacre of Equatorians in Juba, people believed the news,  and many mobilized to try to prevent the reported attacks from taking place, even though it  was completely false.  So even though the problem of hate speech has been identified, it's much more difficult  to find solutions.  Many individuals and organizations have tried monitoring and countering hate speech in many  countries.  But what has been missing often is a common understanding of what hate speech language  actually looks like.  So to better understand the language of hate used online in South Sudan, PSTEC lab conducted  research to analyze and contextualize hate speech on various social media platforms.  And this project included several stages.  First we identified hate speech terms and we did so through a survey of South Sudanese  in the country and in the diaspora communities to understand what they felt were the most  virulent hate speech terms and why these terms were inflammatory and what groups they were  used against and which platforms they saw these terms used in.  And based on that we developed this lexicon of hate speech terms.  The second step was that we applied the terms from the lexicon to a series of social analytics  tools to identify examples of hate speech surrounding the conflict and relevant trends  based on this content.  And to validate the findings, we conducted dialogues with South Sudanese diaspora communities  and shared our findings through regular reporting to those interested.  And lastly we began working with counter hate speech initiatives like Defy Hate Now and  Anna Taban to support their efforts and understand their needs.  And to share all of this we created a data portal so anyone interested in combating hate  speech anywhere can access our findings and apply it to their specific context.  So to give you an idea of what our reporting looks like, these are some examples of terms  we've identified through the surveys and incorporated them into our monitoring.  On the right you see example posts we were able to uncover through our monitoring.  The term at the top, MTN, is the name of a mobile operator in South Sudan.  And its tagline, its slogan is everywhere you go.  Well, this term has been co-opted and used as a derogatory reference for the Dinka, which  is the largest tribe in South Sudan.  And it's been used both online and offline, also for specifically targeting Dinkas for  attacks.  In the latter part of last year, on the roadways in some of the Equatorian states in South  Sudan, cars were stopped, drivers were asked, do you have any MTN in your vehicle?  And if yes, these people were pulled out and violently attacked.  So it's important to note, again, just like any language, these terms are obviously highly  nuanced and it requires a strong understanding of the context in which they are being used  to determine the links to conflict.  And we've just taken a small step here.  I don't pretend that the resources we're producing are all encompassing.  They're not.  But they're a step.  So we've been able to develop a range of findings and visualizations from our analysis, including  key themes that emerge in these conversations.  These are word clouds showing conversations that identify on the left hate speech and  on the right countering hate speech.  The volume of hate speech and use of particular words, which we analyze alongside reports  of violence against groups across the country, are shown here.  And platforms and sites in which hate speech is occurring are shown here.  And actually, this is just a brief snapshot from some references.  But as you can see, online forums have a high prevalence of hate speech blogs.  But actually, what's not shown is that Facebook is by far the most common platform for harboring  hate speech.  It's just that it's not public content.  They're often in closed forums.  So this is a kind of social network analysis.  This shows how hate speech is disseminated from the different nodes that connect people.  And you can see in some instances the strength of the connection by the width of the line.  So you can literally see who's disseminating hate speech and whom they're influencing.  I think this is particularly fascinating.  And geography.  So in this case, we can see where in the diaspora the hate speech is coming from and on the  positive side where people are engaging with countering campaigns.  So using these outputs, we've developed biweekly monitoring reports to share relevant information  on recent events and findings on hate speech with partners working in South Sudan.  We've also created a data portal to share live visualizations from this monitoring work  as well as resources for other groups who want to be engaged in countering efforts.  And just to wrap up, in terms of next steps, we're going to be working a lot more this  year with DeFi, Hate Now and other groups in these areas.  We'll continue to refine and expand the lexicon and update it with new terms.  This language is always changing.  We'll develop an online training module to help South Sudanese social media users check  sources, verify information, and report instances of hate speech online on various platforms.  We'll be conducting in-person trainings in partnership with local countering efforts.  We'll be enhancing our reporting with new data and visualizations.  We'll be engaging in dialogue with diaspora groups to validate our findings and explore  information flows.  And last but not least, we'll be expanding the work to develop predictive analytic capabilities  with the aim of warning peace building and humanitarian response groups of likely outbreaks  of violence and opportunities to prevent them.  This to me is kind of the holy grail of our work in peace building and technology.  If we can actually prevent violence based on some of our research, then we've actually  gotten somewhere.  Thank you.  Thank you, Theo.  Thank you.  And I think from this analysis of making us understand better what is hate speech and  what context and how you're going to work countering it.  I would like to ask Ajoel to tell us more about how that countering hate speech really  works or what kind of attempts, what kind of responses you're following and maybe also  what you would hope for, you know, support from outside or support from inside, what  you would hope for for the future for your kind of work.  So with the fight hate now in South Sudan, we look at ways on how we can mitigate the  effect of online hate speech in South Sudan.  We do a lot of community engagement activities that have a lot of positive outcomes.  We try to also, we also do trainings.  We do a lot of trainings with journalists, with lawmakers who teach them about hate  speech or to teach even journalists, to teach them how to protect themselves from hate speech  because it is a very difficult position to be in, to be able to tell the audience but  in a balanced way the news.  We give a lot of trainings also in school.  We work with radio producers and we do, we engage with community by, through dialogue.  At the moment while working in Juba we're also working in Arua, in Uganda.  We're working in the refugee camp, working with all of the refugees.
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