COVID-19 Violence & Response Tracker

In any conflict situation, there are two sides to the story: one that highlights the worst of humanity and the other that points to resiliency and hope. That’s why we’re working to create the most comprehensive COVID-19 Violence and Response Tracker in the world right now. 

But we need your help. The harm caused by violence or the threat of violence is not just physical. It has profound impacts on mental and social well-being. That’s why crowdsourcing both the problems and their corresponding peacetech solutions is vital to providing the clearest picture of COVID-19 related violence.

Using the form below, you can submit articles, social media posts, videos, maps, memes, websites, or events you’ve witnessed yourself. These findings will be made publicly available via our website, partner websites, social media, and other publications, for use by anyone designing local or global responses to the crisis.

In this time of uncertainty, we know one thing is for certain: we are stronger together.

Esri Terrorist Attacks Storymap.

In recent years, an increasing number of terrorist attacks have shocked communities around the world, and many of the worst attacks have occurred in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, and Bangladesh, as well as in war-torn locales like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

The Terrorist Attacks Storymap, a collaboration between Esri Story Maps and PeaceTech Lab, uses crowdsourced data from Wikipedia to present a chronology of terrorist attacks around the globe. Wikipedia moderators include experts in the field of global conflict and terrorism, and the pages driving this story have been revised thousands of times since the start of 2016. As a result, the quality of the data on this map is constantly improving.

As with any crowdsourced data, the map may display spurious or objectionable data, for which Esri and PeaceTech Lab hold no responsibility. Similarly, the definition of terrorism is subjective and, in the case of this map, is determined by the contributing community.

If you dispute an event or observe grammatical errors or misspellings, we encourage you to submit revisions to Wikipedia via the “Improve the Map” button in the About section of the map. You can learn more about the Wikipedia editing process here.

Blogs and Bullets.

PeaceTech Lab partnered with the United States Institute of Peace to explore how to use new analytical tools to understand the power of online discourse in both promoting and preventing violent conflict. We co-hosted six major conferences, four in Washington D.C. from 2010 - 2014 and two at Stanford University in 2011 and 2013.

These meetings brought together a range of leading academic and industry experts to evaluate the Arabic, Russian, and Persian language blogospheres and conduct research into the role of new media in contentious politics. The events were held in partnership with George Washington University, Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Morningside Analytics.