Digital Conflict
We analyze how digital technologies and AI are contributing to conflicts, develop programming to address the impact of these digital harms on conflict, build the capacity of other organizations to do the same, and work with national and global policymakers to bring a peacebuilding lens to the governance of technology and digital space.
This includes supporting in the following areas:
Analysing & Addressing Digital Harm in Conflict
Digital Uplift for Peacebuilders & Mediators
Digital Governance & Conflict
Areas of work in Digital Conflict
Analysing & Addressing Digital Harm in Conflict
We use a variety of analytical approaches and data science methods to analyse the impact of digital technologies and AI on drivers of conflict. Our flagship social media analysis for peacebuilders and mediators process and tool – Phoenix – has been used globally by hundreds of peacebuilders and mediators. We have responded to digital harm in conflict through a variety of context-specific programs, including creating networks of influencers to counter harmful narratives, training by-standers to use non-violent communications to respond to toxicity in social media comment threads, and working with media and content producers to create peace messaging campaigns. This is our largest body of work, and over the past decade we have implemented programs in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Jordan, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, the UK and the USA.
Watch this webinar on Sudan’s digital battleground
You can also Take an interactive online course on tactics to rehumanize relationships on social media.
Watch this short documentary on our work with Syrian peacebuilding innovators
Read an external evaluation of our peace innovation programs, many of which involved an assessment of opportunities for digital uplift.
Explore our interactive Digital Peacebuilders Guide, aimed at local CSOs that want to integrate technology to their work.
Digital Uplift for Peacebuilders & Mediators
For the past decade, we have worked with peacebuilders and mediators across local, national and international organizations to design and integrate technology in peacebuilding processes. Our accompaniment methodology helps individual champions or teams to explore how data technologies, digital communications and AI can improve the reach and impact of their work. Participants in our programs emerge with a strong understanding of best practices in participation and innovation that allow them to continue to design and manage innovations in their peacebuilding work. We also foster a network of peacebuilding and mediation innovators through our newsletter, webinars and annual conferences. For larger organizations (such as Conciliation Resources, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue or the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office), we produce organisational strategies for digital uplift, and support their roll-out across the organisation. We have worked in digital uplift across the globe.
Digital Governance & Conflict
We bring a peacebuilding lens to the governance of digital technology and AI, highlighting to policymakers, regulators and private companies how the design of technology impacts conflict. Our flagship program, the Polarization Footprint, is a cross-platform measure that ranks very large online platforms according to the prevalence of affective polarization present on the platform. We use this and other research on legal and regulatory frameworks to influence policy dialogues on tech and AI governance nationally and globally, focusing on messages on the importance of pro-social tech design to foster sustainable peace. We also “walk the walk”, showing in our own work that it is possible to co-design technology and AI with peacebuilders, including for example co-designing text classifiers to support the identification of hatespeech and polarization on social media.
Project outcome & statistics
The Democratisation and Inclusive Politics focus on programmes that provide support to political and democratic processes at the intersection of peacebuilding and democratisation. This includes support to electoral processes, good governance, and accompaniment of democratic institutions and movements. The pod is currently focused on work in the Somali region, including Somaliland, Puntland, and at the Federal Somalia level, as well as work in Sudan.
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