Introduction
The Online Harms Observatory combines the Turing's innovative AI research with live data collection from social media to provide real time data on the prevalence and trends in harmful content online at scale.
As legal and civic pressure to tackle online harm escalates, policymakers and regulators need trustworthy, up-to-date, objective evidence about harmful content online. We provide the rigour and trustworthiness of academia with the speed and flexibility of commercial solutions, utilising our research into building better AI classifiers for hate to develop real-time dashboards tracking abuse targeted at public figures on social media.
We currently have deployed a live dashboard tracking abuse targeted at Premier League Footballers, in use by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology.
Project aims
Provided trusted, timely evidence on the prevalence & trends in harmful content online to policymakers.
Recent updates
The first tracker in the Observatory focuses on the abuse faced by football players in the men’s Premier League. Ofcom commissioned an in-depth report off the back of this first set of dashboards. Key findings from the 2021/2022 season include:
- A small proportion of players receive the majority of abuse. For instance, 12 players account for 50% of all Abusive tweets. Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire receive the largest number of Abusive tweets.
- The majority of players received abuse at least once. 68% of players received at least one Abusive tweet during the period (418/618). One in 14 (7%) received abuse every day.
- A small proportion of players receive the majority of abuse. For instance, 12 players account for 50% of all Abusive tweets. Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire receive the largest number of Abusive tweets.
Areas being explored for our next trackers include abuse directed at MPs, female journalists and women playing in the Premier League.
Funding
The Online Harms Observatory is supported by Wave 1 of The UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund under the EPSRC Grant EP/T001569/1 and EPSRC Grant EP/W006022/1, particularly the “Criminal Justice System” theme within those grants and The Alan Turing Institute. The Observatory is being delivered in partnership with the department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.
Organisers
Collaborators
Researchers and collaborators
Yi-Ling Chung
Research Associate, Online Safety Team
Pica Johansson
Research Associate, Online Safety Team
Liam Burke
Data Scientist in the Online Safety Team
Angus R Williams
Senior Data Scientist, Online Safety TeamPrevious contributors
Hannah Kirk
Research Assistant, Online Safety TeamContact info
If you have questions about the Online Harms Observatory, or would like more information about the Online Safety Team’s research, reach out to Pica Johansson ([email protected]).
