Open Source Friday with Uli - tackling online gender-based violence

Open Healthcare Network (OTC)

• OTC, or Open Healthcare Network, is a team of developers and contributors dedicated to building open-source technology, particularly in the healthcare domain.
• OTC's flagship product, "oBuilt Care," aims to connect hospitals and patients by providing a referral system and tracking patient journeys.
• The project has benefited from active participation from healthcare professionals who provide valuable input on development and functionality.
• OTC has seen significant contributions from over 400 individuals worldwide, with developers actively addressing issues and improving code quality.
• The use of co-pilot has further enhanced code development by providing AI-powered assistance to developers.

Tattle: Addressing Online Harms in India

• Tattle, a CivTech organization based in India, focuses on addressing online harms specific to India.
• Tattle develops open-source software and datasets to understand and respond to challenges like misinformation, content moderation, and hate speech.
• The Tattle project, in collaboration with the Center for Internet Society, aims to provide a collective response to online gender-based violence.
• One key aspect of the project involves crowdsourcing slurs in Indian languages to create a database for content moderation.
• Tattle has collected annotated data from individuals who have experienced online violence, which helps in identifying and filtering harmful content.
• The project aims to build a machine learning classifier to detect online gender-based violence.
• The classifier will analyze text and identify potentially harmful content.
• A browser extension is being developed to redact offensive language and allow users to crowdsource a list of slurs.
• The project aims to address the issue of online gender-based violence, which is a significant problem for social media users.
• The project is designed to help automate content moderation and reduce the burden on human moderators.
• The project is also working on detecting problematic content in images and videos.

K's Journey with Tattle

• K, a member of the project team, was a user of the browser extension before joining the team.
• K was drawn to the project because of its focus on combating misinformation and online abuse.
• K joined the project through a community manager program at GitHub and is now a full-time member of the team.

Tattle's Browser Extension

• The project focuses on tackling online gender-based violence by identifying and addressing harmful language.
• The project's main repository is for the browser extension, which includes a list of slurs.
• The slur list is open-source and can be contributed to through various methods, including collaborative sessions, the browser extension itself, and direct pull requests.
• The project also includes a machine learning model that can detect online gender-based violence in text.
• The browser extension allows users to identify and block slurs on websites, demonstrating the project's functionality.
• The demo uses the word "crazy" as an example of a slur that can be blocked by the extension.
• The project is currently supported on Chrome, Brave, and Firefox browsers.
• The video demonstrates how to use the "Wily" extension to combat online gender-based violence by replacing offensive words with markers.
• Users can customize their own "slur" lists, adding words they find offensive and specifying the severity and context of the slur.
• The extension allows users to contribute to a crowdsourced "slur" list by right-clicking on offensive words and selecting "crowdsource slur."
• This crowdsourced data is stored on a server and can be used to improve the extension's effectiveness.
• The team is currently exploring ways to visualize the data collected and make it accessible to the wider community.

KSA's Bully Plugin

• The KSA (Keep Safe Asia) team is working on expanding the Bully plugin to include a centralized repository where users can see contributions and learn from others.
• The community can get involved in the project through crowdsourcing sessions, where they can contribute new slurs and languages to the plugin.
• Costa emphasizes that the community can contribute to the project in various ways, regardless of their skillset or interest.
• Denny highlights that even simple actions like installing the plugin, using it, and filing bug reports can be valuable contributions.
• For technical contributions, users can engage with open issues on GitHub or explore open-ended projects listed in the wiki.

Engaging with the Project

• The speaker encourages viewers to reach out if they have ideas for how the project "D" can be used to reduce the gap in online gender-based violence.
• The speaker mentions that the project has a community Slack space where people can join and connect with others working on the project.
• The speaker emphasizes the importance of personal motivation when working on social impact projects, drawing a parallel to the open source ethos of "scratching your own itch."
• The speaker shares the origin story of "Bully," explaining that it started as a conversation about misinformation on WhatsApp and evolved into a project to address the issue.
• The speaker advises viewers to start working on projects that address problems they care about, regardless of whether they consider them social impact projects.

Bully's Other Projects

• The speaker highlights "iie" as a prominent project and mentions other projects that "Bully" is working on, including "Deep Fake Analysis Unit" and "Saluda."
• The speaker explains that "Deep Fake Analysis Unit" is a consortium of fact-checkers and media forensics experts working to evaluate media items for manipulation using synthetic AI.
• The speaker describes "Saluda" as a DPG (Digital Public Goods) project that emerged from "Bully's" work on misinformation, focusing on tools for analyzing large amounts of videos, audios, and images.

Viral Spiral: A Game Against Misinformation

• The speaker discusses a multiplayer game called "Viral Spiral" designed to address misinformation.
• The game's inspiration came from the speaker's experience helping their mother and her friends identify fake news on WhatsApp.
• The game aims to teach players how to critically evaluate information and understand how biases affect their perception.
• The speaker emphasizes the importance of addressing misinformation, especially on platforms like WhatsApp, where it can spread rapidly.
• The game is intended to provide a safe space for players to explore different identities and reflect on their own behavior.
• The speaker encourages viewers to contribute to the project through GitHub Sponsors, which allows them to support the development of the game.
• The speaker acknowledges the difficulty in measuring the long-term impact of the project, but believes that it is planting seeds that will eventually bear fruit.

Impact and Accessibility

• The project has a list of problematic words, which is a metric for tracking the number of slurs they have identified.
• The list has grown to over 700 entries and is used by other organizations, such as ifs, to monitor content on platforms like YouTube.
• The project aims to make the list available to platform trust and safety teams to help them address hate speech.
• The project is open source, making it difficult to track how many people are using it, but they encourage users to reach out if they are using the list.

Finding Your Place in Open Source

• Costa, a lawyer by training, emphasizes the importance of following one's curiosity and finding ways to contribute to projects that align with their interests.
• She encourages people to explore opportunities like the GitHub Community Manager program or volunteering with organizations to make a difference.
• The speaker, Denny, emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary teams, highlighting that he and his co-founder, U, have backgrounds in both technology and public policy.
• Denny encourages young people to pursue their diverse interests, suggesting that combining technology with other fields like history or gender studies can lead to more fulfilling work experiences.
• He advocates for breaking down silos between personal interests and professional pursuits, emphasizing the value of bringing one's whole self to work.
• Denny expresses his desire to find a perfect balance between personal passions and professional endeavors, allowing individuals to pursue their curiosities while making a positive impact.

Conclusion

• The speaker concludes by thanking the audience and inviting them to connect with Denny and U, encouraging viewers to support the project and join them for future Open Source Friday events.