There are no laws in the US or Canada that enact robust data collection measures to monitor the scope and scale of gendered or racialized violence. To fill the data gap caused by the lack of policy and data collection, activists collect counterdata to track and record violence in their own communities and context. Activists engaged with tracking racialized and gendered violence in the US and Canada in particular use social media to reframe narratives around their communities. This project investigates how twelve data activists who respond to gendered and radicalized deaths and disappearances use social media through analysis of their posts and interviews with activists.

I am participating in the SuperUROP to finish 11-6 and continue my work in the Data + Feminism Lab. I am particularly excited to learn more about ethicality in social media (continuing from the IAP 2021 class 6.S098), data activism, and human-computer interaction.