Syria Tracker: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information

Ushahidi
May 24, 2011

[Guest blog post by Syria Tracker] Syria Tracker is a crowdsourced effort developed by individuals concerned about the harm inflicted upon civilians in Syria. Reporters are reporting crimes in Syria either via direct web entry, by sending reports via email to syriatracker@gmail.com, or by tagging their tweets with #basharcrimes. Additionally, recently we’ve adopted Speak2Tweet service; developed by Google in light of the recent events in Egypt, to accept calls from Syria where callers can dial either +16 50 4194 196 or +39 06 62207 294 or +44 20 3318 4514 and leave a voice message that automatically gets posted to twitter with hashtag #Syria. Since its launch on April, 23, 2011, Syria Tracker has been able to log 824 aggregate or individual reports documenting > 1,000 individuals killed since mid March 2011.  These reports are being verified by a group of volunteers from the Stand By Taskforce and the Ushahidi team which cross-validate information against other sources or posts and provide technical and program assistance to help us achieve our mission. To-date Syria Tracker has been visited by 1,384 absolute unique visitors contributing to 6,435 page views with an average of ~3 pages per visit and 71.60% new visits. Accounting for these events – current and past – is important for future humanitarian and legal action.