School of Social and Political Science

Description

Equally Safe Online is a research project exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can help people who are experiencing online Gender-Based Violence (GBV), mainly looking at social media platforms. The project has involved survivors, practitioners, and academics in efforts to tackle online gender-based violence (GBV). 

We believe this project is the first to bring together computer and social scientists (from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot Watt University) to work alongside GBV experts, including young people, to improve detection and mitigation of online misogyny and abuse. The project was funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council and the researchers are from Heriot Watt University (leading on AI development) and the University of Edinburgh (leading on young people’s involvement). We all worked closely with organisations helping people subject to GBV across the UK.

Working with young people

The University of Edinburgh’s researchers worked with young people, including young survivors of Gender- Based Violence, to inform AI development in detecting and mitigating online Gender-Based Violence. This was a unique collaboration across sciences, with young people from three local Rape Crisis groups and Young Scot. Computer and Social Scientists co-created workshops with an artist and expert in data education in schools. These were underpinned by an ethics and participation framework co-developed with young survivors across numerous GBV projects in the past 25 years (see Houghton et al. 2024 Participation toolkit | Children and families affected by domestic abuse).

Tweet detective and social media superhero - train the Bot

24 young people aged 13-20 took part in ‘tweet detective’ and ‘social media superhero’ workshops to ‘train the Bot’. Young people helped researchers develop online flagging systems that reflected young people’s experience of online GBV and understand clues to look for to judge if a post is online GBV. They suggested responses the Bot could make that informed AI generated counterspeech developments. Five of these young people co-created the Young People vs Gender-Based Violence report. In this, young people explained that this happened to everyday people all the time and has a real impact on their lives. They felt people needed to be more aware of how far people go online and how extremist their views are. They hoped ‘The Bot’ would help protect people online and save others from becoming involved and harmed. They wanted increased awareness of online GBV and help and support for those affected. They also saw the potential for AI to support the creation of safe spaces for online collaboration and activism. They felt the process was educational and recommended a creative educational resource to support young people to safely and creatively discuss online GBV, social media and AI - we have collaborated with partners to apply for a grant for this. They recommended that young people should continue to help computer scientists and researchers develop AI. 

The team

Fiona McNeill is a Professor of Computing Education at the University of Edinburgh (Informatics) focussing on transitions into university and access to CS and STEM education for commonly excluded groups, particularly women and girls and young people from deprived backgrounds.  As University of Edinburgh PI on the Equally Safe Online project, she has collaborated with Claire and other colleagues to oversee the integration of young people into the project, ensuring that the AI is trained on data incorporating a young person's perspective, and that young people's understanding of online GBV and how to respond to it is at the heart of what we are doing. 

Claire Houghton is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Qualitative Research (SSPS) at the University of Edinburgh, regularly advises the Scottish Government on Gender-Based Violence and Children’s Rights, and undertakes participatory action research with survivors and young people to tackle GBV. As University of Edinburgh Co-I on the Equally Safe Online project Claire led the young people’s participation aspect of the work, enjoying collaborating across teams, organisations and disciplines and applying her frameworks to a new topic and discipline.

Co-design and workshop co-facilitation

This ace team undertook the co-design and co-facilitation of the workshops

• Christina McMellon brought her participation expertise to lead the workshops from UoE
• Nancie Gunson (HW) facilitated the workshops from the AI perspective from Heriot Watt
• Poppy Gerrard-Abbott supported across both institutions bringing GBV expertise

Kate Farrell lent us her wisdom on data education in schools to co-create the materials

Thanks to Elspeth Maxwell for the art design.

More information

For further information about the wider Equally Safe Online project see the whole project website Equally Safe Online.