While I have spent so long reading about how technology is making life miserable for migrants – I’ll get to the ISD report later – it was heartening this week to read how technology is helping them.

RUTH was fascinating to learn about. An algorithm that can help match migrants with sponsors is a great feat. I’m also interested in learning more about “Annie MOORE” and matching migrants with employers. It seems that hopefully this system could be applied to migrants from other countries. Perhaps could this help ease the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border? The systems discussed and those two articles certainly seem more effective and efficient than what we’ve read about in the past few weeks concerning those border crossings.

I greatly enjoyed reading the articles where I read/heard directly from journalists (like you!) covering the war. My favorite thing we read all week was from Lindsey Hilsum:

“We stayed at the Menorah Hotel in the Jewish Centre. As Putin claimed to be ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine, we thought it would be a bit of an own goal if it was hit by a rocket. They also served very good cheesecake.”

I like the bits of humor dispersed throughout this piece, like that quote or people making comments (not compliments) about her age and appearance. It adds humanity in the stories covering this inhumane war. I also appreciated the context given in the BBC piece, especially the stories from Russians that gave perspective to the kinds of sentiments they grew up with (e.g. “A chicken’s not really a bird; and Poland’s not really abroad,” or that Prague is “ours”). It was interesting to hear about how the misinformation had spread to them as children.

Speaking of misinformation (segway!), I really appreciated the ISD study – for my thesis purposes, not for the world. The fact that TikTok actively promotes those search terms, even the misspellings of phrases they block, is appalling.

I spoke with a fact-checker at PolitiFact who works with TikTok (as well as Meta) to fact-check their content (see my article from this week), and he told me that PolitiFact’s work can result in the post’s downgrade in the algorithm, but not necessarily being taken off. That doesn’t, though, explain why violent rhetoric was allowed to stay on according to the ISD. Additionally, the “invading army of sleeper cells” conspiracy theories and personal information of migrants should be taken down and posters punished.

The demonization and misinformation spread on social media platforms is evident from this study – and we’ve seen how it’s not the same level for Ukrainian refugees. It might be interesting to study different sets of migrants and see the differences in misinformation spread about them. In any case, it’s all bad, and I hope that there is a way to broaden the digital programs that allow the Ukrainians to escape the violence in their land to other migrants fleeing violence in their land.