• Many hate crimes never make it into the FBI’s database

    The FBI’s latest numbers showed a 17 percent increase in reported hate crimes in 2017. But what does this actually say about the actual number of hate crimes occurring in the U.S.? Not much. The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 mandates that the FBI publish statistics specifically for crimes motivated by bias, and a broad network of state laws require that hate crimes are both tracked and prosecuted. Despite this, a variety of problems plague the implementation of these laws.

  • Charlotte’s Women’s March disassociates from national organization over anti-Semitism

    Organizers of the Charlotte’s Women’s March have changed their name and disassociated themselves from the national movement over expressions of anti-Semitism by the March’s leadership. In November, Teresa Shook, the founder of the Women’s March, called on the movement’s current co-chairs to resign over anti-Semitic rhetoric and bigotry, and in December, the Women’s March of Washington State disassociated itself from the national movement because of anti-Semitism.

  • Russia undermines trust in science by spreading lies about genetic editing

    Genetic editing has been a hot topic of conversation lately. There are arguments on ll sides of the issue, but Jesse Kirkpatrick and Michael Flynn – in an important article in Slate, titled “Don’t Let Russia Undermine Trust in Science” — are drawing attention to a growing threat in the debate: Russian disinformation.

  • Colombia: Venezuelans behind plot to assassinate President Ivan Duque

    The Colombian government said that the country’s security services had foiled a plot to kill President Ivan Duque. The security services said that the plot involved three Venezuelans who were recently arrested with assault weapons. The conservative Ivan Duque has been a vocal critic of his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro.

  • Guyana at risk: Ethnic politics, oil, Venezuelan opportunism and why it should matter to Washington

    On Friday, 21 December, the government of Guyana, a strategically important but often overlooked country, imploded. A member of parliament from a small centrist partner in the governing coalition, supported an opposition no-confidence motion against his own party’s leadership. His move ended the government’s fragile 33-32 majority in the 65 seat National Assembly, setting the stage for new national elections within 90 days. The collapse of the government is the first shot in a destabilizing fight between Guyana’s ethnically Indian and African communities to control the spoils from a tidal wave of oil money as production from the offshore Liza field begins in 2020. To exacerbate the situation, the collapsing socialist regime of neighboring Venezuela continues to assert claims on part of that oil and a third of Guyana’s national territory.

  • European far-right groups eschew violence to broaden appeal

    More than seventy years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, ethno-nationalist and white supremacist movements in Europe continue to thrive. They include far-right political parties, neo-Nazi movements, and apolitical protest groups. These groups’ outward rejection of violence expands the reach of their message, and  can increase the potential for radicalization.

  • How we built a tool that detects the strength of Islamophobic hate speech on Twitter

    In a landmark move, a group of MPs recently published a working definition of the term Islamophobia. They defined it as “rooted in racism,” and as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” In our latest working paper, we wanted to better understand the prevalence and severity of such Islamophobic hate speech on social media. Such speech harms targeted victims, creates a sense of fear among Muslim communities, and contravenes fundamental principles of fairness. But we faced a key challenge: while extremely harmful, Islamophobic hate speech is actually quite rare.

  • Manchester, U.K. knife attacks treated as an act of terrorism

    Manchester, U.K. police said Tuesday they are treating the New Year’s Eve stabbing of three people as a terrorist incident. Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said two people suffered “very serious” injuries in the attack and remain in the hospital receiving treatment. A police sergeant who was stabbed in the shoulder has been released.

  • 2018 death toll in Syria lowest since 2011

    About 20,000 people were killed this year in Syria’s civil war — a record low in a conflict that has already claimed half a million lives. The largest death toll was 76,000 in 2014. The recent announcement of U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria has raised fears that violence could flare up again in 2019.

  • AI advancement opens health data privacy to attack

    Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of health data, a new study shows. The study suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual’s health status private in the face of AI development.

  • Terrorism lawsuits threaten lawful speech: 2018 in review

    One of the most important principles underpinning the Internet is that if you say something illegal, you should be held responsible for it—not the owners of the site or service where you said it. That principle has seen many threats this year—not just in federal legislation, but also in a string of civil lawsuits intended to pin liability on online platforms for allegedly providing material support to terrorists.

  • Charlie Hebdo attack suspect deported to France, charged

    A fugitive jihadist has been deported from Djibouti to France in connection with the deadly 2015 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, French authorities said. The Paris prosecutor’s office said Peter Cherif was expelled to France after his recent arrest in Djibouti, and was immediately taken into custody and charged upon his arrival on 23 December at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport.

  • Israeli Drone Dome helps Gatwick airport to avoid shutdown

    Drone Dome, from Israeli defense company Rafael, pinpoints a suspicious drone and jams the radio frequencies used by its operator to control it, rendering the UAV unable to move. The British military had purchased the system a few months ago, and used it during the drone sightings at London’s Gatwick Airport.

  • Local chapters pressuring national Women’s March over anti-Semitism

    As the Women’s March prepares to march again on 19 January, the organization’s national leadership is under intense pressure from local branches over allegations of anti-Semitism against co-chairs Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez.

  • Documenting hate in America: What ProPublica found in 2018

    Swastikas drawn on the office of a Jewish Ivy League professor. Latinos harassed for speaking Spanish in public. Hijab-wearing women targeted in road rage incidents. Neo-Nazis bragging online about a murder. These are just some of the incidents that ProPublica and its partners have reported in their second year of Documenting Hate, a collaborative project investigating hate with more than 160 newsrooms around the country.