tracking emigration from conflict areas using social media

Tracking Emigration from Conflict Areas using Social Media

Cody Buntain, Erin McGrath, Jen Golbeck{cbuntain,golbeck}@cs.umd.edu, [email protected]

HCIL+START, University of MarylandSMDR’1617 May 2016

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2014 2015

1,300,000

975,000

650,000

325,000

0

First-Time Asylum Seekers in the EU

From Eurostat

Smartphones have become essential but also yield unprecedented insight into migrant journeys

Nearly 1,000,000 tweets with GPS coordinates are posted across Europe each day

Can we use this shared location information to understand patterns in emigration?

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Goals

Experiments

PreliminaryResults

Limitations and Future Work

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WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS TALK?

1. Identify potential emigrating users in Twitter

2. Plot their paths of migration

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Goals

Experiments

PreliminaryResults


Emigration from Conflict/Crisis Zones

Syria

Ukraine

Turkey

Greece

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Identifying Emigrating Users

Initial Twitter data set: 4 billion tweets across 1 April 2013-31 Dec. 2015 from Twitter’s 1% public sample.

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Build list of candidate residents: Find all geo-coded tweets in the data set that were posted from the target country.

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Refine candidate residents: Identify the 100 most common self-reported locations

that fall within the target country. Retain users with these locations or any location that

mentions the target country.



syriaسورياسوريهسوريةدمشقحلب

damascusdamascus, syriadamascus,syria

damascus - syria

Ten most common locations in Syria:

“Syria” in Arabic

“Damascus”“Aleppo”

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Pull tweets for each candidate resident: For each candidate resident, extract all that user’s

tweets from the 1% sample.

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Identify potential emigrants: Remove all users whose first geo-coded tweet is

outside the target country and whose last tweet is within the target country.

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Goals

Experiments

PreliminaryResults


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4 billion tweets from1% public sample

Syria

Greece

Ukraine

Turkey

Preliminary Results

1,000,000

1,000

1

Twee

ts (

Log-

Scal

e)

3,012,765

179,58653,936

4,099

Country-Specific Tweets


Syria

Greece

Ukraine

Turkey

Preliminary Results1,000,000

1,000

1

Twee

ts (

Log-

Scal

e)

343,657

16,5715,767

384

Resident Users

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Syria

Greece

Ukraine

Turkey

Preliminary Results10,000

100

1

Twee

ts (

Log-

Scal

e) 1,870

349

100

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Emigrating Users

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21

Preliminary Results

Syria Greece

Ukraine Turkey

Emigration Paths

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Preliminary Results Expanding Syrian Data Set

Can we do better than 8 potential emigrants?

8 Potential Syrian Emigrants

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Relied on Twitter’s 1% public sample stream

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Twitter API

Pull past 3,200 tweets for each account: Use Twitter’s API to pull the most recent 3,200 tweets for each user who has posted in Syria

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Twitter API

Filter for and identify potential emigrants

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Twitter’s API datayielded 25 new potential emigrants (33 in total)

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Goals

Experiments

PreliminaryResults


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Limitations

1. Travelers vs. Residents Simple method for detecting location changes.

Movement within Syria happens near borders

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Limitations

2. Validity Only using a sample of Twitter data.

Social media users are often younger, maybe more male.

Data reveals some emigration paths

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Other Open Questions

1. Emigration from other countries

Eurostat

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Other Open Questions

2. Most popular destinations

Turkey

Lebanon

Australia

Canada

Ireland

Israel

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Serbia

0 5 10 15 20 25

Syrian destinations

Tracking Emigration from Conflict Areas using Social Media

Cody [email protected]

@codybuntainwww.coretx.net

SMDR’1617 May 2016

Thank you!Questions?

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.coretx.net

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- Slide 1: Cover photo - "A group of Syrian migrants charged their cellphones using a television station's satellite truck outside the Keleti train station last week in Budapest." Sept. 8 2015 - By Mauricio Lima for The New York Times - (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/phone-charging-stations)

- Slide 2: Migration photo - Frontex Border police - (http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/migratory-routes-map/)

- Slide 3: top left photo - Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan - Here's What Syrian Refugees Bring On Their Long, Dangerous Journeys - (http://gizmodo.com/heres-what-syrian-refugees-bring-on-their-long-dangero-1730050522)

- Slide 3: bottom left photo - Muhammed Muheisen, AP for TIME - A Syrian refugee shows his phone, after arriving on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos. Oct. 2, 2015 - (http://time.com/4062120/see-how-smartphones-have-become-a-lifeline-for-refugees/)

- Slide 3: Right photo - Migrants and refugees recharge cellphones as they wait to cross the border of Greece and Macedonia, near Idomeni, Greece, Nov. 9, 2015. - By Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP / Getty Images - (http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/18/for-asylum-seekers-a-cell-phone-is-a-bridge-to-the-future-and-the-past.html)

- Slide 4: Tweet map - From (http://onemilliontweetmap.com/)

Image Credits

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Image Credits

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Preliminary Results Syrian Emigration

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Preliminary Results Expanded Syrian Emigration

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Preliminary Results Greece Emigration

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Preliminary Results Ukraine Emigration

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Preliminary Results Turkey Emigration

tracking emigration from conflict areas using social media

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