IC2S2 and CSS Amsterdam are organizing a Datathon on Wednesday July 17th at the beautiful Institute of Advanced Study in the city center of Amsterdam.

This datathon is organized in collaboration with De Correspondent, a Dutch innovative new website for investigative journalism.

The objective of the Datathon is to meet like-minded people and foster future collaborations, learn new methods and algorithms, and have fun answering some of the research questions below, using the data provided by the datathon.

Have you never been to a Datathon? That is okay, the organization team will ensure that you profit from the experience.

Price: Free. Lunch, snacks, coffee and post-event drinks are provided.

Register here: https://forms.gle/mU5HqDBkMcYv3YQq7

Data source:

A rich Youtube dataset, consisting of comments, videos, and transcriptions of over 1000 Youtube channels related to the extreme right and extreme left. The data covers a period from 2006 to 2018. The channels were collected through snowballing from a hand-picked sample of channels and manually checked to ensure reliability.

The dataset was compiled by Dimitri Tokmetzis, a journalist for the Dutch innovative new website De Correspondent.

Sample of the data:

Join the slack group to get access to it:

https://join.slack.com/t/ic2s2datathon/shared_invite/enQtNjc1MDc1ODQzODYwLTE0MmZhM2MzNDVmNTY4NWY5ZGNlNzE1MTRlMjg5ZWFmYzJmNTA5OWEzOTAyZGZhMDI3NDBkNWM0OTBlY2ZiMTg

Example of research questions:

– The recent Benkler book Network Propaganda claims that there are systematic differences in the right and left media ecosystems. For example, the left ecosystem is claimed to maintain more truth-seeking norms and networks of accountability whereas the right is more identify-affirming. Can we find evidence for this in the Youtube data?

– Politicians and organizations state that organized groups (e.g. the web brigades) can steer the political debate. Can we locate organized groups of users that introduce new ideas on Youtube channels?

— In political science and popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that far-left and far right, rather than being opposites, closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. Can we find users that move from far-right to far-left or reverse over time, and uncover the common ground between both extremes?

Schedule:

8:30 – 9:00: Walk-in

9:00 – 9:45: Opening and presentations on extremism and radicalization 

9:45 – 10:15 Group formation 

10:15 – 17:00: Group work 

17:30 – 18:30: Small presentations & announcement of the winners by the jury

18:30 –: Drinks at CREA

Ideas or questions?

Contact both of us at A.Keuchenius@uva.nl (Anna) and garcia@uva.nl (Javier)