---
title: Big Data ‘Early Alarm’ for Ukraine Abuses
date: 2022-09-14T16:05:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/big-data-early-alarm-for-ukraine-abuses"
section: Articles
---
# Big Data ‘Early Alarm’ for Ukraine Abuses

*September 14, 2022* — by [Chris Carroll](/authors/chris-carroll)


- *Painting by Servio Kuub/Unsplash*
- *Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP*

> System Analyzes Millions of Tweets Daily to Quickly Pinpoint Atrocities, Refugee Flows

*Painting of Ukraine flag colors with Twitter birds*

From searing images of mass killings by Russian forces to accounts of families struggling to flee frontline fighting, journalists have created a kaleidoscopic view of the suffering that has engulfed Ukraine since Russia invaded—but the news media can’t be everywhere.

Social media faces no such limitations, however, and a University of Maryland researcher is part of a U.S.-Ukrainian multi-institutional team harvesting data from Twitter and analyzing it with machine-learning algorithms. The result is a real-time system that maps out humanitarian needs, displaced people, civilian resistance and human rights violations—constructed from the accounts of people in the path of the war.


*woman in Ukraine during war*




**Issue:** [Fall 2022](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/fall-2022)


**Types:** [Explorations](https://terp.umd.edu/category/explorations)