The Technology and Trafficking in Persons Research Project is an initiative of the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy created to study the current use and broader implementation of information communication technologies in the international fight against human trafficking and modern slavery.
After two years of listening to highly emotional (and I must say highly impactful) presentations on human trafficking, USC spoke in academic terms. They outlined the premise for their research, spoke about the overwhelming lack of hard data on the issue, and refreshingly lacked emotion. For two hours we discussed the standards of academic research and theoretical honesty when researching social issues. While passion is effective in raising awareness about a social concern, data that informs policy most effectively lacks emotion. Dr. Mark Latonero, the Center’s Research Director, went so far as to say that the worst think an academic can be is an advocate. In this project, it’s crucial that they understand the research, wherever it may take them, even though they're concentrating on an issue they have a subjective stance on. Does this make sense?
In essence: trafficking is wrong, it violates every moral code one can think of, but that stance cannot interfere/overshadow/guide research in any way/shape/form.
The team of researchers we met with is working alongside USC’s Information and Sciences Institute (the same group that helped develop the internet for the world in the 70’s). ISI is highly interested in how machines learn and respond to language, and the FBI has worked with ISI on previous projects (think anti-terrorism) to track language in social media. This time they’re developing a website prototype that will allow the FBI to detect and analyze patterns in language on websites such as Craigslist, Backpage.com, and Redbook – sites commonly accused of facilitating trafficking. This next generation of this prototype would be MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. “There’s a common link among traffickers; we need that same link among anti-traffickers.” - Zhaleh Boyd, Research Associate. While those who follow the issue know that social media is being utilized by traffickers, USC is hoping to actually turn these anecdotes into data - and supporting anecdotes statistically is what informs policy. Right now, the data is all over the map and academically sound research is hard to find. They have their work cut out for them, but I’m excited to hear that fields like communication and information technology are stepping forward.
Amanda Allen, Project Manager, Baylor Interdisciplinary Poverty Initiative
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