This content was reproduced from the employer’s website on December 22, 2022. Please visit their website below for the most up-to-date information about this position.
ADL’s Center for Technology & Society (CTS) is a research-driven advocacy center that works to end the proliferation of online hate and harassment. Our team partners with industry, civil society, government, and targeted communities to expose these harms, hold tech companies accountable, and fight for just, equitable online spaces.
PRIMARY FUNCTIONS:
The Quantitative Researcher will collaborate with staff at the Center for Technology and Society (CTS) to develop and carry out quantitative investigations of hate and harassment online. You will identify research questions and topics, focusing on experiences of targets and platform policies and products; scope and design original studies; carry out methods such as surveys, social media data scraping, and statistical analysis; and write up findings for reports, blog posts, and data visualizations. You will be responsible for collaborating with CTS staff on translating research questions into quantitative investigations, identifying and applying appropriate statistical analyses, visualizing data, and drafting written reports.
Responsibilities
Primary:
- Develop original quantitative investigations and analyses of online hate & harassment, focusing on experiences of targets and platform policies and products.
- Use data collection tools such as SMAT, CrowdTangle, and platforms’ APIs to collect data and monitor trends.
- Use machine learning tools and classifiers to detect and understand hateful and harassing content and its relationship to platforms.
- Use data to tell stories about the effects of hate and abuse on social media, online games, and related technologies.
- Work with external partners to analyze novel data sets for trends in online hate and harassment.
- Implement varied, research-backed analyses from a wide range of data science subfields based on the data available.
Secondary:
- Collaborate with CTS team members to identify new areas for quantitative, data-based research.
- Identify new datasets to analyze and explore using social science research methods
- Collaborate with CTS to develop short and long-term mixed-methods research projects.
- Combine data analysis, surveys, interviews, and qualitative content analysis to develop original research projects and findings.
Qualifications
Skills
- Strong quantitative analytical and research skills
- Survey design methodology and familiarity with qualitative research big pluses
- The ability to work in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment, with colleagues from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
- Able to translate complex quantitative methods and findings for non-academic readers, policy makers and stakeholders.
- Knowledge and interest in combating online harassment, hate, and extremism.
Experience
- The ideal candidate has several years of experience and can demonstrate expertise with:
- Python (e.g. NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Selenium, etc.)
- Statistical analysis language (R, SPSS, etc.)
- Existing data collection and analysis tools.
- Open-source machine learning.
- Experience using computational methods to answer social scientific questions required; experience with social media analysis preferred.
- Prior academic research or journalistic output a big plus.
Education
- Advanced degree (MA/PHD) in statistics, computer science, economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or related field or comparable professional experience in social media data analysis, visualization, and research, especially in an academic or journalistic context.
