Lisa Schirch 25 Spheres of Digital Peacebuilding and PeaceTech 5 brainstorm human-centred, user-oriented tech solutions. The Washington DC-based Peace Tech Lab sponsored hackathons in various regions of the world, and eventually set up a PeaceTech Accelerator to provide mentorship and training to scale for both profit-based and not-for-profit initiatives quickly and inexpensively. The PeaceTech Accelerator focused on startups able to produce innovative technologies that manage, mitigate, predict, or prevent conflict and promote sustainable peace.9 Third generation: Cyberwarfare and the ‘Weaponization’ of Social Media Platforms By the early 2010s, state and nonstate groups were using social media to spread hate, division, and violent extremist ideologies. Civil society groups in Myanmar began to raise concerns with Facebook in 2013 that the Myanmar military was spreading disinformation about Rohingya Muslims and generating genocidal levels of hate and violence.10 In Sri Lanka, civil society was making similar observations: Twitter and Facebook were being used to generate public violence.11 State-sponsored disinformation and polarising content from Russia and other countries escalated, with governments setting up “troll farms” and “cyber armies” to suppress their political opponents and democracy and human rights activists, polarise societies, and undermine democratic institutions and elections. Microsoft began a “Digital Peace” movement that describes itself as “a global movement of over 130,000 digital citizens from over 170 countries who demand that nations stop engaging in cyberwarfare and start working together to protect citizens from state-sponsored cyberattacks that threaten our safety and the stability of the modern world.”12 Nonstate terror groups also became prolific generators of social media content. Groups like ISIS published daily tweets, photos, and videos on their website to recruit and gain public support. Peacebuilding organisations like the Swiss-based ICT4Peace began Tech Against Terrorism initiatives to bring diverse stakeholders together to address the spread of violent extremist ideologies. Civil society groups such as Moonshot CVE began working with technology companies to create the “redirect” method. The redirect method responds to someone searching for information on violent extremism, such as a search for “white nation under threat,” by redirecting them to content that describes the benefits of multiculturalism and diversity.13 Yet extremist content on social media continued to spread. In 2018-2019, the Toda Peace Institute published a series of analytical policy briefs exploring the positive and negative impacts of technology on conflict dynamics. 14 These detailed the positive roles of technology for civic engagement, supporting democracy movements, and governance, while also describing how social media has escalated threats For more information see the Peace Tech Lab website at https://www.peacetechlab.org Victoire Rio. “Myanmar: The Role of Social Media in Fomenting Violence.” Toda Peace Institute, June 2020. 11 Sanjana Hattotuwa. Sri Lanka: Digital Blooms in Social Media and Violence. Toda Peace Institute, June 2020. 12 For more information on Digital Peace Now see the website at https://digitalpeacenow.org 13 For more information on MoonShot CVE see the website at http://moonshotcve.com 14 “Social Media Impacts on Social & Political Goods: A Peacebuilding Perspective.” L. Schirch. Toda Peace Institute. Policy Brief #38. April 2019; “Mapping Responses to Social Media Threats” L. Schirch. Toda Peace Institute. Policy Brief #38. April 2019. 9 10