By design, online communities amplify digital violence. DiD leverages, builds, and experiments with technology that brings people together, across South Asia and beyond.
0Survivors engaged
0Data donations
0Fellows trained
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Dignity in DifferenceDiD · Est. 2021
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0Network members
0Million women & minorities reached
0Recognition spaces
01 — Build
Skill-building tools for a safer web.
We create interactive learning tools to change how people respond to conflict and harm.
2024
Web App
VoiceValor
How do platforms define abuse, and how can we change it? VoiceValor is an award-winning web-based auditing tool exposing blind spots in commercial AI moderation. By showing survivors how their feeds appear to commercial toxicity classifiers, we empower communities to document and report mislabeled content. We've collected over half a million data donations and identified 5,500+ algorithmic failures in detecting culturally specific online misogyny.
When was the last time you changed someone's mind, or yours, by telling them they were wrong? Our democracies are hinging on the ability of our digital generation to find the truth and tell it in ways that actually change minds. Bunk with Kindness is a first-of-its-kind, free tool that empowers citizens to counter misinformation with empathy. By combining skill-building and personalized feedback, the platform equips users to craft impactful counter-narratives. Over 2000 users have showed a 40% increase in empathy, personal storytelling, and compassionate reasoning in their responses.
BridgeGPT, our generative AI tool, mediates online harassment dialogues with kindness and empathy. It offers real-time coaching on counter-speech strategies, trained on thousands of speech-counter-speech datasets, ensuring gender minorities feel supported while tackling identity-based harassment. A pilot with 50+ Muslim women led to the tool reducing perceived feelings of isolation and negativity, and increased feelings of support.
We built a research framework to bridge community testimony, cultural context, and lived experience valongside large-scale digital evidence to design technology that brings people from across the political and ideological spectrum together.
01
2025
Research Experiment
Analysing efficacy of X's Community Notes after Meta fallout
We collected and analysed fact-checking data from 1,000 X posts to determine the efficacy of community notes in countering misinformation in South Asia, following Meta's move to end ties with thrd-party fact-checkers.
Prevention by Design: Tackling TFGBV at the Source
We contributed our insights in this paper by the Integrity Institute, advocating for a proactive, design-focused approach embedding safety and user empowerment into social media platform design through exploring behavior-focused interventions and upstream design solutions.
What should Nepal's inter-im administration do? A Polis Project
Following Nepal's September 2025 political breakthrough, our community of volunteers on-ground captured every perspective through 3,000 votes. A consensus emerged demanding accountability and fair elections from the interim government.
We focus on them because they are often the first to experience how digital spaces turn identity, dissent, and difference into targets for harm. They also carry precise knowledge about how online abuse works in their own contexts.
01
2025 — Workshop, Singapore
Trust & Safety Foundation APAC Summit
Leading with Survivors' Experiences in Trust and Safety for a Billion
Through a lightning talk, we shared insights from data collection with over 10,000 survivors of tech-facilitated gender based violence who used VoiceValor to point out algorithmic failures in labeling and removing contextual misogyny online.
Connected, Protected and Empowered: Ending Online and Tech-Facilitated Violence
We were a panelist at the UNESCO Global Symposium on ending online and tech-facilitated violence to share systemic interventions for education systems to counter digital harms.
Social, Anti-Social: Reimagining Digital Spaces for Queer Thriving
We were at the Rainbow Litfest in Delhi to share DiD's efforts to systematically reimagine digital spaces as spaces of queer thriving, joy, and self-expression.
Over the next 20 to 30 years, AI will shape what communities see, believe, fear, and fight over. We want to become part of the infrastructure that helps belonging survive that pressure through building pathways for humanity in the midst of conflict.
UN HQ 2026
Prevention of Violent Extremism Day — UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, New York
We were invited to "Preventing Violent Extremism in the Digital Age", under the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact. We shared about engaging today and future generations in countering violent extremism in the digital age.
Global Internet Forum for Counter-Terrorism Gaming & Youth Working Group
In its third year working with trust and safety teams, we are part of GIFCT's Gaming and Youth Working Group, analyzing the intersection of radicalization, identity, and digital platforms.
Our work has been featured and awarded across 50+ spaces. We also contribute to the global academic and policy research ecosystem through publications and presentations.
Latest Recognition
2026 — UNFPA & eSafety Commissioner
Asia Safety Showcase Finalist
VoiceValor selected as a finalist for the Asia Safety Showcase, led by UNFPA in Asia and Pacific, Australia's eSafety Commissioner, Digital Rights Foundation, ADB Development Foundation and the Numun Fund as an innovative technology reshaping to serve survivors most at risk of tech-facilitated gender-based violence.
World Summit on Information Society Prize Nomination
Bunk With Kindness nominated for its potential to empower citizens to counter misinformation with empathy, under the category "Ethical dimensions of the Information Society".
We won the Rebalance Project's Businesses that Support Democracy Prize, validating our approach of pursuing systematic reforms to address challenges of South Asia's information ecosystem.
2026 — Participatory AI and Research Symposium 26 Symposium
Learning from THICK-BIG data on Algorithmic Failures
At the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit, we shared learnings with technologists, lawyers and policymakers from across the world from piloting VoiceValor as a practical, survivor-centric framework for algorithmic accountability in South Asian online moderation.
Our tool, VoiceValor was featured by UN Women among 10 top case study solutions leveraging technology to detect algorithmic failures countering online misogyny in the Global South.
We shared insights from intervention pilot tests with VoiceValor on how platforms can design online spaces to encourage social cohesion and counter online offloading into offline violence.
We have been a key partner to organisations like GIFCT, UNESCO, UNCCT and others to enable innovative, scalable solutions for safer, inclusive digital spaces, bridging global expertise with community-driven insights.
Funded by
EU-Youth Empowerment FundGlobal Youth MobilisationDigital Action Lab — CIVICUSPoint of View Mumbai — Feminist Batti JalaoUNESCO-LiiV Center
We equip underrepresented communities in South Asia with the tools to identify, navigate, and respond to online harm through interactive apps, games, guides, and training spaces that help them practice safer, more empathetic forms of digital engagement.
2024
Web App
VoiceValor
Who defines what digital harm is? As a group of survivors and technologists who cared about keeping our online communities safe, we dug deeper and found out that it's often not the people who are harmed the most. Commercial AI moderation systems are typically trained on datasets that under-represent languages and culture from the global majority world with limited digital footprints and training data. This leads to algorithmic failures where harmful comments are missed, while survivors' responses are sometimes incorrectly flagged. VoiceValor is a web-based auditing tool designed to expose these blind spots. By showing survivors how their feeds appear to commercial toxicity classifiers, we empower communities to document and report mislabeled content. These insights allow researchers and advocates to challenge systemic bias and demand equitable digital safety, while the donated data helps retrain commercial classifiers for a more just future.
BunkWithKindness is a public learning tool for compassionate debunking. It helps people respond to misinformation with empathy, clarity, and curiosity in family chats, comment threads, and community spaces, with the aim to build a different culture of disagreement where we build more room for constructive conversation. In real-time, AI models evaluate the counter-narrative on eight positive and one negative attributes: Compassion, Respect, Tone & Language, Curiosity, Nuance, Personal Story, Reasoning, Affinity, and Toxicity.
BridgeGPT is a custom-GPT tool that facilitates more constructive dialogue, creating a safer space for LGBTQI+ and other marginalized groups. Built on ChatGPT Plus, it bridges communication across difference through AI-assisted conversation design.
The State of Fact-Checking Index is a free tool that provides a quick overview of the fact-checking ecosystem around the world, integrating three key parameters: number of fact-checking organisations per country, percentage of people using the internet, and press-freedom score.
The next generation of our tools — in development, in pilot, or in partnership with communities who need them most.
Private Beta
2025
Together for Tomorrow
Together for Tomorrow is a digital training tool that teaches how to talk to people who disagree with you politically. Grounded in the science of bridging communication, it teaches the seven attributes, simulates real partisan conversations, and tests the skills using custom bridging AI models. In its 2025 pilot, TFT reached 800 civil society leaders. Users generated 2,300 practice messages and showed a 32% improvement in dialogue quality across core bridging indicators: tone and language, reasoning, empathy, affinity, respect, compassion, personal story, and nuance.
MemeShift is an AI-driven platform that monitors online spaces for narratives delegitimizing peaceful protests and counters them in real time using culturally resonant memes and strategic bridging narratives to safeguard public support for civic action.
In Development
2026 – 2028
Youth Alliance of Digital Sanity — Nepal
YADS is a youth-led programme in Nepal that helps young people build critical thinking, verification, and dialogue skills while co-creating a youth-run digital space to respond to misinformation and online harm. We are building youth leadership, shared curricula, peer-learning systems, and partner ownership so that young people and local organisations can eventually run the work without us.
In Development
2025 – 2026
Nepal's First Toxicity Dataset
Like any other culture, online harm varies from country to country. Most online forums rely on toxicity datasets to moderate and remove online hate. However, Nepal is not represented in any closed/open-source dataset or API for such moderation, leaving online communities vulnerable to threat, toxicity, and harm. The project will involve:
Building a platform that allows co-creation through expansion, machine translation, comment submission, and verification of toxicity data
Running two "Youth-against-harm" campaigns involving 100+ young people that allow them to submit harmful speech examples covering a large spectrum of samples from digital spaces
Releasing the open-access dataset and API for communities
Web App2024
VoiceValor
Who defines what digital harm is? VoiceValor is an award-winning web-based auditing tool exposing blind spots in commercial AI moderation. By showing survivors how their feeds appear to commercial toxicity classifiers, we empower communities to document and report mislabeled content. We've collected over half a million data donations and identified 5,500+ algorithmic failures in detecting culturally specific online misogyny in South Asia.
Learning from THICK-BIG Data on Algorithmic Failures — PAIRS Symposium
At the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit, we shared learnings from piloting VoiceValor as a practical, survivor-centric framework for algorithmic accountability in South Asian online moderation.
Casebook on AI and Gender Empowerment — UN Women / AI Impact Summit
VoiceValor was featured by UN Women among 10 top case study solutions leveraging technology to detect algorithmic failures countering online misogyny in the Global South.
Platform Governance in Polarized Contexts — PlatGovNet
We shared insights from intervention pilot tests with VoiceValor on how platforms can design online spaces to encourage social cohesion and counter online offloading into offline violence.
Prevention by Design: Tackling TFGBV at the Source — Integrity Institute
DiD contributed insights to this report advocating for a proactive, design-focused approach embedding safety and user empowerment into social media platform design.
Meta AI's Text-to-Image Guardrails — Technical Investigation with BOOMLive
We investigated how Meta AI's text-to-image feature has been exploited to create harmful imagery targeting minorities in South Asia — directly connected to VoiceValor's research into cultural bias in AI moderation systems.
UNESCO-LiiV Center Global Design Challenge — Foundational Recognition
We received the UNESCO-LiiV Center Global Design Challenge Award for designing the blueprint of a digital support chatbot for survivors of online GBV in South Asia — the direct precursor to VoiceValor.
Leading with Survivors' Experiences in Trust and Safety — T&S Foundation APAC Summit, Singapore
We shared insights from data collection with over 10,000 survivors of tech-facilitated gender based violence who used VoiceValor to point out algorithmic failures in labeling and removing contextual misogyny online.
How AI Addresses Toxicity Online — Bread & Net, Lebanon
We stress-tested VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness with digital rights practitioners across the region, sharing key strategies on designing technology to counter cultures of online harm.
Picture-Perfect Hate Lightning Talk — MisinfoCon 2025
We conducted a lightning talk uncovering the phenomena of picture-perfect hate on online platforms based on DiD's technical investigation with BOOMLive, alongside a VoiceValor demo.
Research and Narrative Strategy Workshop — Sarojini Naidu Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia
We conducted a research and narrative strategy workshop with postgraduate and doctoral students to explore, research and counter online abuse through VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness.
Thick-Big Data and Algorithmic Justice — EASA Design Justice Workshop
We organized a workshop for the European Association of Social Anthropologists, discussing thick-big data innovations in digital anthropology that underpin VoiceValor's methodology.
Algorithmic Failures Panel — South & Southeast Asia Regional Forum on Cyber SGBV, Sri Lanka
We shared about algorithmic failures at a regional forum on cyber sexual-gender based violence, presenting VoiceValor's findings on how commercial classifiers miss culturally specific online misogyny.
Why AI Can't Show a Left-Handed Person But Can Fake History — BOOMLive
We gave expert input on how bias in training data fuels AI failures — directly connected to VoiceValor's research into cultural bias in moderation systems.
Women of the South Speak Out Fellowship — Building South Asia's First Toxicity Datasets
We contributed to the Asia-Pacific advocacy and research collective under ARROW, working toward visibility and dialogue on Tech-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, using VoiceValor's data as evidence.
We participated in Beijing 30+ CSO consultations for survivor-centered algorithms to moderate online gender-based violence, using VoiceValor's findings to advocate for equitable platform design.
2023 — Working Group
GIFCT Toolkit Contribution — Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism
We contributed to GIFCT by creating toolkits for alternative, positive digital interventions, drawing on VoiceValor's approach to community-driven counter-speech.
Asia Safety Showcase Finalist — UNFPA & eSafety Commissioner
VoiceValor selected as a finalist for the Asia Safety Showcase led by UNFPA in Asia and Pacific, Australia's eSafety Commissioner, Digital Rights Foundation, ADB Development Foundation and the Numun Fund as an innovative technology serving survivors most at risk of tech-facilitated gender-based violence.
Rebalance Observatory — Prize for Businesses that Support Democracy
DiD won the Rebalance Project's Businesses that Support Democracy Prize, validating our approach of pursuing systematic reforms to address challenges of South Asia's information ecosystem — powered by VoiceValor's data-driven methodology.
We received the award for designing the blueprint of a digital support chatbot for survivors of online GBV in South Asia — the foundational recognition that led directly to VoiceValor's development.
When was the last time you changed someone's mind by telling them they were wrong? Bunk With Kindness is a first-of-its-kind, free tool that empowers citizens to counter misinformation with empathy. By combining skill-building and personalized feedback, the platform equips users to craft impactful counter-narratives. Over 2,000 users have showed a 40% increase in empathy, personal storytelling, and compassionate reasoning in their responses. In real-time, AI models evaluate the counter-narrative on eight attributes: Compassion, Respect, Tone & Language, Curiosity, Nuance, Personal Story, Reasoning, Affinity, and Toxicity.
Prevention by Design: Tackling TFGBV at the Source — Integrity Institute
DiD contributed insights to this report advocating for proactive, design-focused approaches embedding safety and empathy-building into social media platform design — reflecting the methodology behind Bunk With Kindness.
Opportunities and Challenges in Bunking Fake News with Kindness — Digizen Sri Lanka
We shared insights with digital peacebuilders, activists, and researchers from across South Asia on how Bunk With Kindness coaches frontline workers to counter misinformation through empathetic, bridging narratives.
How AI Addresses Toxicity Online — Bread & Net, Lebanon
We shared key strategies on designing technology to counter cultures of online harm by stress-testing Bunk With Kindness with digital rights practitioners across the region.
Research and Narrative Strategy Workshop — Sarojini Naidu Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia
We conducted a research and narrative strategy workshop with postgraduate and doctoral students to counter online abuse using Bunk With Kindness alongside VoiceValor.
ETV Bharat — "AI-Powered Tool to Tackle Fake News"
Bunk With Kindness was featured as a first-of-its-kind tool empowering citizens to counter misinformation with empathy, reaching a large regional news audience in India.
Debuting Bunk With Kindness at 700+ Justice Innovators — Justicemaker Mela, Agami, Bhopal
We debuted Bunk With Kindness alongside VoiceValor at a national gathering of justice innovators across the Indian ecosystem, gathering early user feedback.
World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Prize Nomination
Bunk With Kindness nominated for its potential to empower citizens to counter misinformation with empathy, under the category "Ethical dimensions of the Information Society".
DiD was present at a highly curated convening of thought leaders exploring strategies at the intersection of AI and social impact, where Bunk With Kindness was among our highlighted tools.
2025 — Prize
Rebalance Observatory — Prize for Businesses that Support Democracy
DiD won the Rebalance Project's Businesses that Support Democracy Prize, which recognizes our full portfolio including Bunk With Kindness as a tool for building healthier information ecosystems.
BridgeGPT, our generative AI tool, mediates online harassment dialogues with kindness and empathy. It offers real-time coaching on counter-speech strategies, trained on thousands of speech-counter-speech datasets, ensuring gender minorities feel supported while tackling identity-based harassment. A pilot with 50+ Muslim women led to the tool reducing perceived feelings of isolation and negativity, and increased feelings of support. Built on ChatGPT Plus, it bridges communication across difference through AI-assisted conversation design.
Social, Anti-Social: Reimagining Digital Spaces for Queer Thriving — Rainbow Litfest
We shared DiD's efforts to systematically reimagine digital spaces, with BridgeGPT forming part of our toolkit for safer identity-based digital engagement.
The Many Hues of Online Gendered Violence — The Red Door & CREA
We were part of a panel discussion exploring the different hues of online gendered violence, where BridgeGPT's approach to counter-speech was highlighted as an intervention for LGBTQI+ communities.
Innovation in Digital Anthropology — Podcast with Matt Artz
We were featured in a podcast with digital anthropologist Matt Artz discussing how digital anthropology can reshape digital spaces to be safer, including the development of BridgeGPT.
G20 Interfaith Forum Bangkok — Bridging Communication Methods
We shared recommendations on bridging communication methods with interfaith and religious leaders — the same principles that underpin BridgeGPT's dialogue-mediation design.
The State of Fact-Checking Index is a free tool that provides a quick overview of the fact-checking ecosystem around the world, integrating three key parameters: number of fact-checking organisations per country, percentage of people using the internet, and press-freedom score. It serves researchers, policymakers, and journalists navigating the global information integrity landscape.
Analysing the Efficacy of X's Community Notes after Meta Fallout
We collected and analysed fact-checking data from 1,000 X posts to determine the efficacy of community notes in countering misinformation in South Asia — directly drawing on the Fact-Checking Index's methodology and ecosystem mapping.
Digital Games for Peacebuilding — Salzburg Global / Nippon Foundation
The Fact-Check Index informed the media literacy component of this toolkit confronting hate speech and disinformation across South and Southeast Asia through gamified interventions in 10 local languages.
We were present at MisinfoCon 2025, where the Fact-Check Index served as background evidence for discussions on the state of fact-checking infrastructure across South Asia.
UNESCO MGIEP: Socio-Emotional Learning in the Digital World
We were selected from 1,000+ consultations across India for a live discussion with policymakers on integrating Socio-Emotional Learning Skills in the digital world, drawing on our fact-checking ecosystem research.
We use participatory, action-oriented research to understand how digital harm actually works in people’s lives. Our thick-big data approach brings together lived experience, cultural context, and large-scale digital evidence, so that interventions, policies, and platform responses are shaped by the people most affected.
01
2025
Research Experiment
Analysing the efficacy of X's Community Notes after Meta fallout
Meta ended its ties with fact-checkers and transitioning to community notes. How did this move impact South Asia? We analyzed fact-checks and misinformation posts at X from across South Asia to understand community notes' role in resisting misinformation. We found that only 7 out of 100 posts on X, linked from the debunked misinformation articles, had community notes present on them. Learning from X’s community notes implementation in South Asia, we can anticipate that Meta’s move to adopt community notes will likely result in significant misinformation remaining unflagged on its platforms. Given that South Asia is Meta’s largest user base, this decision will have profound implications for the region’s democracies, amplifying the reach of propaganda, and narrowing civic space.
Prevention by Design: Tackling TFGBV at the Source
The digital world's heroes and villains are products of its underlying systems, which urgently need redesign. In contrast to existing solutions that address harm reactively, they place the burden of safety on victims, the paper advocates for a proactive, design-focused approach that embeds safety and user empowerment into social media platform design. This paper, in parts contributed by DiD, explores two complementary strategies for mitigating TFGBV:
1. Behavior-Focused Interventions: These recommendations aim to influence user interactions by deterring harmful behaviors in real-time and empowering individuals to manage their online safety.
2. Upstream Design Solutions: These proposals address the structural features of platforms, including algorithmic systems and content moderation processes, to tackle harm at the source.
What should Nepal's inter-im administration do? APolis Project
“There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” September 8, 2025 was one of those weeks in Nepal. A new movement broke through years of inertia, opening space for a wide range of possibilities. But how can a future be built without deliberation, disagreement, and a deeper understanding of our collective priorities? That is why our community in Nepal took the lead in capturing every perspective with a stake in the country’s future. Already, a consensus has emerged: the interim government must be held accountable and prioritize delivering fair elections.
A visual storytelling project transforming over 1,000 qualitative responses from the Global Digital Compact dataset into an emotional atlas of how different communities around the world want AI to speak, explain, and build trust.
Countering Online Gendered Abuse — A Narrative Advocacy Toolkit
With support from the Women of the South Speak Out Fellowship, we built an advocacy toolkit for survivors of online abuse, technologists, community organisers, and policymakers to learn how to talk with each other using bridging communication methods — toward ecosystem-level solutions to counter online gendered abuse.
Fact-checking technical investigation analysing Meta AI's text-to-image guardrails
We investigated how Meta AI's text-to-image feature has been exploited to create harmful imagery targeting minorities in South Asia, reinforcing negative stereotypes and spreading misinformation.
Supported by Salzburg Foundation and the Nippon Foundation, we built a toolkit confronting hate speech and disinformation in South and Southeast Asia through gamified interventions — over 30 physical and digital games in 10 local languages across eight countries, fostering a culture of kindness, compassion, and improved media literacy.
We received the UNESCO-LiiV Center Global Design Challenge Award for designing the blueprint of digital support chatbot for survivors of online GBV in Sout Asia, using thick-big data in digital anthropology to bridge critical gaps in countering online misogyny.
UNESCO MGIEP: Socio-Emotional Learning in the Digital World
We were selected from 1,000+ consultations across India for a live discussion with policymakers on integrating Socio-Emotional Learning Skills in the digital world. We drafted a policy brief based on expert recommendations.
What we build and learn is a shared resource with everyone that we work with, whether our volunteers, organisations, or the communities. Beyond the use of technologies, our sessions provide another avenue for us to lead co-creation efforts with our networks, to explore how this knowledge can be used in their communities, and to support with technical expertise that can bring their ideas into action. In the past our learning and sharing framework has provided valuable insights for journalists, posed critical research questions for analysts, and identified intervention points for policymakers in the Global South to address and counter patterns of online mistrust that slip through systemic gaps.
2025
Panel — Rainbow Litfest
Social, Anti-Social: Reimagining Digital Spaces for Queer Thriving
We were at the Rainbow Litfest to share DiD's efforts to systematically reimagine digital spaces as spaces of queer thriving, joy, and self-expression.
Opportunities and Challenges in Bunking Fake News with Kindness
We shared insights with digital peacebuilders, activists, and researchers from across South Asia to share how our tool, Bunk With Kindness coaches frontline workers to counter misinformation through empathetic, bridging narratives.
Connected, Protected and Empowered: Ending Online and Tech-Facilitated Violence
We were a panelist at the UNESCO Global Symposium on ending online and tech-facilitated violence to share systemic interventions for education systems to counter digital harms.
Fireside Chat: Intergenerational and Interfaith Perspectives on Freedom of Religion and Belief
We shared a verbal intervention on building systemic interventions that counter online harm, and nurture interfaith harmony through tools, research, advocacy and collaborations.
MisinfoCon 2025 — Bunk With Kindness and Picture-Perfect Hate
We conducted a demo and knowledge session with Bunk With Kindness, and a lightning talk uncovering the phenomena of picture-perfect hate on online platforms, based on DiD's technical investigation with BOOMLive.
Workshop — Trust & Safety Foundation APAC Summit, Singapore
Leading with Survivors' Experiences in Trust and Safety for a Billion
We shared insights from data collection with over 10,000 survivors of tech-facilitated gender based violence who used VoiceValor to point out algorithmic failures in labeling and removing contextual misogyny in online spaces.
Workshop — 3rd Informal ASEM Seminar on AI & Human Rights, Copenhagen
Tech Accountability, Survivors, and Cross-border Regulation
We attended a convening of technologists to build North-South collaborations designing AI governance and safety mechanisms through a rights-based approach.
Trust and Safety for Preventing Picture-Perfect Hate and TFGBV in South Asia
We shared insights from data collection with over 10,000 survivors of TFGBV, highlighting algorithmic failures in labeling and removing contextual misogyny in online spaces.
Workshop — Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women's Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia
Research and Narrative Strategy Workshop
We conducted a research and narrative strategy workshop with postgraduate and doctoral students to explore, research and counter online abuse through our tools, VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness.
Introduction to Digital Anthropology for Postgraduate Students
We conducted a three-hour interactive workshop with postgraduate students of Conflict Analysis and Peacebuilding to introduce digital anthropology as an innovative research method for discourse analysis.
Online Conference — Bread & Net, Lebanon
How AI Addresses Toxicity Online
We shared key strategies on designing technology to counter cultures of online harm and build prosocial online spaces by stress-testing Bunk With Kindness and VoiceValor.
We hosted the first-ever Asia-Pacific hybrid Expo, with support from The Council on Tech and Social Cohesion and USC Marshall School Neely Center, in Kathmandu, Nepal, on June 26, 2025, with 27 in-person and 158 virtual participants to explore innovations in democratic and prosocial technology. We showcased our tools, VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness.
Virtual Global Youth Conference on Compassionate Advocacy
We were a panelist in the virtual Global Youth Conference, hosted by the Charter for Global Compassion on "Strengthening Youth Engagement for Compassionate Advocacy" to explore how youth can use bridging communication methods for inter-generational, meaningful advocacy across silos.
Investing in the Power of Youth for Countering Hate Speech
We were featured by UN Office of Genocide Prevention on International Day of Countering Hate Speech to share how technology both hinders and amplifies youth-led resistance to hate speech.
Global Citizenship Education in a Digital Age — International Day for Digital Learning
Ar a virtual event, supported by UNESCO, we spoke about educating for global citizenship in the digital age, as it is probably our best defence against propaganda.
Interview — ETV Bharat
ETV Bharat Feature on Bunk With Kindness
We were featured in a news article by a local news channel, ETV Bharat talking about our tool, Bunk With Kindness as a first-of-its-kind tool empowering citizens to counter misinformation with empathy.
Workshop — International Forum on Human Rights, Batam, Indonesia
Technology and Gender
We were invited to share insights on how technology often amplifies who we are and not who we want to be, exploring questions of who is designing technology and who has no say in it.
Workshop — Justicemaker Mela, Agami, Bhopal
Debuting VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness at a National Gathering of 700+ Justice Innovators
We debuted two innovative tools, VoiceValor and Bunk With Kindness, at a national gathering of 700+ justice innovators across the Indian ecosystem in Bhopal, India.
We were featured in a podcast with renowned digital anthropologist Matt Artz discussing using digital anthropology to answer technology and social justice's biggest questions.
An article by LiiV Center diving deep into our work, the personal journeys of our co-founders, and how digital anthropology can reshape digital spaces to be safer in the Global South.
Panel — UNESCO Third Forum Against Racism and Discrimination
Break with the Status Quo: Advancing Gender-Based Resilience
We talked about our tool, VoiceValor at the panel, "Break with the Status Quo:Advancing Gender-Based Reslience", examining and addressing dynamics between institutions and individuals towards a world free from gender-based violence.
Network Asia Working Group — Countering Hate Speech
We gave a closed-door capacity-building session on countering online harm to members of the Network Asia Working Group.
2021
Panel — ActionAid Bangladesh
Tech for Democracy — Cyber Bullying and Hate Speech
We were a panelist on "Young People's Democratic Participation and Resiliency: Cyber Bullying and Hate Speech" as a part of the Tech for Democracy Conference in collaboration with Global Focus.
Mental Health and Conflict — Youth Peace and Security
We gave a 10-minute virtual intervention sharing the intersection of mental health and conflict from a youth perspective to members of Youth, Peace and Security.
In our flagship programme, we built the next generation of digital safety leaders. Through the Safe Digital Research Fellowship, 64 young people were trained in hate speech, media literacy, and digital peacebuilding; 26 advanced into research fellowships documenting hate speech patterns across South Asia. Their findings have strengthened advocacy with civil society, policymakers, and technology companies. Most of our fellows now hold key positions in digital policy, digital journalism, and tech companies.
Our DiD fellow alumni reflects on hate through an intergenerational vision of life. He has started a collective that creates and uses poetry to reflect on human experiences, emotions, and tendencies.
Our DiD fellow alumni, Arijit Goswami, discusses how humans and machines can collaborate to counter online hate, contributing to global conversations through the World Economic Forum.
Our DiD fellow alumni started a mental health nonprofit in the U.S. building youth-led interventions to help youth thrive online and offline. She won first place in the graduate poster competition at Texas A&M University's Student Research Week, presenting research on "Youth Perspectives on the Digitalization of Hate Speech in South and Southeast Asia".
Our AI harm investigations have directly influenced consumer AI safety in South Asia by exposing risks in languages, identities, and contexts often ignored by global models. We are now expanding this work by training bridging models in 35 regional languages so that the internet can be powered by trust, dignity, and pluralism.
UN HQ 2026
Prevention of Violent Extremism Day — United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, New York
We were invited to "Preventing Violent Extremism in the Digital Age: Anticipating New and Emerging Technologies Risks and Opportunities, Safeguarding Human Rights, and Empowering Future Generations", where we shared about engaging today and future generations in countering violent extremism in the digital age.
In its third year of working with trust and safety teams, we are part of GIFCT's Gaming and Youth Working Group, critically analyzing the intersection of radicalization, identity, and digital platforms.
We were present in a highly curated convening of thought leaders, exploring strategies at the intersection of AI and social impact, powered by Google.org.
WOSSO 2025
Women of the South Speak Out Fellowship: Building South Asia's First-Ever Online Toxicity Datasets
We contributed to the Asia-Pacific advocacy and research collective under ARROW, working toward visibility and dialogue on Tech-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV).
Addressing Youth Radicalisation and Mobilisation Working Group
We returned to GIFCT as a member of the "Addressing Youth Radicalization and Mobilization" working group, contributing tools and frameworks for building a campaign toolkit.
Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week — Asia Pacific, Bangkok
We were invited to a regional gathering bringing humanitarian professionals, civil society leaders, and private-sector actors to collaborate, to advocate for young people to lead the design of technologies and policies shaping their future.
At a regional level, we participated in Beijing 30+ CSO consultations for survivor-centered algorithms to moderate online gender-based violence (OGBV), ensuring inclusive technology design.
GIFCT 2023
Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism — Toolkit Contribution
We contributed to the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism (GIFCT) by creating toolkits for alternative, positive digital interventions that emphasize civic responsibility.
Meeting with policymakers from Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports
We participated in a National Advocacy Mission with Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on empowering youth in online digital spaces.
UN ECOSOC
UN ECOSOC Youth Forum — Addressing Online Hate Speech
We shared insights in the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum on addressing online hate speech through youth-led efforts in building strong, equitable institutions (SDG16).
We visited the SAARC secretariat in Nepal to advocate and share strategies on building systemic positions for youth to influence policymaking decisions for digitally thriving spaces in South Asia.
G20 Interfaith Forum Bangkok — ALLY Policy Dissemination
We shared recommendations on bridging communication methods with interfaith leaders and religious leaders at the sidelines of the G20 forum, organized by KAICIID, NRTP, and PaRD.
EU Delegation Thailand — Youth Peacebuilding Incentives
We shared insights with the EU delegation in Thailand to advocate for youth-focused financial incentives to build sustainable pathways for peacebuilding in the region.
We have received generous grants and funding from partners who believe in building a safer, more inclusive digital world. These grants support our tools, research, and community programmes across South Asia and beyond.
2026
EU-Youth Empowerment Fund / Global Youth Mobilisation
Our community volunteer from Nepal received an individual grant to build a platform that uses memes to shift polarized discourse and counter attacks against activists online. DiD is supporting her with technical know-how and methodology to build the grant deliverables.
2025
Global Youth Mobilisation
We received a grant to build Nepal's first-ever toxicity dataset for women and gender minorities in Nepal — a foundational resource for improving AI moderation in the region.
2025
Digital Action Lab — CIVICUS
We received a grant to build an AI-powered platform that teaches civil society members how to talk to political opponents they disagree with, using dialogue bridging and empathy-building frameworks.
2025
Point of View Mumbai — Feminist Batti Jalao
We received a redesign grant to revise the UI/UX design for VoiceValor to make it more accessible and impactful. We are slated to roll out the revised version in June.
2024
UNESCO-LiiV Center Research Grant
We received a research grant to build an AI-powered digital ecosystem by, with and for survivors of online gender based violence who counter algorithmic failures in detecting and regulating online toxicity in Global South contexts.
We are a feminist technology organisation working at the intersection of AI accountability, digital safety, and community resilience across South Asia and beyond.
Charity Registration
GA 00360952
Registered organisation — Dignity in Difference
Physical Address
No. 6/1, Closenberg Road
Magalle, Galle, Sri Lanka · Postcode: 80000
Vision
A digital world built on dignity, belonging, and pluralism.
We envision a digital future where online communities are designed to protect rather than amplify harm — where people from all backgrounds, languages, and identities can participate in digital spaces with safety, power, and full humanity. We believe this future is possible when harmed communities become the architects of the systems that shape them.
We measure success by whether people gain the skills to choose dialogue over hate, survivors gain power over the data and systems that affect them, and platforms change because harmed communities become the teachers of safer technology.
Mission
Building AI-accountable, feminist technology for South Asia.
Dignity in Difference works on AI accountability, digital safety, online toxicity, and feminist technology design in South Asia. We build public technology tools that improve the region's digital information ecosystem — including VoiceValor, Together for Tomorrow, BridgeGPT, and Bunk With Kindness — and our investigations into the technology stack have made AI models safer in the region.
Our work spans participatory AI, thick-big data methodologies, multilingual digital research, trust and safety, and platform accountability. We work with civil society, platforms, governments, academia, and multilaterals on harmful speech, AI safeguards, and online harm — always centering the communities most affected.
History
Born from a conversation. Grown into a movement.
In 2021, our co-founders met through a programme on countering online conflict, and through conversations, realised that online communities were often designed to amplify hate. DiD grew from that realisation. Since then, our work has focused on changing how people respond to conflict and harm.
We are a team of technologists, feminist movement builders, activists, transitional justice scholars and participatory researchers from minority communities in Nepal, India and Sri Lanka with lived experience of political and minority violence. We have led multi-regional initiatives countering digital toxicity and building digital resilience at the scale of millions. We use technology as a tool that can help us create and build a shared collective future.