Whatever your personal opinion about Google’s business practices might be, the search giant has run some pretty amazing projects to shine a light on some of the world’s darkest issues. We’ve seen Google team up with UNHCR to highlight the plight of Syrian refugees and the toll the civil war has taken on their homeland.
We’ve also seen Google work with laser scanning and digital photography specialists to preserve world heritage monuments that could fall prey to natural disasters or political strife.
More recently, Google has been working hard alongside the #MeToo movement in a bid to show the world just how many people have been subjected to sexual harassment, sexual assault, or worse.
You can use this Google tool to see how big an effect the #MeToo movement has had around the world in its first year
Me Too Rising takes data from Google Trends and displays it in an easy to digest manner. You can use the tool to see how people have been searching for the phrase in different cities around the world. For those wishing to dismiss the movement as a bourgeoisie western movement only, Me Too Rising proves otherwise. The #MeToo movement has empowered people around the world to talk about their experiences and highlight a huge global problem that needs to be eradicated. Yes, people have searched for #MeToo in 195 countries around the world. That is every single country.
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Read nowThe movement exploded last year in the wake of dozens of sexual assault and rape allegations were leveled against high-powered movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Within 24 hours of actress Alyssa Milano asking her fans to tweet “Me Too” if they’d also been victims of sexual assault, over half a million people had responded. The response on Facebook was also huge with a reported 12 million posts and comments, relating to the phrase, being published in the 24 hours following tweet. From there it just grew and grew.
According to Malika Saada Saar, who leads the team behind Me Too Rising, the project is designed to show how the movement has spread awareness all over the globe. “Me Too Rising shows what it looks like when we all become a little more aware of sexual assault and violence. When enough survivors speak up, the world not only listens; it searches for answers.”
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Find out howThe movement has grown and people around the world can now talk with a collective voice. Me Too Rising highlights how that voice has developed over the last year, but it also recognizes that words and data alone cannot solve this problem. In a bid to go further than merely presenting the data, Me Too Rising also lists resources for sexual assault victims.
