Mapping Marvel: Ukraine war moment by moment

Screenshot: Liveuamap

A mapping service provider birthed during the 2014 Ukraine conflict is tracking the current war through crowdsourced photos, Tweets, posts, news and other channels.  

The Live Universal Awareness Map was founded by a team of software developers and journalists to inform the world about the Ukraine conflict. By viewer request, it quickly expanded to cover other regions, including Syria, Israel-Palestine and “Islamic State war” news. Today, it covers more than 30 regions and topics, offers translations in several languages, and can be used on mobile browsers via its own Android and iOS apps. 

The independent global news and information site is dedicated to factual reporting of important topics such as conflicts, human rights issues, protests, terrorism, weapons deployment, health matters, natural disasters and weather-related stories from a vast array of sources.  

Its map-centric approach to the organization of information allows viewers to quickly find relevant stories in geographies of their interest. Events are archived, and can be reviewed for analysis or historical trends. “Through our big-data analysis methods, we aim to help predict and prevent future conflicts, minimize the impact of disasters, and assist travelers around the world in making conscious decisions about their security throughout their journeys,” the service states. 

Liveuamap uses proprietary software tools, such as artificial-intelligence web crawlers, to find newsworthy stories. These sources are then forwarded to a group of expert analysts for fact checking. In the final step, editors decide which facts and stories should be displayed on the map to minimize spam.  

An improvement under development will enable viewers to create and manage their own maps.