How we know

From headline to card, every 3 hours

1. 1ListenEvery 3 hours we pull the GDELT 2.0 event feed (news articles its coders tag as protests, every 15 minutes, worldwide) plus RSS feeds from major Indian newsrooms.
2. 2ReadWe open each article once and read it. Its text is used only in memory to judge and summarise. We never store or republish it.
3. 3JudgeAn AI classifier checks each article: is this a real, physical protest (not a diplomatic "protest", an opinion piece or an election rally), where did it happen, and is it new or part of one we already track?
4. 4PlaceThe city is matched against the GeoNames gazetteer. Pins sit on the city centre, never on a street, venue or live route. If a place is ambiguous, we drop it rather than guess.
5. 5CorroborateNothing goes public until at least 2 independent newsrooms report it. Sister titles from one media group count once; wire copy re-published by many sites counts once; syndication farms and aggregators don't count at all.
6. 6WriteAI writes an original card from up to 10 reports: why, what they want, what changed, both sides, numbers only when a source states them, each with its source number.
7. 7CheckRules, not AI, set the vibe, "is it still on", Serious Mode and the confidence score. A number with no source is deleted. Banned words (like "mob" or "brave") send the card to a human.
8. 8ReviewA human reviews anything involving deaths, injuries or mass arrests, the 10 biggest live protests, confidence below 80%, and sources that disagree. If no reviewer is on duty, flagged cards publish only once at least three independent newsrooms report them, and never with tone problems or low confidence.
9. 9TranslateEvery card is translated from the checked English into Hindi, Marathi, Spanish, French and German. Facts, numbers and sources stay identical; only the language changes.

Last run recently.

What the vibe stickers mean

Heating up

More reports in the last 24 hours than in the 24 hours before.

Peak loud

In the top 10% of live protests by report volume (and at least 6 reports in 48 hours).

Cooling down

Report volume flat or falling over the last 24 hours.

Wrapped up

Sources say it ended, was called off or demands were met, or there have been no new reports for 48 hours. One-day marches wrap at the end of their local day.

Reader report

Sent in by a reader through "Add a protest" and not confirmed by newsrooms yet. Shown after an automatic check, at least 60 minutes after it was sent. Orange dashed card, no confidence score, not shown to search engines.

Serious

Any reported death, serious injury or hospitalisation, or 100+ arrests or detentions, and protests that are about a death, suicide or sexual violence. The card turns grey and every joke is removed.

Is it still on? YES means sources show it continuing (or it is a one-day action happening today, local time). NO says why: it ended, was called off, demands were met, or it went quiet for 48 hours. If our checks pause, pages say so at the top.

The confidence score

A simple, published formula, not a black box:

• 2 independent newsrooms → 70%
• 3 → 80% · 4 → 86% · 5 or more → 90%
• +5 points if one is an established national or wire newsroom
• −15 points if sources disagree on numbers or status (we show where)
• −5 points if an "ongoing" protest has had no report for 72 hours
• capped between 30% and 97%: we are never 100% sure

Single-source news reports are never shown (reader reports are the labelled exception below). Below 80%, a card stays hidden until a human approves it.

Reader reports

Anyone can add a protest. Newsrooms miss things, especially small, local and rural protests. Reader reports are tips, and we label them that way.

1. 1. Wait. A report waits at least 60 minutes, then our next check (every 3 hours) picks it up.
2. 2. Basic checks. The country is one we track, the date is within the last 30 days or the next 2 weeks, and the city exists in GeoNames. Its pin sits on the city centre.
3. 3. Link check. If the reader shared a link, we open it and check that it is about the same protest.
4. 4. AI check. Is it a real protest action? Is it free of hate, calls for violence, spam and private people's names? It is rewritten in our neutral style. Claims of deaths, injuries, arrests or violence are held back until newsrooms confirm them.
5. 5. Duplicates. If we already track it, the report is added to that card instead of creating a new one.
6. 6. Upgrade or expire. Once 2 independent newsrooms report it, it becomes a normal verified card marked "first flagged by a reader". Unconfirmed reports leave the site 7 days after they wrap up.

Reader reports have no confidence score, no share card, and are hidden from search engines and our news feeds. We never ask for your name or email. Your IP address is only used, scrambled with a daily key, to limit reports to 3 per day, and is never stored.

House rules

• Both sides, with receipts. Every card states what protesters demand and what the authorities said, each linked to sources.
• No adjectives about people. No "brave", no "violent mob". Claims are attributed: "police said", "organisers claimed".
• No names or faces of protesters. We name organisations, parties and public officials, never ordinary participants, the injured or the detained.
• City-level locations only. Never exact gathering points or live movement.
• Original words only. Summaries are written fresh; we link out to the reporting and never copy text or photos.
• India's official borders. Maps use Natural Earth's India point-of-view boundaries, drawing Jammu & Kashmir (including Gilgit-Baltistan and PoK), Ladakh (including Aksai Chin) and Arunachal Pradesh as part of India, per India's official position.
• Archive stays up. Wrapped-up protests keep their page so anyone can check what happened.

What we can miss

We see what newsrooms report. Small or rural protests that get no coverage, or coverage only in languages our sources don't reach, can be missing or late. Crowd sizes are whatever sources state, and police and organisers often disagree. When they do, we show both. AI can make mistakes; that's why rules double-check it and humans review the sensitive cases.

Corrections

Spotted something wrong? Email support@risescribe.com with the page link and a source. We fix verified errors fast, and the page's "updated" time changes when we do.

Data credits

• Event discovery: The GDELT Project
• Places: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
• Boundaries (public domain, India point of view): Natural Earth
• Reporting: the newsrooms linked on every card