Kalasag: Protecting Women Leaders from Gendered Disinformation

Kalasag is a proof of concept for helping women leaders and the organisations around them recognise, document, and respond to gendered hate speech and disinformation online. It is designed around a simple premise: abuse is easier to challenge when people can preserve the context, see patterns across incidents, and decide on an informed next step.

The name means “shield” or “defence” in several Philippine languages. The project focuses on the Asia-Pacific context, where language variation, code-switching, and local cultural context can make generic moderation tools unreliable.

Kalasag connects a browser extension with a shared evidence and monitoring workspace. The extension checks readable web content against a community-managed lexicon, then uses contextual AI as an assistive signal rather than a final authority. Users can review flagged material, save it as evidence, or submit missed content for expert review.

Saved reports retain their source, context, screenshot, URL, and timestamp. The accompanying workspace gives partner organisations a review queue, a community lexicon, and an aggregate view of emerging narratives and potential spikes in coordinated activity.

Automated detection alone is not enough for a problem shaped by language, context, and power. Kalasag keeps people in the loop: community members improve vocabulary, reviewers validate uncertain reports, and AI helps surface patterns without replacing judgment.

The goal is not to file complaints automatically. It is to give affected people and trusted organisations a clearer, more durable evidence base for deciding how to respond.