Sema Salama

Sema Salama is a browser-based "Digital Shield" that protects African women in public life from online gender-based violence. Instead of waiting for social media platforms to remove hate speech (which can take days or never happen), Sema Salama runs directly on the user's laptop to automatically blur abusive comments in local languages (Swahili, Sheng, Pidgin) before she ever reads them. It gives her a "safe mode" for the internet. 🛡️ Immediate Protection: She doesn't have to report a comment and wait 48 hours for Twitter to review it. The protection happens in milliseconds, locally on her screen. 🧠 Mental Health First: By blurring the abuse before it is seen, we prevent the psychological trauma of reading violent threats. She can engage with her supporters without wading through the hate. 🌍 Context-Aware: Silicon Valley algorithms don't understand that certain local slang terms are actually violent threats. Sema Salama does understand, because it uses a community-built lexicon of African terms. 🔒 Zero-Data Privacy: Because it is a browser extension, it runs 100% on her device. No private data (and no record of the harassment she receives) is ever sent to a remote server.