Established in a few days, OscarGrantProtests employs crisis mapping technology from a group of open-source developers called Ushahidi, who built the software to report violence in the aftermath of the 2008 disputed Kenyan presidential election.
The changes come as a response to growing concerns around gun violence in the U.S. The software giant is the last of the major tech firms to fall in line with a movement that includes Apple, WhatsApp, Samsung, Twitter and, most recently, Google and Facebook.
After the disputed 2007 Kenyan election, in which more than 1,000 people died in ethnic violence, a group of Kenyan software engineers and bloggers developed an Internet platform that allows instant sharing of violent incidents through Facebook, Twitter and other websites to help communities protect themselves.
Some blame the United States outright, saying it exports gun-driven violence as blithely as it does software and Boeings.
The activists tried to film police violence, only to be arrested when a software company helped the Syrian government tap their cell phones.
But their repertoire includes violence and blackmail as well as sophisticated betting software.
And, starting in July, the Seattle police will use a similar software program to predict where gun violence is likely to occur.
Also, wouldn't you rather have millions of youths trying to become software engineers, doctors or entrepreneurs than stray toward violence?
Furthermore, these people's earnest desire for a technological quick fix to gun violence has blinded them to the many obvious problems with mixing software and small arms.
Amid such scale and diversity, better software and detection tools might prevent some broadcasted suicides or violence but they cannot possibly stop all of it.
