Coalition member Online SOS created a new resource “What Therapists Need To Know About Treating Journalists Who Experienced Online Harassment,” supported by grant funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies offered through the CAOV. Developed in partnership with psychologists, this resource includes real-life examples and quotes of how trauma symptoms can be exhibited by journalists experiencing online harassment. Journalists can share it with their therapists but hopefully also use it to help contextualize and normalize their experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
Read the resourceCelebrating two years of the Online Violence Response Hub
It’s been two years since the Coalition Against Online Violence launched the Online Violence Response Hub, a comprehensive resource center providing support for journalists, newsrooms, and their allies around issues of online abuse.
Consolidating the latest information on online abuse, the hub allows journalists to focus on their safety rather than searching for support with censorship, doxing, harassment, threats, trolling, and more. The hub is a project of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), under the banner of the Coalition Against Online Violence — a collection of more than 70 organizations working together to find better solutions to addressing digital attacks.
Today, the Hub hosts over 150 resources from Coalition members, focusing on important issues for journalists and newsrooms, such as:
- Up-to-date digital safety advice
- The latest research on online violence
- Policies and best practice for newsrooms
- Mental health guidance and support
- Legal support
New resources on the Hub
Coalition members Tall Poppy and the Feminist Frequency created a new Games Hotline Digital Safety Guide, supported by grant funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies offered through the CAOV. The guide is for anyone who seeks to enhance their digital hygiene, but it is especially designed for women, Black, indigenous, and people of color, transgender people, and everyone else whose existing oppressions are made worse by digital violence. The Games Hotline Digital Safety Guide covers best security practices for social media, email, online gaming, website hosting, and protecting privacy of personal information online, as well as the documentation and reporting of harassment, and caring for yourself emotionally during an online attack.
Read the guide
Coalition members PEN America and Meedan have joined forces to publish a new paper, Shouting into the Void: Why Reporting Abuse to Social Media Platforms Is So Hard and How to Fix It. For people facing threats, slurs, and other abusive tactics on social media platforms, reporting that content is one of the only means of defending themselves, protecting their community, and seeking accountability. For platforms, user reporting is a critical part of the larger content moderation process. And yet, when they asked writers, journalists, and creators about their experiences reporting harassment online, they heard again and again about the deep frustration, exasperation, and harm caused by the very mechanisms that are meant to provide reprieve. Informed by nearly two dozen interviews and an extensive analysis of existing reporting flows on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok, Shouting into the Void maps out concrete, actionable recommendations for how social media companies can revamp reporting to make it more user-friendly, more effective, and less retraumatizing.
Read the report