trolls

Digital trans activist Clara Sorrenti found herself arrested at gunpoint at her home in London, Ont. Anti-trans trolls had falsely reported she had killed her mother and was planning a shooting at city hall. Sorrenti had been swatted. Swatting involves calling 911 to falsely report a high-risk emergency at their victim’s home, triggering deployment of a SWAT team. In some swatting cases, victims have died at the hands of police. Sorrenti’s experience is consistent with my findings in long-term research with intersectional global media activists. She is a new type of intersectional digital activist. These activists work on intersectional issues, drawing connections between systems of oppression including race, gender, sexuality, and so on. And a great deal of their activism takes place ...

Social media have become one of the preeminent ways of disseminating accurate information about vaccines. However, a lot of the vaccine information propagated across social media in the United States has been inaccurate or misleading. At a time when vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise, vaccine misinformation has become a cause of concern to public health officials. At least half of parents of young children report having encountered negative messages about vaccines on social media. Alexander Dummer/Unsplash, CC BY A 2018 study showed that a lot of anti-vaccine information is generated by malicious automated programs – known as bots – and online trolls. In a striking parallel with the 2016 presidential campaign and the 2018 midterm elections, some vaccine misinformation on America...

Tag: trolls

To Fight Trolls ‘Hackbacks’ And Mutual Aid Are Used By Online Activists