TrollBusters Granted Additional $100,000 in a Year of Awards and International Impact
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., (JUNE 17, 2022) – Democracy Fund Voice has granted $100,000 to TrollBusters, a project of the Media Innovation Collaboratory, for safety and digital resilience training for journalists. The additional investment, following matching grants in 2020 and 2021, come on the close of an award-winning year for TrollBusters, its impact work, and its founder, Dr. Michelle Ferrier.
“Democracy Fund Voice has been a solid partner with TrollBusters, helping us deepen and broaden our work with journalists and media workers,” Ferrier said. “We are so grateful for the continued support of our work on press freedoms, especially digital harms. TrollBusters has been flying alongside journalists and newsrooms providing educational support, training, and awareness to help journalists navigate these online harms and stay safe telling these crucial stories.”
“And we’ve been helping to build that technology and resilience mindset, to ensure sources and communities are not harmed in our journalism work,” Ferrier said.
“Online threats have culminated in physical violence against journalists. I want journalists to be prepared, be safe, and to continue telling the stories that hold power to account.”
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Founder, TrollBusters
Ferrier, executive director of the Media Innovation Collaboratory, founded TrollBusters in 2015 during Gamergate and her research into digital communities. Ferrier, a former columnist and journalist in Florida, received hate mail years ago as a columnist and more recently as a higher education administrator and researcher in digital harms. Her work and her research evolved into TrollBusters, just-in-time rescue services for journalists under attack online.
Since 2015, TrollBusters has been providing professional development to journalists, media workers and students on the growing hostilities towards journalists and their work online and how to report safely. Ferrier, an international expert on digital harms, was an invited speaker at the United Nations for World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2022, to discuss her research on social platforms. The UNESCO event focused on the contentious digital environment for journalists, especially with media finding themselves being targeted directly with digital threats such as spyware, hacking, overbroad laws criminalizing online disinformation and online violence particularly against women journalists.
In February 2022, TrollBusters earned three silver awards in the inaugural international Anthem Awards celebrating human and civil rights work and TrollBusters’ advocacy work with journalists around the globe. The Anthem Awards also recognized Toxic Avenger magazine, a new publication from TrollBusters, which is a monthly education into technology, media and the changing digital landscape and how to navigate the ethics and mechanics of staying safe and sane online. The Anthem Awards are hosted by the same organization that produces The Webby Awards, and celebrate purpose and mission-driven work in the social impact area. In an email to winners, Lauretti said, “Selection as a winner means the work not only demonstrates world class talent, insight, leadership, and execution, it is also a best in class example of the work leading the way in the Impact Industry.”
Ferrier, a full professor in the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, worked with colleagues at West Virginia University to develop a teen digital resilience curriculum, fulfilling her goal for TrollBusters: To expand training for students and young professionals on navigating digital spaces. What TrollBusters delivered: Generation Zeitgeist: From User to Creator, an innovative curriculum designed for young people to build more digital safety and online resilience strategies.
Ferrier is especially interested in preparing the next generation of journalists. In January 2021, Ferrier produced the student handbook Staying Safe Online and Off for Media Workers, to prepare students to cover state capitols and campus activities in this digital age. The open education handbook provides historical context to the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the rise of attacks against the media, social media use and strategies students can use now to navigate online spaces.
“Student and professional journalists—especially women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and people living at these intersections—are under increasing threat by malicious actors online. It is so crucial that they have the tools, resources, and support they need to protect themselves from these attacks,” said Lea Trusty, program associate for the Public Square program at Democracy Fund Voice. “Democracy Fund Voice is proud to support Dr. Michelle Ferrier and her work as a longtime leader in this space.”
“Online threats have culminated in physical violence against journalists. I want journalists to be prepared, be safe, and to continue telling the stories that hold power to account,“ Ferrier said.
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