NSF Convergence Accelerator Track F: Part Two of a two-part project at GWU which was funded for a total of $5.75 million to develop a system for journalists and experts facing online harassment. This project was funded to “address the links between two significant problems impacting trust in contemporary communication systems: (1) the broad and rapid spread of misinformation and (2) abuse and harassment directed at members of expert communities. Misinformation-driven harassment campaigns have particularly large impacts on those at the forefront of efforts to accurately inform the public, including journalists, scientists, and public health officials. As a result, this harassment undermines confidence in pivotal sources of knowledge and reduces expert participation in the information ecosystem.”
Initially funded for $750,000, then for the full amount of $5 million, this project was to “develop Expert Voices Together (EVT), a “socio-technical system that provides real-time support to experts experiencing online harassment.” It was initially focused on ‘supporting journalists’, later expanding its reach to other expert communities.
EVT aims to “support experts in moments of crisis, while also building individual, organizational, and societal capacity to prevent and mitigate harms from online abuse and harassment in the long term. The team of scientists, technical specialists, psychologists, as well as civil society and media representatives will bring together their expertise in a wide range of fields including mis-/disinformation studies, data ethics, systems engineering, experimental and clinical psychology, human-computer interaction, case management, journalism and mass communication practice and research to create a rapid-response socio-technical system that supports journalists and other experts facing online abuse and harassment. The system will comprise a secure, rapid-response technical platform, support from trained case managers, and an intervention toolkit.”
This project claims to be grounded in “best practices from trauma-informed care,” and “designed to bring together peers, friends, family, colleagues, and mental health care specialists who can provide support for the expert facing online abuse, while also helping to build long-term resilience within social networks, institutions, and society as a whole.”