Communiqué
Scripps College Associate Dean Wins Innovation Award
By: Tom Hodson
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Dr. Michelle Ferrier, associate dean for innovation at the Scripps College of Communication, recently led a team of women to the top award at International Women’s Media Foundation Summit and Hackathon in New York City.
They developed a new tool called TrollBusters to help women journalists and bloggers fend off cyber bullying and other misogynistic attacks online.
The new system helps women who are attacked online to be equipped with counter-measures such as reputation management, support from other women, and linkages to legal counsel and other experts who can help.
The new system also tracks online stalkers and bullies (trolls) and helps identify them for authorities and other women’s groups. In short, the system allows the women to possibly block trolls from making initial attacks.
TrollBusters is based, in part, on the technology developed by the winning entry in last year’s Scripps Innovation Challenge here at Ohio University.
Dr. Ferrier spoke with WOUB’s Tom Hodson about Trollbusters and the need to protect online women from hate speech and other forms of bullying.