"We are experiencing a climate and information crisis. While temperatures rise, the digital information landscape is fast becoming a toxic wasteland. The distortion of knowledge is accelerating polarisation, radicalisation, and confusion — endangering our ability to respond to climate change. The
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question is, what can we do? The RePlaybook gathers insights from 30 organisations and practitioners at the forefront of the response. From attention-sucking algorithms to AI-generated slop, it explores how our information environment is shaping and influencing opinion on climate and offers strategies to decode disorder, challenge tech paradigms, and counteract division.This collaborative guide combines thought leadership and practical approaches. It equips communicators, campaigners, journalists, and researchers with fresh tools for navigating complexity and strengtheningclimate discourse in an age of cultural divides and contested truth." (Summary)
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"Digital tools, such as safety apps, reporting portals, and chatbots, are increasingly being used by victim-survivors of gender-based violence to report unlawful activity and access specialized support and information. Despite their limitations, these interventions offer a range of potential benefit
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s, such as enhancing decisional certainty, promoting safety behaviors, and fostering positive psychological outcomes. In this paper, we introduce an innovative ‘design justice’ approach to the development of digital tools for addressing genderbased violence. Drawing on our experience of building a feminist chatbot focused on image-based sexual abuse, we argue that the integration of feminist principles throughout the design, content, and evaluation stages is crucial for mitigating the risk of harm and promoting positive outcomes. Our theory-informed and practice-led approach can help to guide the development of other digital tools for addressing gender-based violence. Nonetheless, more scholarly research is needed to investigate the use, efficacy, and impacts of such interventions, at the core of which should be interdisciplinary collaboration between subject matter experts, victimsurvivors, technical specialists, and other key stakeholders." (Abstract)
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"Drawing from case studies from selected African countries, an international team of authors offer a broad insight into the state of harassment across the continent, while building new theoretical perspectives that are also context-specific. The chapters bring previous theories and research up to da
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te by addressing the continual change and development of new discourses, including the use of big data and artificial intelligence in harassing and intimidating journalists and mental health issues affecting journalists in their line of duty. More so, the authors argue that the state and form of harassment is not universal, as location and context are some of the key factors that influence the form and character of harassment." (Publisher description)
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"This study examined journalists' perceptions regarding the legal system's ability to protect them against online harassment. By utilizing open-ended survey responses from respondents with varying levels of trust in the legal system, the findings suggested a need for increased technical proficiency,
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resources, and priority within the legal system to adequately address the issue. Additionally, a reciprocal relationship between the normalization of online harassment within the journalistic profession and the legal system's commitment to providing protection was identified. However, the study also found that when the legal system's mediated approach to online harassment is positive, it affects attitudes and norms relating to legal protection. Consequently, it reveals a unique insight into how journalists respond to the message conveyed by fair treatment and respect from the legal system. Notably, this result implies that when such messages are internalized, journalists feel more empowered to take measures against online harassment. As a result of this analysis, I propose that current laws should be implemented more effectively and that policy strategies should be developed to positively influence social norms and social control to bolster journalistic autonomy and freedom of speech in the digital age." (Abstract)
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"This chapter draws on a discourse analysis of newsroom social media policies, and in-depth interviews with journalists focused on their reactions to the social media policies within the newsrooms in which they have worked, and their recommendations for how those policies should be improved." (Abstr
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act)
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"This guide is designed for newsroom management who want to create and implement online abuse policies to better protect their staff. The guide will: help you think through which policies are best suited to your newsroom; provide you with stand-alone policy templates you can adapt to the needs of yo
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ur outlet; provide you with guidance and a template to create your own online abuse guide for the newsroom; suggest best practices and content to include when drafting your policies." (Page 5)
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"Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 Filipino reporters and editors from three influential media outlets that then President Rodrigo Duterte targeted as enemies – the broadcaster ABS-CBN, the newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the website Rappler – this paper offers novel i
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nsights on journalists’ counterstrategies with appeals to their strengthened roles as watchdogs, interpreters and disseminators of populist communication. Findings indicate that journalists discard practices like false equivalence and shift roles including from being detached observers to media freedom advocates and truth activists to respond to institutional attacks, rising disinformation, and perceived democratic erosion as they seek to speak truth to a populist in power. The study provides theoretical and empirical contributions by combining paradigm repair and role perceptions as tools in analyzing journalists’ responses to legitimacy threats, and by presenting an understudied case of anti-media populism in the Global South." (Abstract)
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"[…] This project looks at experiences and observations of what it means to speak truth to power and receive hate as it is manifested through varying degrees of violence, across a variety of instances. Drawing on the responses of 15 interviewees, this qualitative research report presents 3 section
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s in understanding 'Hated Speech': (a) Forestalling Speech, (b) Speech in Polarised and Reactionary contexts, (c) Speaking For Oneself In One's Voice. The report ends by Enunciating Hope, offering a reflection on possibilities and pathways for solidary-building and reflexive collective action." (Executive Summary, page 2)
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"While social media companies dress their content moderation policies in the language of human rights, their actions are largely driven by business priorities, the threat of government regulation, and outside pressure from the public and the mainstream media. This report demonstrates the impact of c
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ontent moderation by analyzing the policies and practices of three platforms: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Our evaluation compares platform policies regarding terrorist content (which often constrict Muslims' speech) to those on hate speech and harassment (which can affect the speech of powerful constituencies), along with publicly available information about enforcement of those policies." (Introduction, page 3)
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"Online attacks on women journalists appear to be increasing significantly, as this study demonstrates, particularly in the context of the ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women during COVID-19. The pandemic has changed journalists’ working conditions, making them yet more dependent on di
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gital communications services and social media channels. The emergence of the ‘disinfodemic’ has also increased the toxicity of the online communities within which journalists work, making journalists “sitting ducks” according to the UK National Union of Journalists’ Michelle Stanistreet, interviewed for this study. Our research also highlights the threefold function of disinformation in gendered online violence against women journalists: 1. Disinformation tactics are routinely deployed in targeted multiplatform online attacks against women journalists; 2. Reporting on disinformation and intertwined issues, such as digital conspiracy networks and far-right extremism, is a trigger for heightened attacks; 3. Disinformation purveyors operationalise misogynistic abuse, harassment and threats against women journalists to undercut public trust in critical journalism and facts in general." (Introduction, page 7)
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"This practical guide aims to provide journalists with concrete legal tools to deal with online harassment, be it to identify punishable offences, to seek help from appropriate organisations, to efficiently gather evidence and to take steps should they decide to file a complaint against the perpetra
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tors. Where appropriate, it also presents examples of litigation initiated by journalists who were victims of online harassment. It covers online harassment of journalists in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom (England and Wales) and the United States. Although none of these countries provide specific provisions sanctioning online harassment of journalists, they all offer civil and criminal law provisions that make it possible to apprehend, punish and compensate all or part of the most common abuses committed against journalists. In addition to the comprehensive presentation of the legal tools available for journalists in each of these jurisdictions, this guide aims to provide journalists with an overview of the solutions available to combat situations of online harassment, in order to enable them to choose the best legal forum to exercise their rights." (Introduction)
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"The Forum on Information & Democracy proposes a number of policy steps to democratic governments and their supporters. Transparency and accountability need to be shored up and content moderation should be done according to democratic mandates and oversight. The impact of new platforms where disinfo
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rmation can go viral, such as private messenger services, needs to be understood. Through a global democratic coalition, a meaningful alternative should be offered instead of the two dominant models of technology governance: the privatized and the authoritarian. Through the intergovernmental Partnership on Information & Democracy, democratic leaders recognize the information and communication space as a ‘public good’. Now they have to implement their commitments in policies on the national and international level. Our recommendations are designed to shape and support their policy agenda." (Foreword, page 13)
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"According to neo-institutional theory, the survival of institutions in society is predicated on a cultural discourse. Dubbed “the institutional myth,” this discourse reflects the core values, practices and aspirations of an institution and legitimizes its existence to internal and external stak
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eholders alike. In this paper we suggest that recent attacks on mainstream news outlets—notably President Trump’s accusations that they constitute “fake news”—have led journalists to defend the journalistic institutional myth as part of their efforts to re-legitimize their profession. Our findings indicate that journalists seek to bolster and uphold their institutional myth through a range of discursive strategies ranging from highlighting established journalistic norms and practices and emphasizing journalism’s central role in the maintenance of democracy, to attacking the accuser and calls to action in which journalists make a case for ignoring the president’s rhetorical assaults and continuing to do their job." (Abstract)
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"The unique dangers of the new communication revolution fall into several categories: Velocity – The lightning speed of online communication is in tension with democracy because well-timed lies immediately preceding an election can gain a national audience before they can be rebutted; Virality –
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The legacy intermediaries that served to cabin what kinds of speech received a national audience have declined in importance in the internet age. With their decline, virality has become the new coin of the political communication realm. The kinds of speech, strategies, and candidacies most likely to succeed in a regime that places primacy on virality are those that appeal to emotion, especially to outrage. Democratic discourse requires some baseline of reasoned deliberation that is not well-served by a communication system based on virality; Anonymity – Anonymity can be an indispensable protection for dissenters in authoritarian and democratic regimes, alike, but it also gives rise to a range of unaccountable anti-democratic speech. Although hate groups are increasingly willing to march in the light of day, they fester and foster in the anonymity the internet provides. Moreover, the privileging of anonymity is what generates the “bot” problem – in which computer code generates much of online communication that is increasingly indistinguishable from human speech. So too, the problem of foreign interference in election campaigns is facilitated by internet anonymity, because the origin of campaign speech is unknown to the audience and regulator alike; [...]" (Executive summary)
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"Following multiple controversies in the past two years, Facebook is seeking to implement much needed processes for self-regulation and governance to help regain the trust of the public, politicians, and regulatory authorities. Facebook has thus entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting resea
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rchers to look 'under the hood' of various aspects of its operations, and understand how it formulates and implements its policies. This short report aims to build on these developments by identifying some specific issues concerning political information and speech on Facebook, providing an overview of the major changes that Facebook has made in recent years in response to public criticism, and critically assessing these changes, offering suggestions as to what more the company should do." (Publisher description)
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"This report describes and analyses how online propaganda against journalists across the world - through hate, harassment, threats and fabricated news – undermines independent reporting, sows doubt among the public and makes journalists, in particular female journalists, open for online attacks an
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d physical abuse to the detriment of freedom of expression and open, democratic societies. To stem the tidal wave of mostly anonymous online propaganda against journalists, in particularly female journalists across the world who are exposed to unacceptable amounts of online sexual abuse, Fojo Media Institute, the publisher of this report, plans to set up #journodefender, a global hub to monitor, investigate and take action against the-ends-justifies-the-means trolling with particular focus on assisting journalism in countries that are particularly badly affected." (Prologue)
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