Opt Out of Online Sexism – Open Source Activism

Teresa Ingram

Communication Data Science Open-Source TDD Web

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"Although people of all genders can experience violence and abuse online, the abuse experienced by women is often sexist or misogynistic in nature, and online threats of violence against women are often sexualized and include specific references to women’s bodies. " - Amnesty International. This abuse pushes women offline, affecting their social well-being, representation and economic potential.

In this talk I will discuss how we plan to help resolve this with our browser extension, Opt Out. I will discuss the online global tragedy that is online sexual harassment, our idea and where we’re at with current implementation. I will also talk about what it’s like to build an open source activism project, one which aims to be lead by the community it’s trying to protect.

We will cover current research and results from our own engagement with the community, where the idea came from and challenges we have faced and plan to face in the future. I will also dive into the intricate world of natural language processing (NLP) for online harassment and talk about balancing state-of-the-art data science with web development in an open source community, one being managed by someone relatively new to tech.

Type: Talk (30 mins); Python level: Beginner; Domain level: Intermediate


Teresa Ingram

Currently working to help make the internet accessible for all. Python was my first love but life led me to working with Java at an international bank. Now I am plunging back into the Python world, with the dream of making the internet for everyone.