There's an open loop right now between i make a decision and the scale of a design decision or a tweak in a perameter. And one of the problems is that the people who are closest to the pane of those negative impacts, there's so many of them, and they live miles and miles away. I think we mobilized a good number of those engaged on these topics to act more forcefully and pursue more forceful solutions. We have promises from m all these platforms that they're testing and they're going to roll out much stronger solutions to these issues as soon as possible because of us 20 20 elections coming up.
The sound of bullies on social media can be deafening, but what about their victims? “They're just sitting there being pummeled and pummeled and pummeled,” says Fadi Quran. As the campaign director of Avaaz, a platform for 62 million activists worldwide, Fadi and his team go to great lengths to figure out exactly how social media is being weaponized against vulnerable communities, including those who have no voice online at all. “They can't report it. They’re not online.” Fadi says. “They can't even have a conversation about it.” But by bringing these voices of survivors to Silicon Valley, Fadi says, tech companies can not just hear the lethal consequences of algorithmic abuse, they can start hacking away at a system that Fadi argues was “designed for bullies.”