cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Here, here: the Swedish online love army who take on the trolls - The Guardian
#Jagärhär (#Iamhere) aims to battle abuse in online threads and jumps to defend those on receiving end
When a young woman with rainbow hair and a reputation for hostility towards sexual predators won a Swedish lawyer of the year award late last year, the online reaction came in two waves.
The first was unpleasant, a torrent of bile from people who objected to Linnéa Claeson’s looks, her feminist politics, her gender, her youth and her instagram account @assholesonline.
The second was less familiar: a blizzard of positive messages – congratulations, praise for her bravery and for acting as a role model despite the abusive comments.
The surge of support was orchestrated by an organisation called #jagärhär (#Iamhere), a Facebook group of about 75,000 people, most of them in Sweden. Fed up with the rude, confrontational nature of online conversation and the way that a few bad mouths can ruin a discussion, they have made it their business to turn bad threads good.
#Jagärhär (#Iamhere) aims to battle abuse in online threads and jumps to defend those on receiving end
When a young woman with rainbow hair and a reputation for hostility towards sexual predators won a Swedish lawyer of the year award late last year, the online reaction came in two waves.
The first was unpleasant, a torrent of bile from people who objected to Linnéa Claeson’s looks, her feminist politics, her gender, her youth and her instagram account @assholesonline.
The second was less familiar: a blizzard of positive messages – congratulations, praise for her bravery and for acting as a role model despite the abusive comments.
The surge of support was orchestrated by an organisation called #jagärhär (#Iamhere), a Facebook group of about 75,000 people, most of them in Sweden. Fed up with the rude, confrontational nature of online conversation and the way that a few bad mouths can ruin a discussion, they have made it their business to turn bad threads good.