Lilith’s oog viel onlangs op Tracy Chou, een jonge, Amerikaanse software engineer én diversiteitsstrijder die een app genaamd Block Party heeft gebouwd waarmee je jezelf kan verdedigen tegen online trollen, bijvoorbeeld op Twitter. Tijd om erachter te komen hoe Block Party precies werkt. Dit artikel is onderdeel van een serie over digitale vrijheid. Artwork door Sioejeng Tsao.

Tracy Chou (33) is a badass American software engineer, diversity advocate, and tech founder who built an anti harassment-app called Block Party. Tracy has worked at Quora and Pinterest, when it was just an early start up. In 2016, she co-founded a non-profit organization called Project Include, which uses data and advocacy for diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry. Now she’s making waves with Block Party, an app helps you defend yourself against trolls.

Taking a firm stand against online harassment

They say STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is the future but too many women and other marginalized people are being denied access to it. Or - once they are in tech - have difficulty staying because of the oppressive culture and environment. Tracy not only works on groundbreaking tech, but she’s an activist who fights for systemic change against capital and power. Because of her work and position as a woman of color in tech, she’s had to deal with anti-Asian racism, sexism and death threats for 15 years, as a lot of women and particularly those of color in similar positions can probably relate to. There isn’t a lot of regulation or protection against online harassment, as tech giants often benefit from the interaction and governments do not always take this problem (which is actually an innate impediment on freedom of speech and violent harassment) seriously. So, being an engineer, Tracy came up with her own solution: Block Party, an app/tool that allows you to regulate your online interaction and metaphorically kick the haters and harassers to the curb. We introduced amazing illustrator Sioejeng to Tracy so she could illustrate part of her mission to make the internet safe again for all of us.

So, how does Block Party work?

Block Party is a consumer led app that’s supposed to fix the dread of online harassment and put you back in control. You decide whose mentions or replies you will see, and Block Party excludes everyone else for you. Take Twitter, for instance, Block Party can help you mute tons of accounts that are deemed more likely to send you unwanted content or simply put: shitty messages, death threats or dick pics. Those accounts are gathered and put into a Lockout Folder that’s accessible on Block Party. So you can decide if and when to look at those.

Besides the Lockout Folder there’s also this amazing thing called Helper View: you can have your friends take action on your behalf, when you’re done with all of it and don’t even have the willpower anymore to block trolls or look at messages that are actually important.

For now, Block Party is only available on the web (though it is both desktop- and mobile-friendly) but they’re working hard on native mobile apps as well and if you’d like there’s a waitlist to test out the beta version. Honestly, count us in.

Noot van de redactie:

In het kader van meer te weten komen over digitale vrijheid en veiligheid, lees je hier de komende tijd artikelen geschreven door (ervarings)deskundigen die ons meer leren en vertellen over cybercrimes, online veiligheidsmaatregelen en de juiste tools om jezelf ook op het wereldwijde web te kunnen beschermen. We hopen eind november ook een event te organiseren rondom dit belangrijke thema.

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Block Party: an app to help you kick internet trolls to the curb