Moonshot

We are SO excited to share that Moonshot has been named as the 7th Most Innovative Small Business in the world on Fast Company's list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies 2023. This year’s list highlights the companies making the biggest strides around the globe, paving the way for the innovations of tomorrow. We are incredibly proud of the recognition of our team’s work - from rescuing children from child abuse, channeling potential perpetrators of violent misogyny into counseling, or protecting hundreds of thousands of individuals from the dangerous effects of disinformation. Our work this year has been truly global, making the internet safer in countries such as Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sweden, among many others. Above all, this recognition is a true testament to our team’s unfaltering commitment to end the most pervasive online harms. Thank you to all our clients and partners - without you this work wouldn’t be possible and we hope you will join us in celebrating this achievement, but more importantly, continuing this important work in 2023 and beyond. You can read more about Moonshot’s listing at Fast Company here: https://lnkd.in/eKWyGpMM. Find out more about our work here: https://lnkd.in/e_nndjFr #FCMostInnovative #innovation

📢 📢 Today, we are proud to announce our strategic partnership with CTH Advisors to combat the rising levels of online abuse in the sports industry. For the past decade, Moonshot has worked with global governments around the world to protect schools, national infrastructure, and public figures from terrorism and other threats. Athletes competing on the global stage are facing unprecedented levels of online abuse. As these threats become more sophisticated - from coordinated doxxing to AI-generated deepfakes - they not only impact mental health and wellbeing, but pose a threat to physical security. This is experienced even more acutely by female athletes and athletes of color. Today Moonshot is launching a major initiative to leverage national security tech to protect athletes around the world from online abuse. This portfolio includes our ongoing partnerships with the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the Southeastern Conference to keep athletes and officials safe. Learn more about our work in sports here ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/efMkmaYC Read the press release here ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/eYmwZdtz

Moonshot was thrilled to be invited to address #INFOPAC2024 last week! Hosted by the United States Indo-Pacific Command, INFOPAC brings together hundreds of senior military officers, thought leaders, and industry partners to discuss maintaining information advantage in an increasingly encrypted and fragmented digital world. Our CEO, Ross F., highlighted critical strategies for staying ahead of authoritarian tactics with Moonshot's pioneering work on: ✅ Mapping evolving threats in the information landscape and adapting responses in real time; ✅ Deploying inoculation campaigns—an "unfair advantage" that democratic societies can wield to build resilience and fight disinformation effectively; ✅ Fostering a culture of experimentation to enhance cohesion across fragmented digital environments, making our approaches as adaptive as the threats we combat. Some of our key insights from the session 👇 ◼️ Inoculation is a game-changer: it’s an effective, preventive strategy that authoritarian states cannot replicate, giving open societies a unique advantage in safeguarding information integrity. ◼️ The information warfare landscape is evolving. Building cohesive campaigns that address emerging digital spaces, including the Metaverse, is increasingly vital for resilience. ◼️ Success will mean staying nimble. We’re committed to continuous innovation to counter disinformation and keep communities safe. Thank you, #INFOPAC2024, for bringing us together for such an impactful discussion. The road ahead is challenging, but we’re excited to lead the way toward a safer, more informed future.

⭐️ WEBINAR ALERT! ⭐️ Don’t miss out on an important conversation on October 29th featuring experts from Moonshot who will be sharing data on dangerous election-related narratives in the Pacific Northwest that could fuel violence. After the presentation, Ray Kim, Director of US Programs & Partnerships at ICRD, will lead a Q&A and moderated discussion. Come with your questions! 🗓️ Date: October 29th ⏰ Time: 5:00-6:15 PM PST 📍 Register: https://lnkd.in/dh_tSmNQ

Moonshot was proud to collaborate with Stop AAPI Hate to address online hate faced by Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Their newly-published report focuses on the surge of anti-South Asian hate. Our analysis uncovered: 📈  A doubling of anti-Asian slurs, slogans, and phrases in monitored Domestic Violent Extremist spaces, from around 23,000 in January 2023 to over 46,000 in August 2024. 📈  Nearly 1,000 threats of violence online toward Asian communities in one month alone (August 2024), with at least 75% being directed toward South Asian communities specifically. 📈  Growing anti-Asian hostility online toward AAPI politicians and other public figures, including Vice President Harris and Usha Vance, wife of Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance. Thank you to Stop AAPI Hate for this critical work! Learn more in this ABC News story ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/gFCCWn_r

We are thrilled to be in Mexico City for Bloomberg CityLab #CityLabCDMX, where hundreds of mayors, businesses and creatives are sharing and developing solutions to address issues facing cities today. We are sharing learnings from Moonshot's work on: ✅ Applying proven techniques to build resilience to mis/disinformation;  ✅ Combatting technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) through online campaigns to support survivors and bystanders; ✅ Digital campaigns linking people engaging with harmful content online with offline mental health professionals at a city-level. Some of our key takeaways so far ⤵️ ▪️ We heard that it's the "tiempo de las mujeres"/ "Women's moment" in Mexico. With a female President and Mayor of Mexico City, gender equality and the security of young girls and women is top of the agenda. Innovative, practical approaches to combatting TFGBV will be a crucial part of this. ▪️ Mis/disinformation is on everybody's worry list. From climate change to elections, mis/disinformation is dominating online discourse. Sustainable approaches that build resilience and keep populations safe will be vital. ▪️ Too often violence starts online before it moves offline and ruins people's lives. Reaching people online before it is too late is increasingly important in order to save lives and reduce levels of violence in cities. Thanks The Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies for inviting us to join this important conversation. We're excited to share our findings, learn from others and continue the conversation beyond CityLab for how to address these important issues!

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has just released Moonshot's report to assist in the oversight of the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation. The Code aims to mitigate the risks posed by dis- and misinformation and reduce the vulnerability to harm from false or misleading information among the Australian public, while ensuring respect for freedom of expression and other important rights. The report provides an independent review of metrics developed by ACMA to measure digital platforms' efforts to meet the Code's objectives. We designed a validation framework that provides a guide to evaluate: ✅ Is the digital platform likely to be able to provide data against each metric? ✅Is the metric likely to provide Australian insights into the success of the measures? ✅Would an alternative metric yield better Australian insights? ✅Could the information reported by the digital platforms be independently verified? ✅Are there any other relevant issues and/or barriers to implementation of the framework, including potential risks to freedom of expression? To read the results and our recommendations to ACMA, check out the report at the link below! 📃 https://lnkd.in/eg29_fzt

Spotify is one of our longest standing tech partnerships. We have worked together to launch groundbreaking initiatives to create safer platform experiences, counter organized crime, and remove ecosystems of artists and record labels spreading hate or illegal content. With countless initiatives like this under our belt, it was not a difficult decision for us to accept their invitation to join Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council! The Council’s mission - to help Spotify evolve its policies and products in a safe way, while making sure they respect creator expression - strikes a balance similar to our own: working to end online harms, applying evidence, ethics, and human rights. We enter into this new phase aligned on the fundamentals, but - as with all our tech partnerships - ready to be critical friends when it matters. We've already gotten started, so stay tuned for more updates! 🤝 📱 🔍 For more information: https://lnkd.in/ekjzbUxK

This past Sunday, the United States witnessed an apparent attempted assassination of former President Trump. In U.S. Domestic Violent Extremist (DVE) spaces online, we’ve seen a surge in discussions blaming government agencies and inciting violence. It's critical to put this data into context: ◼ The volume of online discussion surrounding this second attempt is noticeably lower than what was observed in July after the first attempt. ◼ On X, mentions in monitored DVE spaces were roughly three times lower following this attack compared to the response in July. ◼ Despite a lower volume of discussion, the threat level remains far too high. This incident has ignited a wave of conspiracy theories targeting federal agencies and politicians, accompanied by renewed threats of violence toward these same groups. Moonshot is continuing to work with so many partners across the country to ensure that our upcoming elections are safe, secure, and peaceful, from local poll workers to presidential candidates. 

🗳 This is a year of important elections! Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election presented an ideal setting for misinformation to spread. Moonshot worked with Google, Jigsaw, and a range of civil society partners in Indonesia to launch campaigns to help viewers recognize online manipulation tactics online before the election: ✅ We focused on three common online manipulation tactics: Contextual Distortion, Emotional Manipulation, and Discrediting. ✅ We reached 50% of young (18-34) voters in Java on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. As the world's third-largest democracy, this was a huge audience to reach before a major election! ✅ We helped increase their ability to recognize online manipulation techniques. We saw the highest increase in recognition for the Contextual Distortion tactic within the 18-24 age group (5.5%). Thank you to all of our partners in Indonesia for this critical work! Here are some of our key findings and results 📃 🔍