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Anika Collier Navaroli

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Anika Collier Navaroli
Education
Occupation(s)Researcher, writer, and lawyer
Known forWhistleblowing about platform moderation at Twitter during the presidency of Donald Trump

Anika Collier Navaroli is an American researcher, writer, and lawyer who is a senior fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Formerly, she worked on the safety policy team at Twitter. She is known for coming forward as a whistleblower to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack about platform moderation at Twitter during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Early life and education[edit]

Anika Collier Navaroli grew up in Florida. As a middle school student, she and her mother, who are Black, were harassed while walking to a supermarket. A man drove a Confederate flag-decorated pickup truck onto the sidewalk toward them, yelled racial slurs, and shouted at them to go back where they came from.[1][2] She and her mother entered a store and called the police, who informed them that they couldn't press charges because the man had not been physically violent and had a First Amendment right to speech.[1][2] Navaroli later cited this event as contributing to her interest in the interpretation of the First Amendment as it applied to violent or dangerous speech.[1]

Navaroli earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida, then earned a Juris Doctor from University of North Carolina School of Law in 2012.[3][4] She earned a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote a thesis on constitutional law and social media titled "The Revolution Will Be Tweeted".[1][4]

Career[edit]

After earning her master's degree, Navaroli worked in communications and marketing at law firms. Later, she joined the civil rights non-profit Color of Change.[3]

In 2019, Navaroli joined Twitter's safety policy team to help work on content moderation and conduct policies. In 2020, she began to grow concerned about rhetoric by Donald Trump against Joe Biden, at the time his opponent in the presidential election, which she believed was contributing to a broader increase in hate speech and incitement to violence on the platform.[1] She began to push internally for stronger policies after Trump directed the far-right Proud Boys during a September 2020 presidential debate to "stand back and stand by".[2] She said that she and her team advocated for stricter and more precise policies around dog whistles, but that they were rebuffed by executives who were pleased that Trump favored Twitter over other social media networks.[1] She also said that Twitter had broken its own rules in declining to label or remove Trump's tweets.[5] On the night of January 5, 2021, the eve of the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Navaroli participated in a team meeting where they discussed their concerns over what might happen the following day, after seeing calls to violence. After the meeting, Navaroli wrote to a colleague: "When people are shooting each other in the streets tomorrow, I'm going to try and rest in the knowledge that we tried."[6] Navaroli left Twitter in March 2021 and began working for Twitch.[7][3]

In July 2022, after receiving a subpoena, Navaroli testified before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack about Twitter's tolerance for Donald Trump's behavior on the platform.[2] At first, she testified anonymously under the pseudonym "J. Smith", and the Committee protected her identity by using a voice changer on portions of her audio testimony that were made public.[2][7] In September 2022 she revealed her identity and testified again. Afterwards, she began to receive racist and sexist messages, as well as rape and death threats.[7] In February 2023, she testified again about Twitter's internal policies in a hearing by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.[8]

Navaroli later said she believed the hearings were a "real missed opportunity", and that the committee had not taken sufficient action with respect to social media companies' role in the January 6 attack.[9] "[Social media companies'] role or their responsibility within that day and the events of that day, and the violence that occurred, has not been fully laid out" in the committee's report, she said.[9]

Navaroli later became a fellow at Stanford University, where she studied online moderation of hate speech and the impact on employees tasked with performing such moderation.[2][10] In August 2023, she joined the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as a senior fellow.[7]

Recognition[edit]

Navaroli was awarded the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize and the Columbia Journalism School's Alumni Courage Award for her Congressional testimony.[10][4] Whistleblower protection group The Signals Network awarded her the Unicorn Fund.[11]

Personal life[edit]

As of September 2022, Navaroli was living in California.[2] She is queer.[1]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Gupta, Prachi (February 15, 2023). "After the Whistle Blows". Harper's Bazaar. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Harwell, Drew (June 27, 2023). "Jan. 6 Twitter witness: Failure to curb Trump spurred 'terrifying' choice". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c "Q&A with Anika Collier Navaroli '12, Former Twitter Policy Official Who Testified Before the House Jan. 6 Committee". University of North Carolina School of Law. January 29, 2024. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c "Columbia Journalism School Names 2023 Alumni Award Winners" (Press release). Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. January 26, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  5. ^ Broadwater, Luke; Conger, Kate (February 8, 2023). "Five Takeaways From the House G.O.P. Hearing With Former Twitter Executives". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  6. ^ Suebsaeng, Asawin; Rawnsley, Adam (January 16, 2023). "Secret Video Reveals Twitter Team Warned of 'Shooting in the Streets' Ahead of Jan. 6". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d Olumhense, Ese (March 13, 2024). "Whistleblowing While Black: How Truth-Telling Changes the Careers of Black Women in Tech". The Markup. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  8. ^ Otten, Tori (February 8, 2023). "Whistleblower Tells AOC That Twitter Changed Rules to Allow Racist Trump Tweets". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  9. ^ a b O'Sullivan, Donie; Ash, Audrey; Cohen, Zachary (January 26, 2023). "Jan. 6 Committee failed to hold social media companies to account for their role in the Capitol attack, staffers and witnesses say". CNN. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  10. ^ a b "Twitter whistleblower and technology expert Anika Collier Navaroli, '13 M.S., named Tow Center for Digital Journalism Fellow" (Press release). Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. August 10, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  11. ^ "Unicorn Fund awarded to Twitter whistleblower Anika Collier Navaroli" (Press release). The Signals Network. August 30, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
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