WHO
WE ARE
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TEAM MEMBERS.
Thordis Elva
Chairperson & founder
(Iceland)
Writer, speaker and activist Thordis Elva awoke to the reality of online abuse when she served as chairman of Iceland's only women's shelter, where victims felt they couldn't leave their abusers due to threats of digital violence. After years of violence prevention work in the offline realm, which included shaping national policy. Her lecture tour Permanently Naked: What You Need to Know About Image-Based Sexual Abuse attracted over 18,000 guests in three countries, underpinning her nomination as Woman of the Year 2015 in Iceland. She was instrumental in leading the #metoo revolution and accepted the Person of the Year award 2017 on behalf of the movement. Thordis Elva has spoken about the role of digital media in furthering gender equality at the UN, EU, the Nordic Council of ministers, and has contributed to anthologies about online abuse. Violence prevention has long been at the core of her work, and she has shared her own story of sexual assault in a book and TED talk that has been viewed over 9 million times.
Moa Bladini
Board member & founder
(Sweden)
Laywer, lecturer and researcher Moa Bladini specialises in criminal law and criminal procedure law. Her many research projects include The Report Hatred and Threats Online - a Survey of the Legal Regulation in the Nordic Countries, on behalf of NIKK and the Nordic Council of Ministers. She is currently participating in the comparative project GENHA Hate Speech, Gender, Social Networks and Political Parties within the programme Justice Programme (JUST) Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC). In 2020-2022, she will contribute to the project Rape or consent? Effects of the new rape legislation on legal reasoning and practice. As a senior lecturer at the University of Göteborg, Moa teaches criminal law and criminal procedure law, where she focuses on evidence and gender perspectives.
María Rún Bjarnadóttir
Founder & member of Advisory Board (Iceland)
María Rún Bjarnadóttir is a lawyer, academic and policy adviser. Her doctoral research at the University of Sussex is focused on the interaction between freedom of expression and privacy in the online context, and the impact technology has on states´ role to uphold the protection of these fundamental rights. María has over 12 years of experience in policy engagement on a national, European and International level. Recent commissioned work includes a criminal reform bill for the Icelandic Government aimed at protecting sexual privacy online. She has given talks on her research on gendered online abuse at the United Nations HQ in Geneva and New York, and her work been cited in news outlets like Wired and BBC. María is the chair of the Council of Europe Expert Committee on Combating Hate Speech (ADI/MSI-DIS), where she serves as Gender Rapporteur, and sits on the Council of Europe Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI).
Milla Mølgaard
External Media Advisor and founder (Denmark)
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Journalist, editor and writer Milla Mølgaard worked for 12 years at newspaper Politiken, where she frequently covered topics such as online abuse, digital rights, LGBTQI and democratic issues, reporting on some of the most high profile cases in the country and elsewhere. She is the author of two books about online sexual abuse and the way it impacts victims (Delt, 2019), as well as a guidebook for parents (Min teenager deler da ikke nögenbilleder, 2020), giving public speeches and workshops on both. In 2020, Milla received a grant to record and release a podcast in eight episodes about image-based sexual abuse and the internet.
Louna
Hakkarainen
Board member (Finland)
Louna Hakkarainen is a senior advisor, researcher, writer, and an activist. Between 2018–2022 she managed activities related to gender-based digital violence and online harassment in Women's Line Finland. She was in charge of developing and running specialized support services (helpline, chat and peer support groups) for girls and women who have experienced any kind of technology-facilitated abuse – ranging from digital stalking by an ex partner to online harassment to silence politically active women. She has also written a guidebook about digital abuse in the context of intimate-partner violence. Louna’s background is in social sciences, science and technology studies, and participatory design, and she defended her doctoral thesis in Aalto University in 2017. Currently Louna works as a senior advisor in research and innovation services in the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki and teaches Gender and Technology course in Aalto University.
Emma Holten
Board member & founder
(Denmark)
Emma Holten is an online human rights activist and (as of January 2021) works part-time as a political consultant at the Danish Women's Council. After being a victim online image based abuse in 2011, she became aware of the pitfalls of structural oppression and gendered violence, online and offline. This led to the activist project CONSENT, which became a viral success. She has delivered keynotes at the Conference on the status of Women at the UN, The Next Web, TEDxVienna and Point Festival, among many others. Holten sits on the board of the Digitalt Ansvar foundation, which advocates for the rights of victims of digital violence. She was born in 1991 and lives in Copenhagen.
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Christian
Mogensen
Board member (Denmark)
Christian Mogensen is a specialist consultant with Center for Digital Youth Care (Denmark), with expertise in gaming, gender & sex, democracy and destructive online behaviour. He's a renowned public speaker with a reputation for bridging the generational gap between the worlds of 4Chan, 8Kun and Reddit, and those not (yet!) part of neither imageboards, gaming communities or new social media. In 2020 Christian authored the report 'The Angry Internet', an analysis of the extent of violent misogynists in the Nordics, as well as a psychological insight from qualitative studies with groups of 'angry men', for The Nordic Council of Ministries. In 2019 he authored the Danish report 'Angry Young Men' on the same topic. Christian has observed, interviewed and understood the men that deem themselves 'the involuntary celibate', and those being part of the 'new resistance movement'. He is a master of philosophy and psychology from Aarhus University, but employs just as many memes as statistics; a mix that has been tested in front of The United Nations, the European Parliament, the European Commission and many schools and educational facilities in Denmark and Europe, over the last decade.
Ida Östensson
Founder & member of Advisory Board (Sweden)
By combining gender equality, communication and advocacy, Ida Östensson has played an important role in the Swedish public debate for years. She has founded several organisations that focus on gender equality, including the Make Equal Foundation, that develops and implements solution-oriented methods to improve equality in Sweden. In 2013 she was one of the initiators of the Fatta Movement, fighting to make consent a basic requirement in sexual offence legislation and practice. Ida also started #killmiddag (#guytalk) as a way to get boys and men to take responsibility for sexual violence, starting with themselves. She has received several awards for her work such as “Super Communicator of the Year”, “BRIS Award Winner of the Year” and “People’s Educator of the Year”.
Bjarki Þór Grönfeldt
Board member (Iceland)
Bjarki Gronfeldt, having earned his PhD in political psychology from the University of Kent, England, in 2023, is an assistant professor at Bifröst University, Iceland. His research concerns how the way individuals relate to their social groups (e.g., national, gender and local identities) affects social behaviours and attitudes. In 2022, he received notable recognition alongside fellow scholars from Kent, securing the prestigious “Invent2Protect” research grant from the US Embassy in London. This grant supports their innovative project aimed at designing interventions to deter young men from adopting Incel ideologies and other forms of misogynistic attitudes.
Johanna
Vehkoo
Board member (Finland)
Johanna Vehkoo is an award-winning journalist and non-fiction author who specialises in all kinds of misinformation and fakery on the Internet. Currently she is working as Professor of Practice in Journalism at the University of Tampere, Finland. Johanna has written five books, one of them a journalistic graphic novel about online misogyny, and another recounting the absurd and kafkaesque story of being indicted for defaming a well-known far-right provocateur. Johanna has spoken and written extensively about digital violence in Finland. She is the recipient of three different freedom of speech awards.
Johanna is a founder of an online publisher of investigative journalism, Long Play. She has completed fellowships at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, and at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
Kristina
Wicksell
Board member (Sweden)
Kristina Wicksell is a Swedish communicator and change-maker on issues related to equality, democracy, and human rights. She is the brain behind several successful campaigns and has won, among other prizes, the two Swedish honorary awards “Hetast i Almedalen” and "Månadens nätängel". In her work, she has been responsible for all digital communications for both the Make Equal foundation and the human rights organization Civil Rights Defenders. Kristina has been a consultant and lecturer in practical anti-discrimination work, cyber hate, intersectionality, and unconscious bias. She also co-created Skärpning – a project that collaborated with Facebook and other big stakeholders to counter hate speech and harassment online, and Näthatshjälpen – a website that allows victims of online abuse to file a digital police report, read up on their legal rights and get help. Näthatshjälpen gets over a million hits per year and remains one of the most successful projects in the field of digital rights in the Nordic region.