Clothing The Gaps is a Victorian Aboriginal led and controlled, and majority Aboriginal owned, social enterprise, co-founded by Laura Thompson, a Gunditjmara woman and Sarah Sheridan who is non-Indigenous. Clothing the Gaps is not only a social enterprise, it’s a fashion label, and their goal is to improve health outcomes for Aboriginal people through self-determination.
Fraught commentary around the Voice referendum meant that it was becoming harder and harder to read the comment threads on their social media pages as they become more and more littered with the detritus left by bot farms and bigotry.
As Laura expressed, her comment sections became a place where she felt like she was “losing control to racists and bots” – they needed help!
Pesel & Carr met with Laura and Sarah and helped them to set up their platform’s backend to make their space safer. Springing off from this initial advice in the hopes that it could be spread to a wider audience, Felicity sat down with Laura and Sarah and discussed how to build safe online spaces for their podcast ‘Community Conversations.’
Exploring why everyone on the internet is so mean, they discuss the value of owning your social media space. Their conversation ranges from bots, to resilience, to settings, to the law. Listen in to hear more about making the comments safe for Mob.
You can also read Felicity’s advice in detail on their blog Read the Comments: Top Tips for keeping social media safe for Mob.
