The author would like to thank the following reviewers for sharing their time and expertise: danah boyd, Samantha Doerr, Sue Hotelling, and Elly Searle, Microsoft; Hany Farid, Dartmouth College; Ellen Helsper, London School of Economics; Jack Lerner, USC Gould School of Law; Phil Malone, Harvard Law School; and Amy Rassen, Standing Against Global Exploitation.
At the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, Jeremy Curtin and Clothilde Hewlett provided invaluable support along with researchers Reagan Smith, Erin Kamler, and Zhaleh Boyd.
This ongoing research is conducted in partnership with the USC Information Sciences Institute and ISI’s Natural Language Group: Eduard Hovy, Gordon Roesler, Don Metzler, Congxing Cai, and Hao Wang. This project is informed by feedback from our colleagues at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking.
A number of individuals lent their insight to this project including those from the Annenberg Schools at USC and the University of Pennsylvania, Office of the California Attorney General, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Frontline SMS, International Communication Association, InSTEDD, MIT, Polaris, U.S. Department of State, USAID, and UNIAP.
This report was made possible by a grant from the Annenberg Program on Online Communities at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California.