Last week (23 Jan 2020) we had our first Opt Out Tools meetup at Mozilla Berlin! Attendees compile of a team of international experts from different fields: data scientists, web engineers, project managers, digital marketers etc. It was a fruitful discussion as we have consolidated the goal for Opt Out Tools in 2020 and have formed workgroups to work towards our goals.

Goals for Opt-out in 2020

Stable release: We aim to release our first stable version of the Opt Out Tools browser extension in the 4th quarter of 2020 on Firefox add-on for the general public to use. But before, there will be beta versions for people who are interested to test and give us valuable feedback.

Funding: Having stable financial support for Opt Out Tools is important for the development of the tools and the community. We will keep on actively looking for funding to apply for and potentially launch a crowd-funding scheme later in the year.

Community building: In 2020, we will keep on having more meetups and workshops for building the team and educating people about online misogyny. Hopefully, we will continue to have a strong partnership with Mozilla Berlin for community events.

Web capability: With our strong team of web engineers, we will have a better browser extension interface and support more features. We will also improve our website so that our users have better experiences.

Stronger model: Our data science team is massive; with them, we can have a more thorough study on the data and have a stronger AI model in detecting online misogyny. Our research team is also studying different types of abusive text in different cultural contexts.

GDPR compliance: We are fully aware of the importance of privacy and GDPR, we have reached out to professionals and seek advice. In 2020, we will continue using the data that we have for good (not for the bad)!

Opt-out workgroups

To make sure that we apply our expertise and work efficiently towards our goals, we have formed workgroups:

1. Data Science / Modeling: researching on performing machine learning on our data and deploying the best AI model we have for detecting abusive messages.
2. Research: researching definitions of misogyny and message context across cultures.
3. Web engineering: developing and maintaining the browser extension and the website.
4. Brand and Marketing: out-reaching and promoting Opt Out Tools, also managing our social media presence.
5. Funding: sourcing and apply for suitable fundings, preparing our future crowdfunding campaigns.

If you are interested in Opt Out Tools and want to volunteer or sponsor us, we would love to hear from you. Also, show us some love on GitHub and Twitter.