Tall Poppy safeguards employees from online harassment

Reportedly, four-in-ten Americans have suffered online harassment. It is a serious issue, as it not only compromises peoples’ privacy but can potentially pose threat to their physical safety. As the realization has grown about the threats of online harassment, Tall Poppy, a new company has been launched giving users a tool to combat cybercrime.

Co-founded by Leigh Honeywell and Logan Dean, Tall Poppy is an effort to hunt down trolls in online communities. After a particular noxious incident happened in 2008 in which the troll sent death threats to women in various Linux communities, Honeywell was motivated to work as a security specialist in this arena and co-operated with law bodies to track down the trolls. Her early achievements made her a successful security expert for companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Slack. “It was an accidental thing that I got into this work”, says Honeywell.

As people were reporting the shameful incident with #metoo, Honeywell started helping the victims personally who referred to her. As her work got momentum, she thought of systematizing her approach so that it can help a large section of people.

Primarily, Tall Poppy will provide security awareness training to help employees stay ahead of the online threats. It will train them to gain an understanding of how to protect themselves and be aware of the laws that can be used in this case to punish the trollers. It will also take personal care of the victims. As Honeywell heard more and more stories of online assault, she laid her groundwork with the help of extremely talented coder, Logan Dean. Though it sounds like an occupational hazard for women to work in this area, the internet feminists broke the stereotypes to come up with Tall Poppy!