‘I had a great time on the plane’: ‘I felt like a hero’
By Anthony SalvantoA new book by a former Obama administration official about the White House social media team’s efforts to combat online bullying is out.
It’s called “Bullying: The Untold Story of How the White Houses Social Media Team Helped Prevent it.”
“Bullying is a problem that needs to be solved,” the book’s author, Tony Shorris, wrote in an email.
“It has to stop, and it will stop.”
He wrote that his book, which he’s written and published for a little more than a year, was meant to help “a generation of Americans learn how to deal with it in a non-judgmental and non-negative way.”
“This book will help many Americans learn to deal more positively with online harassment and bullying,” Shorries added.
In the book, Shorri, now a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, says that the WhiteHouse.gov team was not only focused on online bullying, but also about creating an inclusive online community.
He says he hopes to make that more obvious to parents and students, as well as to employers.
“We didn’t have a problem with people who were harassing or bullying, and we didn’t know how to handle it,” he wrote.
“Instead, we thought we could handle it better with a broader team, with a more professional and thoughtful approach.”
He says that after a number of staff members received similar online abuse, he was told to focus on “better ways to manage the issue” by then-WhiteHouse Chief Technology Officer Eric Lonergan.
“As the chief technology officer, we were very concerned about how we were managing online abuse and how we dealt with it,” Sharris wrote.
Lonergan has been criticized by critics for his handling of the controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s decision to cut off funding to the Family Research Council, which opposes gay marriage and opposes transgender people using bathrooms in government buildings.
Shorris said in an interview with BuzzFeed News that he and his team “got together in April of last year, to discuss how we could address the issue.”
He says that at the time, “we had a very good understanding of what we were doing and what we weren’t doing.
We were working very closely with the Whitehouse.gov [team], but we weren�t really focused on how we weren��t doing it.”
He said he had “never been so excited to write a book.”
“When I started this project, I had no idea that it would be the most influential book that I would ever write, or that it was going to be so long and so nuanced,” Shri said.
He said that he hopes that by sharing the story in a book that reflects his own experience, “it will give people who are having a hard time thinking about this, because it�s really not as simple as it sounds.”
Shorri said that the book is based on his own research into bullying, including his time as the director of the Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration.
He said that his experience as an administrator and as an expert witness on online abuse made him want to share the story with the public.
“My hope is that this book will be a catalyst for others to start doing this work and be inspired by it,” said Shorra.
“If you�re going to start thinking about how you handle bullying, I want you to know that I am the one who can help you.
I can help make this happen.”
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kevin McCoy on Twitter: @kmccoynyc.
