Paula Todd is an investigative journalist and best-selling non-fiction writer, and a professor of broadcast, print and digital journalism. She is also a lawyer and a frequent speaker on digital behavior and influence, journalism, literacy and freedom of the press.
Todd’s latest book EXTREME MEAN: Trolls, Bullies and Predators Online (Random House/McCleland&Stewart) is a unique look at the many reasons cyberabusers attack online. Her investigation stretches beyond cyerbullying to tormenting, harassing, RIP trolling and adult stalking. Sexual cyberabuse -- misogynistic rape and death threats, sexual extortion, blackmail and revenge porn are examined, as are the many reasons the Internet has become an abuse destination. Todd challenges the notion that anonymity and cyber lawlessness are the sole causes and presents both a cultural and academic explanation for the motivations -- and the consequences -- of online abuse. She proposes new solutions, and presents a compelling case for international action while warning about government regulation and diminishment of online freedom.
Todd has hosted/reported for Canada’s major television networks, and written for Canada’s largest newspapers and magazines for more than twenty years. In 2012, she wrote the first e-book to break news in Canada, the best-selling Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down A Serial Child Killer and Discovered A Mother of Three. Her first book, A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us, also a bestseller, documents the extraordinary ways ordinary people around the world triumphed over tragedy.
Todd was Yahoo’s #2 Newsmaker of the Year in 2012, and with the publication of EXTREME MEAN expects to be trashed for defending some trolls and exploring the real reasons tormentors, stalkers, predators and cyberbullies are ruining the Internet and risking everyone else’s freedom of expression and right to be online.
"In a freight-train of a book, Paula Todd peels back the layers of the internet in a way no one has before. The information one will glean from this book will literally be life-saving. You can't afford not to read Extreme Mean."
- Karen Burnes
Writer/Producer, and former ABC/CBS news correspondent
