The Nerve launches The Information Integrity Initiative, Julie Posetti to serve as director

MANILA, Philippines – Data forensics company The Nerve is launching a new project anchoring action-oriented research, policy work, and product development at the intersection of disinformation, freedom of expression, gender, and public interest media.

The new Information Integrity Initiative (III) will be led by Professor Julie Posetti, formerly of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ). Posetti brings over 20 years of high-level international journalism practice to the role and has been at the forefront of studying threats to investigative journalism in the digital age.

The initiative’s first major release, titled “Tipping Point: The chilling escalation of violence against women in the public sphere,” reveals alarming statistics regarding digital safety. The report shows that 70% of surveyed women have experienced online violence in the course of their work, with 41% reporting offline harm linked to that abuse. Notably, the share of journalists and media workers experiencing online violence and associated offline abuse or attacks has more than doubled — from 20% in 2020 to 42% in 2025.

Posetti, who also serves as chair of the Centre for Journalism and Democracy at City St. George’s, University of London, will lead a team of researchers and policy experts working to safeguard the integrity of information.

“What better place to step up the fight to secure information integrity than inside an organization rooted in data analysis and founded by a Nobel Peace Prize winner who literally wrote the book on How to Stand Up to a Dictator? We’re so excited about moving our action research projects, policy and advocacy work to The Nerve because, having collaborated with the team over many years, we know what’s under the hood,” Posetti said.

Posetti and The Nerve have previously collaborated on landmark big data investigations, including the analysis of the onslaught of online violence against Maria Ressa and the targeted attacks on women journalists at South Africa’s Daily Maverick, which exposed how disinformation networks sexualized and silenced female reporters.

She added: “The mission is clear, the methods are robust, and the trust runs deep in both directions. So, we look forward to converging our capabilities and strengthening our collective efforts to defend the production of, and access to, public interest information in the interests of democracy — even as authoritarianism surges.” 

Co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, The Nerve is a data forensics company that analyzes the complexities of the current information landscape to enforce accountability among disinformation actors and technology platforms. 

While rooted in the Philippines, The Nerve has expanded its research to multiple international markets, including Kenya, Moldova, and Brazil. The team’s global portfolio includes critical assessments of the US information ecosystem and analysis of how anti-immigrant disinformation spread in the United Kingdom.

“The struggle for information integrity is the mother of all battles, and it’s a fight that demands radical collaboration. I have trusted Julie Posetti’s rigor for years, and she shares The Nerve’s long-standing commitment to strengthening democratic resilience through data and action-oriented research,” Ressa said.

“This initiative represents the next evolution of our work: bridging our deep forensic analysis with high-level policy engagement to force accountability and protect the integrity of information,” Ressa added.

Also joining the initiative are Nabeelah Shabbir as deputy director and Kaylee Williams as senior researcher.

Based in Amsterdam, Shabbir won a British Journalism Award while working at The Guardian and was previously a journalist in the Netherlands and France. As a research fellow at the RISJ, she co-authored reports on digital-born media, the Panama Papers, and innovation in media in the Global South. She later served as deputy director of research at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), where she worked with her team on understanding the phenomenon of online violence against women in public life, journalism in the pandemic, and countering disinformation in newsrooms around the world.

Williams is a PhD candidate at Columbia Journalism School studying technology-facilitated gender-based violence, with an emphasis on generative AI and nonconsensual intimate imagery. She is motivated by a commitment to data-driven research and policy engagement which protects marginalized communities from digital harms, while safeguarding information integrity and democratic resilience. – Rappler.com

About The Nerve 

The Nerve is a data forensics company that combines human and machine intelligence to map information ecosystems and decode attack narratives. Born from the big data investigations pioneered by Rappler to identify information operations as early as 2016, The Nerve has successfully commercialized this methodology to hold platform accountability and facilitate the takedown of disinformation networks with tens of millions of reach. Backed by a multi-disciplinary team and proprietary technology, the company provides actionable insights to activists, researchers, and journalists, ensuring a more transparent and reliable public sphere.

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