One woman has decided to transform the negativity of online abuse into something positive.

Dr Susan Carland, an Australian university lecturer, donates $1 (47p) to a children's charity every time she receives a hateful message on Twitter – and has so far given hundreds of dollars.

Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, Carland – who converted to Islam in her teens – explained that her trolls focus on her faith, and that by giving money to Unicef every time she receives a hate-filled tweet, she adheres to the idea of “driving away darkness with light,” which is mentioned in the Qur'an.

“While these trolls are desperate to tell me what I believe in order to wedge me into their own miserable world-view, I am not defined or confined by that. My response to them is not an act of angry defiance but a calm reaction that is deeply rooted in who I am and the faith that defines me […]

“I'd tried blocking, muting, engaging and ignoring, but none of them felt like I was embodying the Koranic injunction of driving off darkness with light. I felt I should be actively generating good in the world for every ugly verbal bullet sent my way.”

Online abuse repurposed: doctor donates $1 to charity every time a troll sends her a hateful tweet