dealing with trolling, how to hack harassment online

How to Hack Harassment

Alexandra Bowen - say hi! aabowen.github.io - fork me!

@AlexandraABowen - tweet me!

The Internet is for everyone.

http://aabowen.github.io

Who am I?

I am a community manager and developer evangelist.

@AlexandraABowen #AlterConf

• Intro and Background • Issues and Solutions • Community Manager Perspective • Managing your Community • The Art of Experience: Designing for all

What’s coming up for you to stare at…


The Internet is a shared community resource, a place to share skills, knowledge, experience, conversation and interest.

Intro and Background


40 percent of Internet-using adults have experienced online harassment.

A quarter of women ages 18 to 24 report being sexually harassed online, and 26 percent report being stalked.


There’s still a strong narrative that “online is not real life.”

Online harassment disproportionately affects women, people of color, and LGBT people.


Online harassment and abuse is not only a personal problem, it’s a community and business problem.


1. Name-calling and embarrassment2. Physical threats, harassment over a sustained period of time, stalking, sexual harassment3. Making the target feel: Oppressed, Humiliated, De-energized, Belittled

So, what’s harassment?


There are two general categories of harassers:1. Those who pursue their victim for pleasure2. Anger or malice towards a victim

So, what’s harassment?


An intentional act that is conducted through digital technology to hurt someone, repeatedly or over time.

A person who intentionally uses obscenity, threats or aggression to impose domination or cause fear and distress in others.


What is the intention?


When the intent is to silence the victim, that itself is an attack on free speech.


Keep the Internet for everyone.


Technology is best when it connects everyone and when everyone is represented, included and participating.


Everyone deserves to live, learn and work freely online.


There’s not a suitable dataset of how extensive this is

Issues


High volume of entries makes it hard for moderators and community managers to keep up

Issues


There are language and culture dynamics

Issues


People are trying to stop harassment in silos

Issues


Disagreements on defining harassment

Issues


1.Develop algorithms and tools2. Needs to be recognized and treated as a social problem

3. We need to get out of the Tech silo4. Create pre-bullying elements5. Stiffen penalties of those who commit abuse

Solutions


• Multiple identification paths for accounts

• Limit Notifications• Filters

Twitter


We need to bridge the gap between social science approaches and technical solutions in this battle against the societal problems of the virtual age.


Fighting against harassment and building inclusivity ensures community longevity and health.

Community Manager Perspective


Tools built for good purpose can be misused.


Let’s continue to break down cultural, mental, design barriers and perceptions in communities.


Let’s incentivize to find and squash trolls as well as develop potential solutions for platforms and communities.

Troll Bounty Programs


A CoC is a set of early choices about building social dynamics, and setting expectations about what’s not going to be tolerated.

Code of Conduct (CoC)


A CoC goes beyond just words and a set of rules, it’s a plan to frame and grow the type of discussions and discourse you want to see, as well as ensuring there are non-biased checks and balances if things start go wrong.

Code of Conduct (CoC)


@AlexandraABowen #AlterConf@AlexandraABowen #AlterConf


•Are short enough to skim without becoming an unreadable wall of text, or an enormous volume of rules•Have a positive, upbeat, and agreeable tone •Encourage honest to goodness, civilized discourse

•Respectful interactions among a diverse range of voices•A communal acknowledgement and enforcement of what happens if rules are broken•A consent model centered around the ability to set your own preferences for the sharing of your words and images

Coral Project CoC


•Highly visible participation by, and availability of, staff members•A collective attempt to improve knowledge and understanding through respectful engagement • Information is easy to access and easy to share•Clear guidelines for conversation

Coral Project CoC


“Things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, commercial promotion, impersonations, name-calling, incoherence and SHOUTING.”

Ello

“Ello was created by idealists who believe that the essential nature of all

human beings is to be kind, considerate, helpful, intelligent,

responsible, and respectful of others.”


Ello• Don’t threaten people. • Don’t post others’ personal information. • Don’t hate.• Don’t promote self-harm.• Don’t spam. • Don’t automate.• Don’t infringe on other people’s copyrights and

trademarks.• Be legal.• Don’t squat on usernames.• Don’t impersonate others.• Don’t hurt young people. • Don’t use Ello to intrude on other people’s

privacy. • Don’t be a nuisance regarding technology.

Ello


•Become a member•Unique Community profiles •Community Leaders


a) Analyze an individual post - This use simple bayesian to come out with a value between 0 and 1.

b) Analyze the Sender/Recipient relationship/language and activity for potentially abusive tweets.

TwitterClassifier Project


Reputation brings you new contributors. It’s the type of reputation that determines the quality and characteristics of the contributors you get.


Even if you were to get rid of them, people may still think that your community has issues. It takes 5 positive interactions to balance out 1 bad one. It’s known as the magic 5:1 ratio.


“Asking nicely has its limits, eventually you must take action.”

-Jeff Atwood

Managing your community


•Reinforce good behavior •So they know that we appreciate constructive contributions that are appropriate and helpful

•Act on bad behavior • If you see someone starting to behave in a negative way watch them very closely

Tactics


•Don’t be quick to judge • If someone slips up and makes a mistake — don’t freak out! Be supportive, but continue to moderate and monitor.

•Start small • Take smaller disciplinary actions to begin with, such as a few hour or day ban, or perhaps just flagging posts and sending follow up Private Messages are enough

Tactics


• Extend an olive branch • You have to be committed to helping your

members as much as you can, as long as they are committed to changing for the sake of the community.

• Be open, honest and listen • If you are approachable, level headed and

understanding they will most likely respond and lower their guard. If the respect is not matched, that’s your sign that escalation is needed and this person most likely needs to leave for an extended period of time.

Tactics cont..


•Monitor your tone •Make sure your replies/conversation sounds like you want to help. Moderation is an art form. You want to help them recognize their value enough to want to tone it down a bit.

•Don’t gossip or allow gossiping • It’s ok to acknowledge and listen to concerns but don’t let it grow into a hack session behind someones back.

Tactics cont..


The Art of Experience: Designing for all


Design for genius loci, or the spirit of a place.

When you design for online collaboration, learning and community, keep in mind the spirit of the community.

Make sure a new user gets an immediate sense of community, what your community is about and the type of people and resources in it for them.

Spirit of community


Design for all the senses

• All too often, designs rely more heavily on just one primary sense — the visual one

• Remember that you want to encourage positive feelings and emotions from the beginning

• When we revisit a space, we not only remember the design of it, but also the feelings associated

• Your memory and your sense of place are closely linked. Design for positive experiences


• Our environment can be structured to encourage or discourage social interactions

• You can develop stronger communities by creating more interaction between members

• You can design online spaces for a mixture of activities to bring a potentially diverse community together

The Social Ordering of Space


• A good community has good design and aesthetics • A healthy community model is one that is well organized, well

designed, easy to use and has carefully patrolled spaces • Make sure your community allows for appropriate public and

private spaces. Make sure you use inclusive language

Personal Space & Inclusivity


•Don’t let negative people define your communities, or you.

•Be the example and exemplify the type of community member you wish to attract.

•Community Managers are their communities welcome mat!

Take away


Thank you!


dealing with trolling, how to hack harassment online

Leadership & Management