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An insurance provider is offering cyberbullying coverage
A high-end insurance provider in the UK has become what's thought to be the first to include personal cover for victims of cyberbullying. Chubb Insurance -- unrelated to the lock and security system companies of similar name, if you were wondering -- began offering the so-called "troll insurance" to new customers last month, and will extend the option to policy renewers in the new year. While some other providers will cover the cost of launching or defending a cyberbullying lawsuit, Chubb's policy focuses on the wellbeing of the adult or child on the receiving end of online abuse.
Guide helps you fight online harassment
Harassment may be a regular part of the modern internet landscape, but that doesn't mean that you have to simply sit there and take it. Feminist Frequency, which is all too familiar with harassment and threats, has posted a guide to protecting yourself against the onslaught of digital bullies, stalkers and trolls. In some ways, it's about observing common sense privacy and security policies: avoid sharing more personal info than necessary, use difficult-to-crack passwords and stay on guard against malware and other exploits.
ICYMI: E-paper kicks, robot directions via thought and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-978000{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-978000, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-978000{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-978000").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Shiftwear wants to change your shoe game with color e-paper screens that can move and shift into beautiful pictures on the sneakers you're wearing. It's too early to tell whether they will fund; or look as good as they do in the online video. There's also a nail-art printer if you're in the mood to spend a lot of money on something temporary.
Post a racist comment online, see it on a billboard near your house
Messages posted on Facebook, Twitter and other online spaces may feel like they carry less weight than things said in the physical world -- but that's not the case, argues Brazilian civil-rights group Criola. This year, Criola launched a campaign labeled, "Virtual racism, real consequences," which pulls racially bigoted comments from the internet and places them on billboards in the neighborhoods where the commenters live. Criola finds racist messages online and then uses geotag data to locate the author's neighborhood; the group then rents billboard space nearby and prints the comments for the world -- and the original writer -- to see. The names and images of the commenters are blurred out, but the message rings clear: Things said online affect people in real life, in real ways.
New Zealand makes cyberbullying a crime
New Zealand has passed a law that criminalizes one of the least desirable facets of the internet: cyberbullying. The legislation effectively prohibits sending messages to people that are racist, sexist, critical of their religion, sexuality or disability. The rest for determining harm will be if these communications were designed to cause "serious emotional distress," and if a person is found guilty, could face up to two years in jail. In addition, the bill creates a separate crime of incitement to suicide, which will see a person jailed for up to three years if they are found to be encouraging such an act.
Recommended Reading: Russia's professional trolling agency
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. The Agency by Adrian Chen The New York Times Magazine There's a super-secret group of internet trolls in Russia that's causing problems not only online, but also in US cities. The so-called Internet Research Agency caused a ruckus in Louisiana last September with fake reports of an accident at a chemical plant -- reports that eventually made national news. To find out more about the organization, Adrian Chen took a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, in April and found himself in the group's crosshairs.
Reddit defines 'harassment' in an effort to curb it
Reddit has had it up to here with the trolls in its forums and is finally doing something about it. In fact, Reddit's doing a lot of somethings. In a post to the company's official blog this morning, Reddit admins explained that while a vast majority of the site's 9,000 or so boards are generally civil. However, too many users are being dissuaded from participating on account of the abuse and harassment they receive from the site's trolls. In fact, a recent survey of 15,000 Reddit users shows that "the number one reason Redditors do not recommend the site—even though they use it themselves—is because they want to avoid exposing friends to hate and offensive content." That's a major indictment and a big problem for Reddit as a company (not to mention its bottom line).
Twitter's broader abuse powers let it filter hostile tweets
Twitter knows that it's not enough just to make it easier to report abusive tweets. You have to catch and discourage that abuse as often as possible, too. Appropriately, the social network is rolling out a broader abuse policy alongside tools that help it stop harassment quickly. The new rules now cover all promotions of violence against someone, not just "direct, specific" threats -- Twitter can crack down on more than the most serious attacks. That's particularly important for victims of systematic abuse, who frequently chastise Twitter for being soft on people who clearly wish harm but aren't explicit about it.
Scientists can build an early-warning system for trolls
Almost every website with comments suffers from trolls, people who like to spout obnoxious and irrational gibberish just to offend others. Since you can't just ask people to behave like human beings, a lot of time and effort is spent monitoring and policing this idiocy. Thankfully, the internet's long national nightmare may now be at an end after researchers from Stanford and Cornell developed an early warning system for trolls. After conducting a study that examined close to 40 million comments, it was found that trolls can be algorithmically identified before they've written 10 posts.
Revenge porn is now a specific crime in the UK
Posting revenge porn has always been a bad idea, but the UK is about to make examples of those heartless enough to share nude photos of their exes. As of Monday, the country's Criminal Justice and Court Act treats revenge porn as a specific crime. Publicize racy private images with the "intent to cause distress" and you'll face up to two years in prison. While the law could technically punish this behavior before, the Act is meant to discourage those who otherwise wouldn't get the hint.
Twitter helps verified users keep trolls out of their tweets
It's not all sunshine and roses for Twitter's verified users. They may have more features, but that blue checkmark also makes them a bullseye for trolls, spammers and people who simply have a chip on their shoulder. This group should have an easier time having meaningful discussions from now on, though. Twitter has started giving verified iOS users a simple "quality filter" that lets them remove abusive remarks, duplicate content and suspicious accounts from their notifications. The social network already had tailored filtering, but this new option theoretically cleans things up with the flick of a switch.
PS4's game-sharing feature used to delete a kid's 'Destiny' characters
The very conceit of PlayStation 4's Share Play feature is futuristic as all get-out, but it has a dark side too. Take 5th grader Henry Kramer's recent Destiny woes for example. After virtually passing his DualShock 4 to another player to access a glitch that Kramer hoped would quickly boost his characters, the other party urged him to go grab something from another room as a distraction, according to Eurogamer. Twitch viewers (Kramer was streaming at the time) watched as the nefarious user proceeded to delete two of his three characters: a nearly maxed out level 31 Warlock and a level 26 Titan, but it wasn't until Kramer came back that he saw the damage done. You can hear him crying upon his realization in the video linked here, and, well, it's hard to not be affected by it at least a little bit.
Twitter CEO admits 'we suck at dealing with trolls,' vows to fix it
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has admitted that "we suck with dealing at trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. He added that the problem has caused "core user after core user" to flee the platform and took personal responsibility. Though Twitter has suffered from issues around abuse and trolling for years -- with the recent GamerGate abuse of Anita Sarkeesian being just one egregious example -- the apparent breaking point for Costolo was a recent Guardian story by feminist writer Lindy West. In it, she talked about her interview on This American Life with a troll who assumed the identity of her beloved, deceased father on Twitter.
Angry Twitter is bad for your health
You've got to tell them. They're so wrong. What an idiot. Unbelievable. This will show them. Getting angry on Twitter may feel great (correction: amazing) at times, but that doesn't mean it's good for you. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a strong correlation between use of negative language on Twitter and heart disease mortality. From public tweets made during 2009 and 2010, the research found that communities where expletives and hate words were tweeted often also had higher rates of heart disease deaths. Positive tweets, however, showed the opposite effect.
Twitter makes it easier to report abusive tweets
If you've ever been the victim of harassment on Twitter, you know how hard it has been to report abuse until now; you couldn't really do much on mobile, and the complicated process made it difficult to flag all but the scariest threats. Thankfully, Twitter is at last simplifying the reporting process to give you a better defense against abusers. You now need less initial information to make a complaint, and the reporting system is easier to understand as a whole. You should also have less trouble reporting harassment when you aren't the target, and a mobile-native interface lets you deal with troublemakers away from a computer.
Why Samaritans' app to spot depressed tweets does more harm than good
Last week, counselling charity Samaritans launched Radar, a new social media service that remotely listens in on Twitter conversations and warns you when someone you follow might need emotional support. Radar is already tracking over a million Twitter accounts, and while the idea is a virtuous one, the service has sparked a huge online backlash, with many calling for it to be shut down. But why?
UK wants tougher prison sentences for internet trolls
Online harassers in the UK may soon face much harsher consequences for their scare tactics. Justice Secretary Chris Grayling tells the Daily Mail that a newly proposed measure will let magistrates send cases of internet abuse and threats to crown courts, boosting the maximum prison time for those cases from six months to two years. The measure likely won't intimidate the most determined of trolls if it takes effect, but it could serve as a warning to "casual" abusers who don't think they'll pay a price for their long-distance hate campaigns. Given how nightmarish internet threats have become as of late, the proposed tougher sentencing might be well-timed. [Image credit: Eirik Solheim, Flickr]
Gaming culture critic Sarkeesian cancels speech after school shooting threats (update)
Following threats of extreme violence at Utah State University, feminist culture-critic Anita Sarkeesian has cancelled her speech at the school scheduled for Wednesday. This morning, someone claiming to be a student at the university emailed staff members, saying that he or she would commit "the deadliest school shooting in American history" if the event wasn't cancelled, according to Utah newspaper The Standard Examiner. The email's author says that feminists have ruined their life and promised a "Montreal Massacre-style attack," stating that he or she possesses a variety of firearms and explosives and that no one in attendance or at the campus' Women's Center would be able to defend themselves should the lecture take place. This isn't the first time Sarkeesian has come under threat, either -- let alone the first time this year.
GDC award for culture critic Anita Sarkeesian led to bomb threat
A bomb threat was made regarding a speaker and award recipient at the Game Developer's Choice Awards (part of the annual Game Developer's Conference) in San Francisco this past March. Anita Sarkeesian (pictured above), host of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, a YouTube series that naturally examines the way women are depicted in video games, was the intended target. As Kotaku reports, an anonymous email was sent to around 25 of GDC's organizers stating the following: "A bomb will be detonated at the Game Developer's Choice award ceremony tonight unless Anita Sarkeesian's Ambassador Award is revoked. We estimate the bomb will kill at least a dozen people and injure dozens more. It would be in your best interest to accept our simple request. This is not a joke. You have been warned."
The Daily Grind: Do you comment on headlines before you read articles?
I'm not a Twitter fan. I never use it outside of work, and the time I spend manning the Massively Twitter feed is one of the least enjoyable portions of my workday. This is due mostly to the large numbers of people who read our headlines via Twitter and then proceed to comment or tweet back without reading the article. I know; it's a game of trolls and the winner gets to feel like a special snarkanaut for cramming his invaluable insight into 140 characters or less and hopefully provoking some sort of reaction. But like all casual games, it gets tiresome rather quickly. Ultimately, we, like most writers on the internet, design headlines specifically to entice reading, not to sum up a post in 10 words. How about you, Massively readers? 'Fess up: Do you comment on headlines before you read articles, either on Twitter or elsewhere? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
