online harassment
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Japan’s amended cyberbullying law makes online insults punishable by one year in prison
Insulting someone online could land an individual in Japan a one-year prison term under an amendment to the country’s penal code enacted on Thursday morning.
A Japanese man was charged $81 for cyberbullying star Hana Kimura before her death
An online troll was charged $81 for cyberbullying Hana Kimura. Is that enough?
You can finally hide replies to your tweets -- at least for now
You can now hide all those obnoxious trolls and reply guys on Twitter. The social media platform today announced a test of its controversial "hide replies" feature in the US and Japan. Rather than deleting offensive or unwanted replies forever, the new option lets users individually hide them. Users will be able to hide replies on both the app and desktop versions of the site. Last summer, Twitter ran a test of the same feature in Canada.
Twitter is testing a filter for potentially offensive messages
Twitter is taking its screening of unknown direct messages a step further. The social media giant announced today that it is testing a filter for messages that contain offensive content. Messages containing potentially suspect words will be stored away in a folder marked "additional messages." Users can then opt to see them specifically. Unwanted messages aren't fun. So we're testing a filter in your DM requests to keep those out of sight, out of mind. pic.twitter.com/Sg5idjdeVv — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 15, 2019
Twitter says new tools automatically flag 38 percent of abusive tweets
Twitter gave a status update on Tuesday on its plans to target online harassment, which, the company claims, appear to be working. The platform has made "meaningful progress" in moving towards its goal of cutting down on abuse of the platform, wrote Twitter Vice President Donald Hicks. Specifically, more abusive accounts are getting suspended than this time last year, abusive tweets are being automatically flagged for the first time and repeat offenders are being blocked from opening new accounts.
Twitter lets you appeal suspensions in the app for a faster response
Twitter users suspended for violating conduct guidelines can now appeal the decision inside the app, a new feature that the company says will lead to faster response times. The social media giant unveiled the feature on Tuesday in a tweet that showed how a recently suspended user goes through the steps of filing an appeal. Normally, after you tweet something that gets reported or flagged, Twitter moderators rule whether or not your account deserves to be suspended. Users who believed they were wrongfully suspended had to resort to an online form, and response times usually varied from a few hours to more than a week.
Pew Research: Online harassment rife among young, women
A recent study by the Pew Research group finds that online harassment is exceedingly common, with forty percent of adult Internet users claiming they have been the target of some form of harassment. The study differentiates between "less severe" and "more severe" forms of harassment. While the former includes things like name calling, the latter includes stalking and death threats. According to the study, of those who claim to be victims of harassment, 45 percent claim to fall into the "more severe" category. Those rates are especially high among young women, the study finds, as 26 percent of female Internet users polled claimed to have been stalked online, while 25 percent claim to have been the target of online sexual harassment.
UK considers quadrupling prison terms for Internet trolls
In an effort to "take a stand against a baying cyber-mob," lawmakers in the UK will soon debate an amendment that could quadruple prison terms for Internet trolls, from the current six months to a maximum of two years. "These internet trolls are cowards who are poisoning our national life," Justice Secretary Chris Grayling told the Daily Mail. "No-one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media. That is why we are determined to quadruple the current six-month sentence." Grayling's comments come in direct response to the recent online harassment of television presenter Chloe Madeley, who was subjected to rape threats after her mother appeared on the ITV network talk show Loose Women to discuss soccer star and convicted rapist Ched Evans. "As the terrible case of Chloe Madeley showed last week, people are being abused online in the most crude and degrading fashion," Grayling added. "This is a law to combat cruelty - and marks our determination to take a stand against a baying cyber-mob. We must send out a clear message: If you troll you risk being behind bars for two years." Unfortunately, online harassment is a global epidemic. Recent harassment campaigns against Anita Sarkeesian have also included both rape and death threats, and in one instance forced the outspoken critic to cancel a major public appearance. [Image: Wikimedia]
