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I sat in on a virtual support group for sexual-assault survivors
Thanks to its ability to give you a first-person point of view, virtual reality has become a common vehicle for empathetic storytelling. Testimony, a VR project that premiered at Tribeca 2017, does so by putting you in a virtual support group, showing the effectiveness of simply watching people tell their stories, especially when the subject is as disturbing as sexual assault.
GamerGate target starts online harassment prevention program
Despite Twitter making it easier to report cyber harassment, its measures still fall woefully short. To wit, game developers Zoe Quinn, one of GamerGate's biggest targets, and Alex Lifschitz have teamed up to form an online abuse help network. Crash Override says its goal is to provide a support network for victims of SWATting, doxxing and other maliciousness both preventatively and reactively. It accomplishes this by using "well-established, humane and transparent channels to disempower abuse and reduce the ability abusers have to perpetuate it." The outfit notes that in its trial runs it's effectively helped abuse targets head off SWATting attempts and lock down their personal information, too, all without resorting to more harassment. What's more, Crash Override counts whitehat hackers, infosec professionals and lawyers among its agents.
