Online Moderators Keep it Civil, But What About Where They Work? Mzinga moderators spend much of their shifts putting an end to flame wars, banning trolls, handling customer complaints, and keeping the peace. As Mzinga’s Director of Moderation Services, I ensure that the team works in an environment that encourages and practices civil interaction as […]
Facebook Adds AI to Suicide Prevention Arsenal More than ten years ago, I complimented Facebook for encouraging its members to send in a report if they saw a post by a member or friend saying they were serious about harming themselves. If a report was received, Facebook contacted the member with a message of concern, […]
Google’s Jigsaw Gets a New Perspective: Learning Curve Still a Hairpin Late last year, I commented on Google’s Jigsaw software, created to apply machine learning to detect and remove harassment and abusive content in areas where users interact online. At the time, I said that no matter how much Jigsaw learned, it would never be […]
Twitter Throws the Bozo Flag on Trolls Twitter used to brag that it was “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” but recently the party was crashed by the company’s security team, who launched a protocol aimed to decrease users’ exposure to abusive content. It’s both a step forward and a step back. […]
Texas Anti-Harassment Legislation Threatens Lawful Online Interaction A new bill introduced in the Texas legislature seeks to criminalize cyber-bullying of children in educational settings. The bill, called “David’s Law” (named after a 16-year-old victim of cyber-bullying who killed himself – there were no charges filed against those accused) would give school district officials more power […]
A new app launched by Lego contains many features that minimize the ability of users to be harassed and bullied. Called Lego Life, the app for iOS and Android (available in App Store and Google Play) allows kids under 13 to create profiles, watch videos, participate in challenges, upload photos of their projects, search and […]
Two Microsoft online moderators have filed suit against the company, saying they were forced to watch child porn and other offensive and disturbing images and videos to the extent that they began to exhibit symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When they asked for help, they say in a McClatchy DC report, they received negative […]
Papers in Your Desk Have More Protection than Those in Your Inbox In 1989, my master’s thesis, in part, argued that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 should protect emails and other communications stored on a server in perpetuity, not just those stored for less than 180 days. I also stressed that stored communications […]
GitHub’s “Contributor Covenant” Makes Waves; Curbs Online Abuse Over a year ago, I wrote about GitHub’s issues with bullying and discrimination, which came to a head when a female developer quit the collaborative coding hub – a victim of gender-based harassment by white male managers and co-workers. The highly-publicized move eventually led to the resignation […]
Riot Games’ Tribunal System Reduces Abuse on Its Platform Riot Games, producer of the PC-based multiplayer League of Legends (LoL), has been selected as Inc. magazine’s Company of the Year. One of the reasons they are the most popular PC game in North America and Europe is due to their success at handling abuse, through […]
