Items tagged with Cyberbullying
Twitter is making it a little more difficult to be an anonymous troll. The social media giant is getting rid of its default “egg” profile picture. This default has come to be associated on Twitter with harassment and abuse. According to a Twitter representative, “We’ve noticed patterns of behavior with accounts that are created only to harass others – often they don’t take the time to personalize their accounts. This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior, which isn’t fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven’t yet personalized their profile photo.”The “egg” picture was originally intended as a reference to Twitter users “hatching” their...
Read more...
Twitter has been on a mission over the last few months to curb cyber-bullying. Twitter users before were largely responsible for reporting accounts that they felt violated Twitter’s guidelines, but the social media giant is now taking on some of the responsibility for policing potentially abusive accounts. Twitter is intent upon identifying bad behavior, regardless of whether or not it has been reported. The social networking services plans to limit the functionality of accounts who violate its terms of service. If the account continues to be “abusive”, Twitter “will consider taking further action”. Many users have already experienced the punishment for their bad behavior. This past month, Twitter...
Read more...
Trolls and cyber-bullying have been around since the very beginning of the internet. Twitter now has a way to sift through the potential hate, as the social media website is expanding the “mute” feature to encompass notifications. Twitter noted that cyber-bullying inhibits “people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere. Abusive conduct removes the chance to see and share all perspectives around an issue, which we believe is critical to moving us all forward. In the worst cases, this type of conduct threatens human dignity, which we should all stand together to protect.” Twitter first introduced its “mute” feature in 2014. Users have been able to go to accounts that they follow and “mute”...
Read more...
Twitter has a harassment problem, and it’s looking for outside help to help combat Internet trolls that are turning the popular social media platform into a new age platform for bullying. Twitter’s newly formed Trust and Safety Council will work to offer “input on our safety products, policies, and programs” as it tiptoes the line between allowing the proliferation of free speech while at the same time protecting its users from hate speech. “Twitter empowers every voice to shape the world. But you can’t do that unless you feel safe and confident enough to express yourself freely and connect with the world around you,” writes the Trust and Safety Council. “To help give your voice more power, Twitter...
Read more...
Lawmakers in New Zealand have officially made it illegal to harass others and engage in hate speech through digital means. Otherwise known as cyberbullying, offenders who run afoul of the law face stiff penalties -- up to two years imprisonment or a fine up to $50,000 for an individual, or up to $200,000 for a "body corporate," which is a legal entity like a business, government agency, and so forth. It's called the Harmful Digital Communications Bill and it's intended to "deter, prevent, and mitigate harm caused by individuals by digital communications, and provide victims of harmful digital communications with a quick and efficient means of redress." The bill covers any form...
Read more...
Twitter CEO Disk Costolo admitted about his microblogging service that "we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," which he followed up with a vow to be more aggressive in eliminating that kind of unwanted behavior. Taking a step towards fulfilling that promise, Twitter has made some changes to its violent threats policy.Prior to the policy change, the prohibition on violent threats was limited "direct, specific threats of violence against others." It's now been reworded to include "threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others," which Twitter says better describes the range of prohibited content and reflects its original...
Read more...
Just in case there's a shred of doubt, posting sexually explicit photos or videos of your ex-lover without his or her permission is not okay. The practice, known as revenge porn, is a cowardly way of seeking vengeance for whatever wrong an ex is perceived to have made. And not only is revenge porn in poor taste, it's also becoming increasingly illegal as new laws aim to crack down the behavior.One of them landed Kevin Bollaert, a former revenge porn website owner, an 18-year prison sentence. According to the Pittsburg Post Gazette, the 28-year-old allowed over 10,000 nude and sexually explicit photos to be posted to his now defunct website, UGotPosted.com. He encouraged scorned exes to post such...
Read more...
Twitter boss Dick Costolo recently admitted that the microblogging site downright "sucks" at dealing with trolls and harassment, and give him credit, owning up to the problem is imperative if there's to be a solution. And he vowed there would be, promising to kick abusive clowns off the service "right and left." As he and the rest of the Twitter gang in charge prepare to do that, there are new rules in place that will make it easier to ban users. Specifically, users are no longer allowed to post what's known as revenge porn."You may not post intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject's consent," Twitter added to its list of rules under the "Private information"...
Read more...
By his own admission, there are several groups that have cause to hate on Curt Schilling, the former Red Sox picture who played on an injured and bloody ankle to beat the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the 2004 American League Champion Series. And he's fine with that. The outspoken Republican is used to a high level of vitriol, but when it's directed at his daughter on social media, that's another story. It all started with a single tweet. Schilling's daughter had just been accepted to college to play softball, and as any technology savvy father would do, he posted a congratulatory message on Twitter. It read, "Congrats to Gabby Schilling who will pitch for the Salve Regina Seahawks next year!!"...
Read more...
In recent years, parents of teenagers have had to add digital safety to the long list of potential dangers keeping them awake at night. From stolen identities to cyberbullying, the online world can be a very dangerous one. To help equip parents and their kids to better navigate that world safely, the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), in collaboration with Facebook, launched a consumer education program “to provide teens and their parents with tools and tips to manage their privacy and visibility both on Facebook and more broadly on the Internet”. Leading the campaign is Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, who announced the program by saying, “Teenagers...
Read more...
The Internet is a wondrous thing, but it's also made teasing and bullying, formerly restricted to schoolyards, something you can do online for all the world to see. A Long Island teenager is suing her tormentors, their parents, and Facebook over a Facebook group "calculated to hold the plaintiff up to public hatred, ridicule and disgrace." Denise Finkel, 18 and now a student at the University of Albany, filed suit in Manhattan for $3 million. Finkel alleges that four former Oceanside High School classmates (Michael Dauber, Jeffrey Schwartz, Leah Herz and Melinda Danowitz) created the password-protected Facebook group "90 Cents Short Of A Dollar" to bully her. In her complaint, Finkel claims that...
Read more...
Following the 2006 suicide of Megan Meier over a MySpace hoax, Missouri revised the the state's already existing harassment law to include telephone and electronic communication, effectively outlawing cyberbullying. And now they are starting to prosecute violators of that law. The law has only been in effect for three months, and according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, seven individuals have been charged in cyberbullying cases.' Nicole Williams, 21, is charged with misdemeanor harassment, accused of sending harassing text messages to a 16-year-old girl and letting friends use her cell phone to leave threatening voice messages, including threats of rape. The heart of the disagreement? Jealousy...
Read more...
The latest events in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide case took place Monday, when Missouri governor Matt Blunt signed into law a bill which revised the the state's already existing harassment law to include telephone and electronic communication.Those under 21 would face only a misdemeanor, but for adults, this is a felony, with a sentence of up to four years in prison.The Megan Meier case caught the attention of the nation when it brok. A teenage girl committed suicide after a MySpace romance went bad. The romance itself and the boy involved were in fact fictional, perpetrated as a vindictive prank by the mother of a former friend who lived down the street.The suicide occurred in October of...
Read more...
