Examining abuse in online media

Managing precarity at the intersection of individual and collective life: A Membership Categorisation Analysis of Tensions and Conflict in Identities within an Online Biosocial Community

This paper explores how individuals living within high-stakes precarious categories navigate their identity within online spaces. Using Membership Categorisation Analysis, we investigate how categorical inferences are indexed by those individuals within online biosocial communities in everyday speech, as part of their construction of identities. More specifically, we analyse online interactions of women who have been identified as carrying a BRCA gene mutation in an online biosocial community. Our findings show how (1) the online spaces participate in constituting and sustaining a form of collective responsibility, where those who are within a high-stakes precarious identity category are expected to not only support and educate each other, but also monitor the compliance to category predicates, and (2) the tensions and conflict in making sense of, belonging to, resisting and sustaining a category membership often occur when there are clashes with the socio-moral order. Overall, this paper’s contributions are twofold, first, methodologically, the use of Membership Categorisation Analysis provides an insightful analytic approach to identities, online communities and their organisation. Second, the emerging tensions identified provide insight into the complex ways in which online communities offer a forum in managing precarious identity as individual and collective life intersect.

A cyber-risk framework for coordination of the prevention and preservation of behaviours

Cybersecurity controls are deployed to manage risks posed by malicious behaviours or systems. What is not often considered or articulated is how cybersecurity controls may impact legitimate users (often those whose use of a managed system needs to be protected, and preserved). This oversight characterises the ‘blunt’ nature of many cybersecurity controls. Here we present a framework produced from consideration of concerns across methods from cybercrime opportunity reduction and behaviour change, and existing risk management guidelines. We illustrate the framework and its principles with a range of examples and potential applications, including management of suspicious emails in organizations, and social media controls. The framework describes a capacity to improve the precision of cybersecurity controls by examining shared determinants of negative and positive behaviours in a system. This identifies opportunities for risk owners to better protect legitimate users while simultaneously acting to prevent malicious activity in a managed system. We describe capabilities for a novel approach to managing sociotechnical cyber risk which can be integrated alongside elements of typical risk management processes. This includes consideration of user activities as a system asset to protect, and a consideration of how to engage with other stakeholders in the identification of behaviours to preserve in a system.

Hate speech operationalization: a preliminary examination of hate speech indicators and their structure

Hate speech should be tackled and prosecuted based on how it is operationalized. However, the existing theoretical definitions of hate speech are not sufficiently fleshed out or easily operable. To overcome this inadequacy, and with the help of interdisciplinary experts, we propose an empirical definition of hate speech by providing a list of 10 hate speech indicators and the rationale behind them (the indicators refer to specific, observable, and measurable characteristics that offer a practical definition of hate speech). A preliminary exploratory examination of the structure of hate speech, with the focus on comments related to migrants (one of the most reported grounds of hate speech), revealed that two indicators in particular, denial of human rights and promoting violent behavior, occupy a central role in the network of indicators. Furthermore, we discuss the practical implications of the proposed hate speech indicators—especially (semi-)automatic detection using the latest natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) methods. Having a set of quantifiable indicators could benefit researchers, human right activists, educators, analysts, and regulators by providing them with a pragmatic approach to hate speech assessment and detection.

Caring for the Digital Generation: Understanding Electronic Aggression

We live in a technology-saturated world, evidenced by widespread, global use of the Internet and other forms of technology. Technology offers nearly limitless connectivity, information-sharing, and communication. Unfortunately, with these opportunities come risks, especially for children, and pediatric healthcare providers have a responsibility to be aware and informed of these risks and how to respond. This article provides a breakdown of the broad phenomenon of electronic aggression and offers practice implications for healthcare providers.