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posted by on Monday February 13 2017, @06:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the sounds-familiar dept.

A joint study carried out by researchers from Alphabet's Jigsaw and the Wikimedia Foundation has analyzed all user comments left on Wikipedia in 2015 in order to identify how and why users launch in personal attacks, one of the many faces of online abuse. To analyze the gigantic trove of sample comments, researchers developed a machine learning algorithm that was able to identify and distinguish different forms of online abuse and personal attacks. In order for the algorithm to work, it had to be trained beforehand. For this, researchers used human users to classify a small batch of 100,000 comments, with each of the test comments passing through the hands of ten different humans. The resulted data classification allowed the algorithm to accurately distinguish between direct personal attacks (statements like "You suck!"), third-party personal attacks (statements like "Bob sucks!"), and indirect personal attacks (statements like "Henry said Bob sucks").

After training the algorithm and unleashing it on all Wikipedia 2015 user comments, researchers were able to identify personal attacks, and then collect data on the users that launched them. Their findings reveal that around 43% of all comments left on Wikipedia came from anonymous users, but most of these were one-time commenters, and the number of comments they left was 20 times smaller than comments left by registered users. Despite this, researchers discovered that anonymous users were six times more active in posting personal attacks, but in the end, they contributed to less than half of personal attacks, meaning a large number of personal attacks came from users with a registered identity on the site.

Of all personal attacks, researchers noted that about a tenth came from extremely active users, who had an activity level of 20+, the highest on the site. A closer look at the data revealed that 34 "highly toxic users" from this 20+ category were responsible for almost 9% of all personal attacks on the site. "By comparing these figures, we see that almost 80% of attacks come from the over 9000 users who have made fewer than 5 attacking comments," the research team noted, something that's somewhat normal, as everybody tends to get mad at one point or another. "However, the 34 users with a toxicity level of more than 20 are responsible for almost 9% of attacks," researchers noted.

Source:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/wikipedia-comments-destroyed-by-a-few-highly-toxic-users/


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 13 2017, @07:19AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday February 13 2017, @07:19AM (#466499) Journal

    “Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience != Total Fuckwad”

    These results are consistent with a lot of recent research. Turns out the "greater internet fuckwad theory" was wrong.

    Actually, Mr. AC, the present research contradicts you. As the summary points out "anonymous users were six times more active in posting personal attacks". Thus, anonymous users may not be the most persistent attackers, but anonymity clearly emboldens people to act in less polite ways than the average registered user.

    Many people who are motivated to be fuckwads do it to gain credibility in their social group. Its a performance and their audience are fellow fuckwads. Anonymity makes it harder to claim social credit for their behavior, so being logged in actual encourages their fuckwaddery.

    I'm not sure I understand. Why can't both things be true? I.e., some trolls are motivated by taking credit and thus like to log in and show their "bad behavior" off. But anonymity ALSO facilitates bad behavior. I'm not sure why you want to claim these things have to be mutually exclusive??

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @09:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @09:37AM (#466520)

    Actually, Mr. AC, the present research contradicts you. As the summary points out "anonymous users were six times more active in posting personal attacks". Thus, anonymous users may not be the most persistent attackers, but anonymity clearly emboldens people to act in less polite ways than the average registered user.

    Out of how many anonymous posters?
    You've only got half the story.

    Here's more:
    https://qz.com/741933/internet-trolls-are-even-more-hostile-when-theyre-using-their-real-names-a-study-finds/ [qz.com]

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 13 2017, @09:50AM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday February 13 2017, @09:50AM (#466523) Journal

      "Out of how many anonymous posters?"

      RTFA. Approximately 100,000 unique IPs for anonymous users in this study.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @04:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @04:08PM (#466631)

        The relevant part of the analysis is that anonymous users tend only to do a handful of attacking comments.
        So on a per person basis, anonymity does not correlate with high levels of trolling.
        But identifiability does - named users account for the majority of people with 6 or more attacking comments.

        graphic breakdown of the above [arstechnica.net]

  • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday February 13 2017, @04:31PM

    by DutchUncle (5370) on Monday February 13 2017, @04:31PM (#466641)

    I don't think AC is saying they have to be mutually exclusive. I read it the other way - both can be both (both anonymous and identified can be both social and/or bad).

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 13 2017, @07:11PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday February 13 2017, @07:11PM (#466709) Journal

      Perhaps I was not generous enough to AC, but please note the title of your post, which is the title of this thread. On its face, it seems to be... well, claiming what it says.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday February 13 2017, @05:42PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday February 13 2017, @05:42PM (#466676)

    I think you're correct: both things are true, just for different groups of people. Some people, who value their social group more, want to claim credit for their bad behavior. Other people, who don't care about being part of a particular social group, just like to vent anonymously for their own personal gratification, and are smart enough to realize the value of anonymity in being able to act badly and not have it affect them.