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Researchers propose a new approach for dismantling online hate networks
How do you get rid of hate speech on social platforms? Until now, companies have generally tried two approaches. One is to ban individual users who are caught posting abuse; the other is to ban the large pages and groups where people who practice hate speech organize and promote their noxious views.
But what if this approach is counterproductive? That's the argument in an intriguing new paper out today in Nature from Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at George Washington University, and researchers at GW and the University of Miami. The paper, "Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology," explores how hate groups organize on Facebook and Russian social network VKontakte — and how they resurrect themselves after platforms ban them.
As Noemi Derzsy writes in her summary in Nature:
Johnson et al. show that online hate groups are organized in highly resilient clusters. The users in these clusters are not geographically localized, but are globally interconnected by 'highways' that facilitate the spread of online hate across different countries, continents and languages. When these clusters are attacked — for example, when hate groups are removed by social-media platform administrators (Fig. 1) — the clusters rapidly rewire and repair themselves, and strong bonds are made between clusters, formed by users shared between them, analogous to covalent chemical bonds. In some cases, two or more small clusters can even merge to form a large cluster, in a process the authors liken to the fusion of two atomic nuclei. Using their mathematical model, the authors demonstrated that banning hate content on a single platform aggravates online hate ecosystems and promotes the creation of clusters that are not detectable by platform policing (which the authors call 'dark pools'), where hate content can thrive unchecked.
[...] The researchers advocate a four-step approach to reduce the influence of hate networks.
- Identify smaller, more isolated clusters of hate speech and ban those users instead.
- Instead of wiping out entire small clusters, ban small samples from each cluster at random. This would theoretically weaken the cluster over time without inflaming the entire hive.
- Recruit users opposed to hate speech to engage with members of the larger hate clusters directly. (The authors explain: "In our data, some white supremacists call for a unified Europe under a Hitler-like regime, and others oppose a united Europe. Similar in-fighting exists between hate-clusters of the KKK movement. Adding a third population in a pre-engineered format then allows the hate-cluster extinction time to be manipulated globally.)
- Identify hate groups with competing views and pit them against one another, in an effort to sow doubt in the minds of participants.
Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology[$], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1494-7)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @03:01PM (23 children)
The term is certainly overused. In modern Internet, where most things belong to corporations which have a sole objective to increase profit, maybe the term "hate speech" should be even considered harmful in a professional debate. Why?
Because currently even a logical explanation which exposes problems with a product lands to "hate speech" bucket. The "hate speech" is the new "terrorism" and "pedophilia" excuse to ban unwanted information. There is no way to revert the situation, as we already gave publishing possibilities to the government of corporations.
Meanwhile without any problem you can produce as much discrimination and even illegal content as possible if only this increases profits. Of course there is a problem if the content discriminates groups which, when faced with negativity, will not buy the product line only for them, but if the ostracism works for profit, then it's normal and propagated all over media.
This way, the modern "hate speech" examples are more like a negative review of falsely advertised product than explicitly calling to discriminate ugly people.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @03:26PM
Hate speech is nothing more than George Orwell's "wrongthink."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @03:40PM (14 children)
Saying "hate speech" is hate speech. That recursion is what differs hate speech from terrorism or pedophilia.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday August 27 2019, @05:53PM (13 children)
Misgendering someone (eg, using the wrong he/she pronoun) is an ACT OF VIOLENCE. Or so I am told. And if I fail to recognize that there are 87 (or 89?) genders, then I am the one who is confused and deeply troubled. When you meet a new person, your first question should be what pronouns they prefer. Apparently there are quite a few.
I was thinking of writing a journal entry about this, but it would probably be hate speech, as this present message probably is.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 27 2019, @06:53PM (11 children)
My experience with people who are actually affected by this: Misgendering someone the first time is usually treated as an honest mistake. Continuing to misgender someone after you've been told multiple times what the proper pronouns are is extremely rude at best, and can be seen as a threat of violence depending on other factors because transgender people are murdered at a rate far higher than the general population. The simple way to understand it is that you, DannyB, probably consider yourself a male-type person, and would react badly if someone not only called you "She" but persisted in calling you "She" after you told them you were a guy, and transgender people who consider themselves guys would react exactly the same way if you did the same thing to them.
Also, the people in question have largely settled on 3 possible sets of pronouns: He/Him/His for male-identified folks, She/Her/Hers for female-identified folks, They/Them/Theirs for people who identify as neither male nor female.
The claims you are making sound a lot more like repetition of a right-wing person deliberately exaggerating how this actually works than any direct experience of contact with trans or non-binary people.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 27 2019, @07:17PM (4 children)
Maybe I should have said so, but my view is that I don't intentionally want to offend someone. It does seem reasonable that an unintentional misgendering should not be considered an offense. I also understand that there are people who would LIKE to cause offense.
I don't think I would have a problem using a he / she pronoun as a person would prefer to be addressed. But there is only so far down that road I am willing to go. I find they, them, theirs a bit more problematic. It would suggest that "it" is a suitable pronoun, but that can easily be taken, and can be intended as an offense. There will also be difficulties because I don't think there are 87 genders. (Or 89?) At some point I start to feel like I'm talking to a flat earther. Identifying as, or not identifying as a gender is different than going down roads that are not supported by basic biology.
Even with disagreements, I would prefer to show respect to people. But that has limits.
I'll openly admit that I initially would have trouble respecting someone who had a degree in "social justice". At least not without talking to them and then finding some substance there.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:41PM (2 children)
Unintentionally misgendering someone is an act of violence akin to accidentally stepping on someone's toes once on the bus.
Repeatedly, intentionally misgendering someone is like stepping on their feet, over and over, not even waiting for the bus to lurch for an excuse.
You all think this is exclusive to trans folks, but I was the scapegoat at school. Cis male, here. And I was called by a girl's name in the playground, the boys would not let me play unless girls were already playing, and they used female verb forms (non-anglophone) for me when teachers weren't paying attention. I can assure you, those were acts of violence in the same way as when they threw rocks at me. I was as big and strong as them, but there were more of them, and I had no way to convince them to not scapegoat me. So it's really, really easy for me to understand how a trans woman being called 'he' is a veiled threat saying "no, I'm not gonna treat you how you want, I'm going to step all over you and if I start punching, well, that's the way things ought to be."
PS - I did survive but I thought a LOT about suicide back in those times. We're talking a cis, smart enough, white male, aged 8-14 roughly. That was the worst part of my life, and I've had other bad times.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:43AM
The IFF unit on Apache Attack Copters is indeed defective. But as you experienced, they do not care, because they just want to unload that danmaku bukkake and let goddess sort them out. Happens to cisgender women with short hair [freep.com] as well.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 28 2019, @05:42PM
I do not think it is exclusive to trans folks. I suspect that the L and G people still get some harassment to this very day.
As I said, I wouldn't have a problem calling a trans woman "she". Using he or she as preferred. Maybe I could go for they, them, etc. But there is only so far I'm willing to go from fairly conventional norms of pronouns.
I'm sorry to hear of your bad experiences. Bullies and bigots clearly still do exist.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:12AM
With 1010⁸⁴⁹ genders and counting I'm getting the sense that you do not want to be educated. If you do, you'll need first to grok The Second Sex [wikipedia.org], and once accomplished you will be able to understand Whipping Girl [wikipedia.org], which will be the substance you're having such trouble finding.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled pointless gender whinging. ("Waaaah! Why do we allow women I don't find attractive to exist! How dare anybody complain about the gender I assign them! Waaaaah!")
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @07:49PM (4 children)
It is no more of a threat than refusing to call someone by any other preferred title. Is it a hate crime if I call a PhD mister instead of doctor? Many who intentionally misgender do so to indicate that they do not accept the ideology that any person can authoritatively proclaim their sex by dictate. The only threat is to the offended party's personal reality.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 27 2019, @08:02PM (3 children)
But . . . now days everyone has their own "truth".
There no longer is any objective truth. There are no absolutes.
Absolutely no absolutes!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday August 27 2019, @08:47PM (2 children)
It's a never ending attack
Everything's a lie and that's a fact.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:07PM (1 child)
Including this, j Phillip morris, including this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:38AM
The treachery of comments.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @08:30PM
Unless you are their boss, nobody has to humor your mental illness.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Wednesday August 28 2019, @05:18PM
The correct answer to "What is your preferred pronoun" is "Your Majesty."
It's idiotic from a standpoint of basic English grammar. When I'm speaking TO someone, I generally use "you", or perhaps their name. When I'm speaking to someone else, what pronoun I apply to absent unfortunates is none of their damn business.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday August 27 2019, @06:10PM (6 children)
It might not be defined where you are, but in Europe it is usually clearly defined. For example, the UK has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org]. Other European countries have their equivalent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)
Ah, yes, the glorious UK, where they have government porn filters and the government punishes people for having dogs do Nazi salutes. Their healthcare system is better than the one in the US for sure, but when it comes to free speech, they're just a wretched authoritarian garbage dump. Same for pretty much every European country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @06:30AM
For sure? How about those waiting lists:
"The number of patients waiting for an operation on the NHS has reached 4.3 million, the highest total for 10 years, official figures show."
"Hospitals managed to treat 88.1% of people on the referral to treatment (RTT) waiting list within 18 weeks, well below the 92% who are meant to have surgery within that time. The NHS has not met the 92% target since February 2016 amid fast-growing demand for care."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/13/nhs-operation-waiting-lists-reach-10-year-high-at-43m-patients [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @09:05AM (3 children)
I'm an OP, and in my country there are lots of similar things, however the law interpretation is variable so it's not a strict definition. Generally, sorry for the name, but an "arsehole of Europe" seems to be a good working name for the current political situation.
The country in which people get arrested for waving hands as it "propagates nazism" while government supports neonazis marches in independence day. Or in which for exposing govenrment-related affairs people got "lost", or are framed in drugs by national media, while sensitive information of officials who do not agree with current government is spread to troll farms. Explanation? "But the previous govt also had troll farms". Proof? None. And people swallow it.
The thing is that politics and law is also a business in which things are bought, sold and advertised, and if we do not understand it now, we will probably screw a whole democracy up.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:47PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @01:09PM (1 child)
Ukraine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @05:35PM
Better, Poland :D. If someone wants to take a course in blatant propaganda lies and operating with them should analyze our "news" media! And a lot of citizens are "made" with it enough that the same "screwing logic up" as in propaganda works in any discussion.