The Wild West of Anonymous Social Media - YikYak

By David Simms, Senior Contributor

The Global Institute for Cyber Safety and Standards

The relatively new social media App known as YikYak has been mired with controversy nearly since it began. Known as the “Wild West of anonymous social media,” this App allows users to send and receive anonymous messages to others within a 10 mile radius – perfect for campuses such as universities which is where it now thrives. Despite architects of the medium providing “geo-fencing” for most middle and high schools from using the App, it remains wildly popular, particularly on university grounds. 

YikYak claims to use extensive filtering techniques to screen out inappropriate words and content, including offensive slurs, threats, and now even pictures of people, however despite this much hurtful damaging content continues to get through. Consider the recent case out of the United States at Eastern Michigan University where several female professors unknowingly were the brunt of a storm of vicious demeaning comments among freshmen students enrolled in their classes. According to the university, there is no recourse due to the complete anonymity of the perpetrators, a characteristic trademark of the App.  

Simply bannig the use of YikYak would seem a logical combatant to the problem. This has unfortunately proven to be rather difficult as the argument of free speech rears its ugly head. In fact, it shows no sign of slowing down but instead is experiencing explosive growth and is crossing into the borders of other countries including the UK. Based on negative reactions of many as a result of YikYak use, its reputation precedes itself and is finding keen resistance particularly from British educational institutions albeit this appears to be of no matter.  The new social media is proving to be unstoppable in its popularity with the younger generation and along with that come increased risks.

Ending A Climate of Apathy

By David Simms, Senior Contributor

The Global Institute for Cyber Safety and Standards

It is known that people holding high positions in organisations such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google are less likely to have firsthand knowledge of what it is like to be harassed online. This establishes a climate of apathy by these individuals when it comes to making progress in resolving the issue. When one experiences something firsthand it inevitably impacts their perspective driving how and how often they are inclined to think about it.

For instance, the legal director at Scribd, Jason Bentley, changed his views about online harassment after someone he had banned from the platform decided to target his personal life.  The harasser made claims on sites such as Scribd, Craigslist, and Ripoff Report, that Bentley was guilty of raping his own daughter. The obvious result was Bently’s name therefore becoming prominently associated with these claims on Google’s search engine. He took action and pursued the individuals responsible with legal action. He commented in an interview about the ordeal and committed that he will do everything in his power to stop these online abuses against others as well in going forward. However, obviously there are far more people not in positions of power and who cannot afford legal recourse, yet suffer the same. Unfortunately, they become part of the ever growing population that has no way of escaping from their aggressors. One sure way to see positive change occur is for those at the helm of the social media to be subjected to the same relentless obscene nature of what is occurring in their own platforms. Certainly I do not intend to convey I would wish it upon them, rather to make the point that I do believe the destructive consequences of internet abuse and harassment would come to an end quite quickly.   

Twitter CEO Says They Suck At Dealing With Trolls, But That's About To Change

By Carolyn Davies, Contributing Blogger

Finally the social media giant Twitter is taking action. Last month, their CEO, Dick Costolo took personal responsibility after the platform came under scrutiny for their role in the rampancy of cyber abusers leveraging their free and anonymous service as a tool to abuse and draw harm to targeted victims. Some of those victims committing suicide in response to the abuse and public humiliation received. In his own words, Mr. Costolo sent a memo to Twitter employees. He says: 

"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing.

We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them. Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital."

I am giving you the link for the full article. This is a big step for the company and can only lead to more and more improvement in online safety.

http://mashable.com/2015/02/04/twitter-ceo-trolls/

(Series Piece 10) Anna Kavanaugh - Syndicated Columnist - Weekly Column - Cyber Abuse: The Virtual Violent Crime

By David Simms, Senior Contributor

The Global Institute for Cyber Safety and Standards

Today we proudly publish for syndication this week's installment of our featured columnist, Anna Kavanaugh, and her brilliant column, Cyber Abuse: The Virtual Violent Crime. This is Series Piece 10 and an excellent read in her column series. Anna's is a distinctive and ardent voice of expertise and wisdom in defining and describing what she rightly deems a global pandemic of virtual confusion whereby a societal breakdown of empathy and compassion confuse and pose serious threat to legal boundaries and civilised conduct. In this piece she discusses the exploitation of search engines used by cyber-abusers in 'victim kill' campaigns to damage the reputations and lives of their victims. It is our honour to now present you with another perceptive and powerful installment of Anna's weekly column. Comments are open on the full article page for feedback and to encourage discussion.

Cyber Abuse: The Virtual Violent Crime. (Series Piece 10)

Written by Anna Kavanaugh, Syndicated Columnist

Published for syndication by: The Global Institute for Cyber Safety and Standards (GICSS)

If you are in the business of information, you had better get it right.

Search engines. We use them every day. Google, Bing, Dogpile, Yahoo, and all the others, give us immediate access to infinite amounts of organized data that we can use to learn something we did not know, keep up with world events, connect and communicate with others, or simply feed the insatiable and voyeuristic curiosities so many people somehow find time to indulge themselves in. The immense index that serves as the roadmap for our individual online experience in navigating the World Wide Web is now such a seamless part of daily life that most of us would feel lost or anxious without it. By way of gradual conditioning, the subconscious notion has been ingrained in us that tangible resources such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other general reference materials, have become less reliable and far more cumbersome sources of information. That is both a sad and incredibly frightening reality.

Click Here to Continue Reading Full Column

The Free Speech Cop Out

By David Simms, Senior Contributor

When it gets down to it, the providers of social media platforms are ultimately the gatekeepers of cyber harassment. Nearly all cyber harassment occurs through these mediums whether it be Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, and others. Technically, these providers have the power to bring internet offenses to a stop yet they do not. Granted, they are making some attempt at abating the problem but clearly not enough. All providers state in their policies that they take cyber harassment very seriously but are limited by what content can be removed from their sites. 

At the core of this argument is right to free speech. But in a vast majority of cases, free speech has nothing to do with the offenses being committed. The fact is, these providers have the ability to filter intentionally offensive and damaging material before it is published. They also have the ability to promptly remove any content from their sites. There seems to be an intentional obfuscation between free speech and outright abuse. Naturally if someone is the recipient of an online hate campaign, they would want the false and negative content to be taken down immediately. Because content can be seen by literally millions of people instantly, delaying any action to address removal or prevention, is just plain irresponsible. The obvious question becomes, ‘how would the owners and executives controlling these sites deal with abusive content posted about themselves or their families?’  The obvious answer would be, ‘very quickly and thoroughly’ and would likely never even be published in the first place.  Ask yourself if you have ever seen abusive cyber postings of anyone associated with a social media platform.  The fact is, those running these sites are in control of the content and would never allow false and harassing comments to remain.  Why the double standard?  Social media sites need to implement that same policy for all users that they see fit to implement for themselves.