Headline Dec.22/ ''' TROLLS -*WEB*- TRUISM '''

''' TROLLS -*WEB*- TRUISM '''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY  -has the honour to say NO to any and every form of hate, and hate politics. And !WOW! to that.

And be aware and concerned, because The World Students Society is watching you, and over you. !WOW! believes in great policies and even greater in persuasions.

The world outside is like a Ragging Bull. Economic, political and social conditions are just so dynamic, and fluctuating violently. So, it is very, very difficult especially to formulate long term policies.

Here, allow me to begin with a snippet from real life, as I go about seeking even more suspicious sectors.

''I was ordered down from the slab where I slept. I was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. They pushed me down to the floor by my head and shoulders.

One of them had a knife at my Adam's apple. I tried to leave my body, pretend that I was living it.

I wanted to die. I've regretted at times since then that I didn't jerk my head away and let my throat be cut.''

THAT is the remarkable disturbing story of Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, a former dot-com entrepreneur and  Goldman Sachs banker. 

There are -and always have been, and probably always will be -trolls, scoundrels and reprobates on the Internet. It is a problems that has vexed multi-billion dollar corporations and the smartest computer programmers in the world.  

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all  declared war on all criminal activities, abuse and harassment, spent years training sophisticated algorithms and hired vast armies of moderators to root out hateful content.

And Yet, and ever the troll persists and even at times, begins growing. But what if a better way of combating online toxicity were right under our noses?    

A new study by researchers at  Emory University,  Georgia Institute of Technology and  the  University  of  Michigan  suggests that the most effective way  anti-hate  tactic maybe what amounts to a Nuclear option:

.- Identifying and shutting down the spaces where hateful speech occurs, rather than-

-. Targeting bad actors individually or in groups. 

The researchers  analyzed  100 million posts originating on two forums on Reddit, the hugely popular online message board.

The forums  r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown, were among several that Reddit administrators banned in 2015 as part of a sitewide crackdown on poisonous behavior.

[In case the names weren't a tipoff,  fatpeoplehate was devoted to photos that mocked overweight people, and CoonTown was filled with pure racist bile].

Researchers generated a list of hateful terms used on the two forums, and tracked the use of those terms across Reddit. 

They also compared the activity of users who  posted  hateful terms before the bans with those users activity after, to determine whether they had infiltrated other Reddit forums. 

The goal was to figure out what happened when these toxic  communities were shut down. Did the amount of  hateful language on Reddit decrease?

Did users of hateful forums migrate to other parts of the site? Did any of them change their behavior as a result of the bans?

The study found that, to a large extent the bans worked.

Some users who had posted offensive material on the forums that were shutdown stopped using Reddit entirely.

Of those who continued to use the site, many migrated to other forums, but they did not bring significant amount of toxic speech with them and-

The forums they moved to did not become more hateful as a result of their presence.

Over all, the users who stayed on Reddit  after the bans took effect decreased their use of hate speech by more than 80 percent.   

''By shutting down these echo chambers of hate, Reddit causes the people participating to either  leave the site or dramatically change their linguistic behavior,'' the researchers wrote.

The honor and serving of the latest Operational Research on Life and Living continues. And the World Students Society thanks researcher and author Kevin Rose.

With respectful dedication to all the Leaders,Social Media Giants, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Shunning Web Trolls '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless