Exploring Cyberbullying and Other Toxic Behavior in Team Competition Online Games

In this work we explore cyberbullying and other toxic behavior in team competition online games. Using a dataset of over 10 million player reports on 1.46 million toxic players along with corresponding crowdsourced decisions, we test several hypotheses drawn from theories explaining toxic behavior. Besides providing large-scale, empirical based understanding of toxic behavior, our work can be used as a basis for building systems to detect, prevent, and counter-act toxic behavior.Comment: CHI'1

Determinants of harassment in online multiplayer games

Objective. Online multiplayer games allow large numbers of participants to play simultaneously online. Unfortunately, this has also given rise to new forms of harassment and abuse. The current study used the criminological framework of Routine Activity Theory to identify possible circumstantial and individual risk factors that predict both general and sexual harassment victimization in this online context. Method. An online survey of online multiplayer gamers (N = 883) was conducted. Measures included harassment exposure, guardianship, and target suitability. These determinants were used to predict general and sexual harassment victimization in multiple regression analyses. Analyses controlled for social desirability responding. Results. Both sexual harassment victimization (R² = 63%) and general harassment victimization (R² = 57%) were successfully predicted using the determinants. The gender of the gamer is associated with the type of harassment received; women are more likely to encounter sexual harassment, while men are more likely to be harassed in the general sense. Gaming for fewer hours per week, with mostly or exclusively female avatars, and sharing personal information (e.g. gender) predicts sexual harassment victimization, whereas playing in Player-versus-Player game modes predicts general harassment victimization. Harassing other gamers and associating with harassers predicts both general and sexual harassment. Conclusions. Our models explained a sizable percentage of the variation in harassment, indicating for the first time that the Routine Activity Theory can be applied to understand online harassment in gaming. Specifically, it was found that different types of in-game exposure predict different types of victimization, that lacking personal self-guardianship predicts sexual harassment and that gender (or revealing gender) is associated with changes in harassment

Dark Desires? Using the Theory of Basic Desires to Better Understand Toxic Behavior in Multiplayer Online Games

Within the context of multiplayer online battle arena video games (MOBAs) toxic behavior (TB) remains a complex and yet unsolved socio-technological challenge. While significant work has been done recently, there is a lack of theory-guided approaches for curbing TB. In this work, we test the motivational theory of basic desires for explaining the occurrence of TB. For this, we used a survey approach and collected a sample consisting of players of the successful MOBAs League of Legends and Dota 2 (n = 308). Using a PCA, results indicate two underlying factors of the 16 basic desires (i.e., physiological and social factors). Consequently, both factors hold the potential to explain TB. In addition, the predisposition age showed a significant influence on TB in our sample. These findings highlight the 16 basic desires as a promising frame for understanding the antecedents of TB

Hate is not Binary: Studying Abusive Behavior of #GamerGate on Twitter

Over the past few years, online bullying and aggression have become increasingly prominent, and manifested in many different forms on social media. However, there is little work analyzing the characteristics of abusive users and what distinguishes them from typical social media users. In this paper, we start addressing this gap by analyzing tweets containing a great large amount of abusiveness. We focus on a Twitter dataset revolving around the Gamergate controversy, which led to many incidents of cyberbullying and cyberaggression on various gaming and social media platforms. We study the properties of the users tweeting about Gamergate, the content they post, and the differences in their behavior compared to typical Twitter users. We find that while their tweets are often seemingly about aggressive and hateful subjects, "Gamergaters" do not exhibit common expressions of online anger, and in fact primarily differ from typical users in that their tweets are less joyful. They are also more engaged than typical Twitter users, which is an indication as to how and why this controversy is still ongoing. Surprisingly, we find that Gamergaters are less likely to be suspended by Twitter, thus we analyze their properties to identify differences from typical users and what may have led to their suspension. We perform an unsupervised machine learning analysis to detect clusters of users who, though currently active, could be considered for suspension since they exhibit similar behaviors with suspended users. Finally, we confirm the usefulness of our analyzed features by emulating the Twitter suspension mechanism with a supervised learning method, achieving very good precision and recall.Comment: In 28th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (ACM HyperText 2017

Privacy as a Public Good

Privacy is commonly studied as a private good: my personal data is mine to protect and control, and yours is yours. This conception of privacy misses an important component of the policy problem. An individual who is careless with data exposes not only extensive information about herself, but about others as well. The negative externalities imposed on nonconsenting outsiders by such carelessness can be productively studied in terms of welfare economics. If all relevant individuals maximize private benefit, and expect all other relevant individuals to do the same, neoclassical economic theory predicts that society will achieve a suboptimal level of privacy. This prediction holds even if all individuals cherish privacy with the same intensity. As the theoretical literature would have it, the struggle for privacy is destined to become a tragedy. But according to the experimental public-goods literature, there is hope. Like in real life, people in experiments cooperate in groups at rates well above those predicted by neoclassical theory. Groups can be aided in their struggle to produce public goods by institutions, such as communication, framing, or sanction. With these institutions, communities can manage public goods without heavy-handed government intervention. Legal scholarship has not fully engaged this problem in these terms. In this Article, we explain why privacy has aspects of a public good, and we draw lessons from both the theoretical and the empirical literature on public goods to inform the policy discourse on privacy

Toxic Misogyny and the Limits of Counterspeech

Gender equality, across all the ways that we humans are engendered, is an unrealized ideal of many contemporary Americans. It is not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, unless one interprets “men” to include women, which the Framers did not. Although passed by Congress in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to gain the necessary thirty-eight state ratifications, and it has never become law. Thirty-five states initially ratified it between 1972 and 1977, then two more in 2017 and 2018. It remains one state short. These ratifications indicate significant social progress for women, but the progress is uneven, even within states that have supported the ERA. Offering a glimmer of hope, the Senate of Virginia voted to ratify the ERA in February 2019, but the measure was killed in committee by the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. Women remain constitutionally unequal. For anyone concerned with justice, the question is not whether something should be done about the misogynist onslaught girls and women encounter; the question is: What should be done, and who should do it? Supreme Court doctrine may favor counterspeech to tort remedies or criminalization, but to justify this we need a robust conception of what sorts of speech might have the power to counter oppressive speech, who can achieve it, and under what circumstances. In setting policy, we cannot assume a speech encounter between equally powerful adults, each fully free to speak their minds and each with the backing of deep and broad social norms. Where inequality reigns, the odds are not in favor of someone who tries to combat the bad speech of the powerful with the more speech of the vulnerable. This paper explores the mechanisms of counterspeech and the limits of the remedies counterspeech can provide. By understanding the very concept of misogyny and considering some mechanics of the ways language works, we can gain a better picture of the prospect of creating normative change through counterspeech

Game Time: Not Too Much, Nor Too Little

The amount of time young adults spend on online gaming has drawn attention from governments and academics. While these concerns posit a spatial separation between the game world and reality, they fail to understand the gaming activity in relation to individuals’ overall life. An alternative framing of gaming as leisure activities can yield greater insight. This research examines the temporal experience and the meaning of playing online games within a community of Chinese full-time college students. Observing their gaming routine, I try to answer: how do college students interpret the time they devote to gaming? In addition, how does the calculation of time for gaming differ from time in the game? Based on the research, I find that although the participants devote a significant amount of time on gaming, they are capable of prioritizing school obligations, making efforts to achieve a balance between work and leisure. Essentially, they regard gaming as a serious leisure and desire better performance through practicing. The findings suggest that the moral panic against online gaming, particularly in the Chinese society, is shaped by the interaction between the central regulation on internet use, the fear-delivering media representation, and the transformative work-leisure relation