Many associate online harassment with more extreme cases, for example: cyberbullying and teenage suicide, or cyberstalking leading to physical sexual harassment. Notwithstanding the seriousness of these offences, antisocial behaviours associated with other forms of online harassment are more pervasive than most people realise.

In this section, we will review research on the state of online harassment and consider how leading social media sites attempt to manage the challenge.

Annotation - Research on online harassment

Read the following research report on online harassment. (Note that the report comprises eight pages, so you need to click through to the next page indicators at the bottom of each page of the report.)

Duggan, M. (2014, October 22). Online Harassment. Pew Research Center Retrieved July 7, 2017. Pew Research Center.

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The response from social media

Suggested practices

• Facebook community standards
• Twitter best practices for online abuse

Commentary

• Twitter tries new measures in crackdown on harassment, published by CNN tech.
• Using Digital Fingerprints And Deep Learning To Fight Online Harassment, published by Forbes
• At Facebook we get things wrong – but we take our safety role seriously, published by the Guardian.

References

1. ↑ Duggan, M. (2014, October 22). Online Harassment. Pew Research Center Retrieved July 7, 2017. Pew Research Center.