Gaming the Dynamics of Online Harassment

Gaming the Dynamics of Online Harassment
Author: Kevin Veale
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2020-11-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030604101

This book argues that online harassment communities function as Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) where the collective goal is to ruin peoples’ lives. Framing these communities like ARGs highlights ways to limit their impact in the future, partly through offering people better ways to control their own safety online. The comparison also underlines the complicity of social networks in online harassment, since the communities use their designs as tools. Social networks know this, and need to work on minimizing the problem, or acknowledge that they are profiting through promoting abuse.

Online Harassment

Online Harassment
Author: Jennifer Golbeck
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2018-07-20
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3319785834

Online Harassment is one of the most serious problems in social media. To address it requires understanding the forms harassment takes, how it impacts the targets, who harasses, and how technology that stands between users and social media can stop harassers and protect users. The field of Human-Computer Interaction provides a unique set of tools to address this challenge. This book brings together experts in theory, socio-technical systems, network analysis, text analysis, and machine learning to present a broad set of analyses and applications that improve our understanding of the harassment problem and how to address it. This book tackles the problem of harassment by addressing it in three major domains. First, chapters explore how harassment manifests, including extensive analysis of the Gamer Gate incident, stylistic features of different types of harassment, how gender differences affect misogynistic harassment. Then, we look at the results of harassment, including how it drives people offline and the impacts it has on targets. Finally, we address techniques for mitigating harassment, both through automated detection and filtering and interface options that users control. Together, many branches of HCI come together to provide a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of online harassment and to advance the field toward effective human-oriented solutions.

Crash Override

Crash Override
Author: Zoe Quinn
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1610398092

You've heard the stories about the dark side of the internet--hackers, #gamergate, anonymous mobs attacking an unlucky victim, and revenge porn--but they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you. Zoe Quinn used to feel the same way. She is a video game developer whose ex-boyfriend published a crazed blog post cobbled together from private information, half-truths, and outright fictions, along with a rallying cry to the online hordes to go after her. They answered in the form of a so-called movement known as #gamergate--they hacked her accounts; stole nude photos of her; harassed her family, friends, and colleagues; and threatened to rape and murder her. But instead of shrinking into silence as the online mobs wanted her to, she raised her voice and spoke out against this vicious online culture and for making the internet a safer place for everyone. In the years since #gamergate, Quinn has helped thousands of people with her advocacy and online-abuse crisis resource Crash Override Network. From locking down victims' personal accounts to working with tech companies and lawmakers to inform policy, she has firsthand knowledge about every angle of online abuse, what powerful institutions are (and aren't) doing about it, and how we can protect our digital spaces and selves. Crash Override offers an up-close look inside the controversy, threats, and social and cultural battles that started in the far corners of the internet and have since permeated our online lives. Through her story--as target and as activist--Quinn provides a human look at the ways the internet impacts our lives and culture, along with practical advice for keeping yourself and others safe online.

Combatting Discrimination Against Women in the Gamer Community

Combatting Discrimination Against Women in the Gamer Community
Author: Marty Gitlin
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2016-07-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1508171130

Discrimination in the gamer community is rampant, as evidenced by the recent GamerGate controversy. Though females make up 45 percent of all gamers, nearly 90 percent of all game designers are male. This has resulted in troubling portrayals of women in the games, which can leave lasting impressions on young people playing them. Even more serious is the abuse women face in gamer communities and as professionals in the industry. This timely resource will help teens make sense of the issues facing them when they participate in video game culture.

Haters

Haters
Author: Bailey Poland
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1612347665

The many faces of cybersexism: why misogyny flourishes online -- Types of cybersexism: what online harassment really looks like -- Don't feed the trolls: why advice about cybersexism fails -- The effects of cybersexism: professional, psychological, and personal -- Misogynist movements: men's rights activists and gamergate -- Dealing with cybersexism: current solutions -- Fighting back: remixing cyberfeminism and strategizing to reduce cybersexism -- Conclusion: a call to action

Gaming Sexism

Gaming Sexism
Author: Amanda C. Cote
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2020-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479802204

Interviews with female gamers about structural sexism across the gaming landscape When the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, it ushered forward a new era of casual gaming in which video games appealed to not just the stereotypical hardcore male gamer, but also to a much broader, more diverse audience. However, the GamerGate controversy six years later, and other similar public incidents since, laid bare the internalized misogyny and gender stereotypes in the gaming community. Today, even as women make up nearly half of all gamers, sexist assumptions about the what and how of women’s gaming are more actively enforced. In Gaming Sexism, Amanda C. Cote explores the video game industry and its players to explain this contradiction, how it affects female gamers, and what it means in terms of power and gender equality. Across in-depth interviews with women-identified gamers, Cote delves into the conflict between diversification and resistance to understand their impact on gaming, both casual and “core” alike. From video game magazines to male reactions to female opponents, she explores the shifting expectations about who gamers are, perceived changes in gaming spaces, and the experiences of female gamers amidst this gendered turmoil. While Cote reveals extensive, persistent problems in gaming spaces, she also emphasizes the power of this motivated, marginalized audience, and draws on their experiences to explore how structural inequalities in gaming spaces can be overcome. Gaming Sexism is a well-timed investigation of equality, power, and control over the future of technology.

Forensic Perspectives on Cybercrime

Forensic Perspectives on Cybercrime
Author: John McAlaney
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2024-03-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1003850626

Forensic Perspectives on Cybercrime is the first book to combine the disciplines of cyberpsychology and forensic psychology, helping to define this emergent area. It explores the psychological factors that influence the behaviour of all those involved in cybersecurity, drawing upon the research literatures in relevant areas including forensic, social, and cyberpsychology. Written by leading figures in the field, the book provides an introduction to the cybercrime ecosystem, before discussing the psychological manipulation of targets through social engineering techniques and highlighting the unique threats that this type of attack presents. The reasons why people become involved in hacking are explored, and the authors review research literature on risk factors of being a victim of cybercrime, along with the concept of resilience. Behaviour change and prevention strategies are also evaluated, as well as the role of emergent technologies such as artificial intelligence and what this may mean for the role of humans in cybersecurity. Case studies and real-world examples are woven throughout to illustrate key issues, opportunities, and challenges. This unique text is a must-read for students undertaking any degree that relates to behaviour and cybersecurity, including psychology, computing, law, and business management. It is also highly relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who work in cybersecurity and/or have an interest in empowering people to be safe online.

Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic

Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic
Author: Emily K. Johnson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2022-08-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000640299

Educational technology adoption is more widespread than ever in the wake of COVID-19, as corporations have commodified student engagement in makeshift packages marketed as gamification. This book seeks to create a space for playful learning in higher education, asserting the need for a pedagogy of care and engagement as well as collaboration with students to help us reimagine education outside of prescriptive educational technology. Virtual learning has turned the course management system into the classroom, and business platforms for streaming video have become awkward substitutions for lecture and discussion. Gaming, once heralded as a potential tool for rethinking our relationship with educational technology, is now inextricably linked in our collective understanding to challenges of misogyny, white supremacy, and the circulation of misinformation. The initial promise of games-based learning seems to linger only as gamification, a form of structuring that creates mechanisms and incentives but limits opportunity for play. As higher education teeters on the brink of unprecedented crisis, this book proclaims the urgent need to find a space for playful learning and to find new inspiration in the platforms and interventions of personal gaming, and in turn restructure the corporatized, surveilling classroom of a gamified world. Through an in-depth analysis of the challenges and opportunities presented by pandemic pedagogy, this book reveals the conditions that led to the widespread failure of adoption of games-based learning and offers a model of hope for a future driven by new tools and platforms for personal, experimental game-making as intellectual inquiry.

Cyber Mobs, Trolls, and Online Harassment

Cyber Mobs, Trolls, and Online Harassment
Author: Kate Mikoley
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2021-07-15
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1502661039

As young people continue to share more of their lives online, social media opens up increasing opportunities for international dialogue, but it also means they run the risk of encountering the problematic parts of a virtual community, such as cyber mobs, bullies, and trolls. This thoroughly researched volume takes a deep dive into these issues, examining the reasons they happen, common ways to identify them, and tips for protecting oneself from becoming a victim. Full-color photographs, quotes from experts, sidebars, and discussion questions help readers develop a comprehensive overview of online issues and take precautions in their digital life.

Woke Gaming

Woke Gaming
Author: Kishonna L. Gray
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2018-11-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0295744197

From #Gamergate to the 2016 election, to the daily experiences of marginalized perspectives, gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production, dissemination, and legitimization of dominant stereotypes within the industry itself, or in the dehumanizing representations often found within game spaces, many video games perpetuate injustice and mirror the inequities and violence that permeate society as a whole. Drawing from groundbreaking research on counter and oppositional gaming and from popular games such as World of Warcraft and Tomb Raider, Woke Gaming examines resistance to problematic spaces of violence, discrimination, and microaggressions in gaming culture. The contributors of these essays seek to identify strategies to detox gaming culture and orient players and gamers toward progressive ends. From Anna Anthropy�s Keep Me Occupied to Momo Pixel�s Hair, Nah, video games can reveal the power and potential for marginalized communities to resist, and otherwise challenge dehumanizing representations inside and outside of game spaces. In a moment of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and efforts to transform current political realities, Woke Gaming illustrates the power and potential of video games to foster change and become a catalyst for social justice.