Summary
The paper “Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities” focuses on antisocial behavior in online communities such as CNN, IGN, Breitbart, etc. by analyzing banned users from such online communities. These banned users negatively affect other users and the online communities by undesired behaviors such as trolling, flaming, bullying, and harassment. The paper describes these users’ behavior to worsen over time, and causing the online communities to become less tolerant of their behaviors. The paper explains how it is possible to characterize, identify, and also predict antisocial users and their behaviors.
Reflection
I found this paper to be interesting and relatable. I have seen and dealt with antisocial behavior in also every online community I’ve visited. This is especially true for online communities that are anonymous or don’t involve real world identity. I think this makes antisocial behavior easier for some users since they believe that their behavior cannot be tied back to their real identity. I think being able to predict and identify potential FBUs is a step in the right direction. This would allow for online communities to focus more on growing their content than having to worry about antisocial behavior. This would also allow for online communities to be safer since users wouldn’t have to deal with harsh posts or offline danger. Offline danger is a real problem since users can be targeted physically by users with antisocial behaviors. This could be anything from written threats to SWATing. I also am interested in the moderating systems since these systems are also subjected to antisocial behavior. There are many instances where these systems are abused such as abusive moderators, one-sided voting, and false reporting.
Questions
- In a system of using down-votes to moderate bad posts, how often is this system abused?
- Does banning users with antisocial behaviors actually help or worsen the situation?
- Is it possible for a user’s post to be legitimate, but also be perceived as antisocial behavior because their view is different?
- Does hiding a post have any impact over deleting a post?
- What do FBUs have to gain?
- Which type of moderating system is the most fair and efficient?
- Which type of moderating system is most prone to abuse?
