Brittan Heller

People wanted a focus on tech and combating online hate for years, but recently there’s been an increase in online hate. A good personal example of this is that they put out a press release announcing my position (the Anti-Defamation League’s first director of technology and society) and they made an announcement on Twitter as well. Within minutes of A.D.L. announcing this position, I opened up my Twitter feed and I found hateful symbols, I found echoes and swastikas and green frogs and people discussing my death. Within hours it became enhanced with statements of Holocaust denial, and within days it’s become ad hominem attacks based on Jewish stereotypes and misogyny. At this point it’s not surprising anymore that this occurs, but the speed of it, and the ferocity of it — that I think is shocking.

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  1. shinichi Post author

    What It’s Like to Fight Online Hate

    by Anna North

    http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/what-its-like-to-fight-online-hate/

    brittan-hellerBrittan Heller (see photo on the left) has a hard job. The Anti-Defamation League’s first director of technology and society, she’ll be working with tech companies to combat online harassment. The magnitude of her task became clear as soon as the A.D.L. announced her hire earlier this month, when she was deluged with anti-Semitic and sexist attacks. In a recent interview, Ms. Heller talked about what companies can do to stop online abuse and how her personal experiences have informed her, and offered advice for others dealing with harassment online.

    How did the Anti-Defamation League decide they needed to hire someone to work with tech companies against harassment?

    People wanted a focus on tech and combating online hate for years, but recently there’s been an increase in online hate. A good personal example of this is that they put out a press release announcing my position and they made an announcement on Twitter as well. Within minutes of A.D.L. announcing this position, I opened up my Twitter feed and I found hateful symbols, I found echoes and swastikas and green frogs and people discussing my death. Within hours it became enhanced with statements of Holocaust denial, and within days it’s become ad hominem attacks based on Jewish stereotypes and misogyny. At this point it’s not surprising anymore that this occurs, but the speed of it, and the ferocity of it — that I think is shocking.

    There were two events that people at A.D.L. really took notice of. There was Julia Ioffe’s piece about Melania Trump, that resulted in an online and offline campaign of hatred directed against her, and there was a coordinated campaign by white supremacist groups which resulted in death threats and really severe online abuse. Additionally, Jonathan Weisman of The New York Times tweeted a piece about the election and he got similar threats and online abuse. A.D.L. was very concerned that this kind of toxic environment would prompt self-censorship by journalists and really impact public discourse long after the election.

    How much is the Trump campaign to blame for the recent rise in online harassment?

    A.D.L. is a nonprofit organization, therefore we do not support any particular political party and we do not endorse or reject candidates for office. That said, A.D.L.’s work encompasses fighting bigotry of all kinds, and we encourage all candidates to call out hate. We’ve been on record engaging with members of the Trump campaign, trying to encourage them to emphasize that hate has no place in the public sphere.

    What are social networks already doing to fight harassment? What could they be doing better?

    A.D.L. is actually an inaugural member of the Twitter Trust and Safety Council which looks at issues of cyber hate. A.D.L. issued best practices that were supposed to counter online hate in 2014 and they were endorsed by Facebook and Google and Microsoft and Twitter.

    I’ve seen an increased emphasis on companies developing technology that helps to identify greater percentages of problematic content proactively, but I think the problem there is the mind-boggling volume. It’s not really realistic to assume that a filter or artificial intelligence would be able to review and eliminate hate in real time.

    I think there’s a few things the companies can do when they’re faced with this onslaught. First they need to communicate outrage. They have a corporate voice, and they can use this to say that cyber hate is really contrary to their vision of connecting all people. They can ensure that their terms of service and their community guidelines are clear, and more than this they can really improve enforcement and do it transparently. They can offer simplified and user-friendly mechanisms for flagging this content. Going beyond companies, people in Silicon Valley and beyond can promote counter-speech initiatives, grassroots responses or having public persons who are willing to speak out and be a voice for tolerance.

    You experienced online harassment in law school. How did your personal experience shape your thinking on this issue?

    It was instrumental in making me realize that this issue should be a priority. The reason I went to law school is that I wanted to focus on accountability for crimes that targeted people based on their race or their ethnicity or their gender. When I became a victim of cyber harassment, I really felt what it was like to be targeted online for my gender and my race and my ethnicity, and more than that I felt how terrifying it can feel to be threatened and how powerless this type of abuse can make you feel, especially when it’s coming from anonymous sources.

    What advice would you give to people who are going through online harassment?

    First, I’d say you’re not alone. Part of the power that the harassers have is they like to make people feel isolated, and sometimes part of the ongoing harm of these kind of crimes is that you feel like there’s no meaningful way for you to fight back, there’s no way for you to adequately speak out against what’s happening to you.

    I would not let the harassment take your voice away. You can talk to family, teachers and friends about what you’re experiencing and what you’ve seen. You can be a support for other people experiencing the same thing, and you can call out people who are trying to incite hate online. Also, educate yourself. Look at the terms of service or community guidelines for the type of platforms and social media that you’re using, and find out what kind of site that company wants to run. Most say that they don’t wish to host hateful content.

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