Disaster cycle

Rather than thinking of online attacks, actions, etc as having value based on if we agree or disagree with any given side, let's look at it as a disaster cycle. In the same way which this assumes issues of infrastructure, process, and forethought associated with the harms which turn a "natural event" into a "natural disaster," so too can we here explore the mechanisms. The disaster cycle consists of four components: preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Preparedness includes risk analysis (what could go wrong, to what, by what means) and associated steps based on available resources and capacity in order to brace one's self and community of an oncoming harm. Response is comprised of the actions to deal with the immediate issues associated with the extreme event as it happens, or soon after, and is subsequently easier based on steps taken during the preparedness stage. Recovery is focused on reestablishing or even bettering what life was like before the extreme event. Finally, mitigation is both throughout and outside this cycle, and is focused on the designand implementation of the systems themselves -- how can more people be helped faster in any part of the cycle? How can we prevent people from falling through gaps? This is the section of the cycle that focuses on the different between a "natural event" and a "natural disaster," and aims towards the prior. We've also added in being the extreme event, as this is an important aspect of these self-imposed futures.

Interested in knowing more?

Here's a short form overview of the reasoning behind each component in disaster response.

Preparedness

Checklist for making safe space : project started at [[2015 February New York City]] and continued at 2015 April Nairobi

Guide for Supporting Activism : project started at [[2015 February New York City]] Anti-Harassment Policies, such as those from the Ada Initiative

How to Critique Me : project started at 2015 February New York City

Obligation to Know : In heavy use by FLOSS communities, and now transferred into geek feminism, this details a need to have a rudimentary understanding of a topic before engaging with those better versed in it.

In addition to documenting and sharing information geek culture has a

complementary norm obliging others to educate themselves on rudimentary topics. Online feminists, especially geek feminists, are similarly beset by naive or disruptive questions and demonstrate and further their geekiness through the deployment of the obligation to know. However, in this community the obligation reflects the increased likelihood of disruptive, or ‘derailing’, questions and a more complex and gendered relationship with stature, as seen in the notions of impostor syndrome, the Unicorn Law, and mansplaining.

[https://medium.com/@colbay/inflammatory-articles-about-a-divisive-tech-culture-critic-were-written-and-broadcast-this-past-64edce46f0c1 Security Lockdown: A Lay Person's Guide to Baseline Privacy] : This episode led me to ruminate on how dehumanizing the Internet can be, how deeply socialized gender is, and how elusive privacy has become. This write-up also includes a fantastic list of online safety resources.

Zero Trollerance : Zero Trollerance is a self-help journey designed by guru Adler King in consultation with reformed trolls. Adler's team of Troll Coaches are constantly analyzing Twitter and enrolling new trolls in the program where they are led through an intensive process of self excavation and given practical tools to overcome their inner hurdles. For trolls, this is the first step towards a new life.

http://netsmartz.org addressing self protection and civil behavior

Response

Face Off started at 2015 April Nairobi

Self-Awareness Checklist : project started at [[2015 February New York City]]

[http://onlineabuseprevention.org The Online Abuse Prevention Initiative] : OAPI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing and mitigating online abuse through:

• the study and analysis of abuse patterns
• the creation of anti-harassment tools and resources
• collaboration with key tech companies seeking to better support their

communities

Countering Online Harassment Support Guide COHSG is everything we collectively know about how to protect yourself from online attacks, in one handy guide.

• Looking for: Testers (practical implementation)

[https://storify.com/adriarichards/if-trolls-have-doxx-d-you What to do if Trolls have doxx'd you] : if trolls have doxx'd you, let your friends and family on Facebook know there may be fake accounts impersonating you for information

Block Together A web app intended to help cope with harassment and abuse on Twitter.

HeartMob is a platform where you can safely report your harassment and request support from a community of kind people who want to help. *Looking for : Amplification of the project, Testers (practical implementation)

[https://medium.com/internet-monitor-2014-public-discourse/flower-speech-new-responses-to-hatred-online-d98bf67735b7 Counter Speech] : Calling out someone for saying something cruel or inciting. Pattern of action (but not intent) matches Sea-Lioning, though the intentions of the interjector are considered vastly different.

Panzagar began by creating a meme. A person (usually a cute young

woman, as drawn by the team’s animé-loving volunteer illustrators) holds a flower in her mouth. Taking a cue from this symbolic commitment not to use or tolerate speech that can “spread hate among people,” as Nay Phone Latt puts it, thousands of people ‘liked’ Panzagar’s Facebook page within days of its creation, and many have posted photographs of themselves holding flowers in their mouths.

[The Paranoid Style in American Politics

http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/]

Troll-Busters

ByeFelipe on Instagram

Calling out dudes who turn hostile when rejected or ignored.

Trolling the Trolls : started at 2015 April Nairobi

Helplines (e.g., "B2C" ones like [http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/# Crash Override Network], the new Revenge Porn Hotline in the US and UK, and "B2B")

Mitigation

[https://www.rienner.com/title/Opting_Out_of_War_Strategies_to_Prevent_Violent_Conflict Opting Out of War] : Goes over case studies of groups in conflict zones who decide not to join either side.

Facing History : Facing History and Ourselves provides ideas, methods, and tools that support the practical needs, and the spirits, of educators worldwide who share the goal of creating a better, more informed, and more thoughtful society.

Wielding the Privilege Sword : project started at [[2015 February New York City]]

Communication Karma Score : Matt suggested a way to get credit and signaling for being a good conversational partner, for using logical fallacies, etc

Visualizing solidarity : when outrage happens online, it's often because people are dog piling on an exemplar of a historical issue, rather than using the moment of attention to direct energy towards understanding and addressing the historical issue.

We discussed (and hopefully contributed to) TQ's [[Pro-Social Platform]], and associated Parameters of Interaction as related to Sands and Ethan's framework for social networks.

Quiz to comment : to ensure a commenter is both not a robot AND has the context of the entry, a captcha of sorts would be necessary to indicate having read the full entry before commenting, started at [[2015 May San Francisco]]

IntrospectionBot : just like a desktop reminder to occasionally stretch or go for a walk, this would occasionally prompt a moment of self-reflection. We hope this would de-escalate, started at [[2015 May San Francisco]]

Aggregated comments : rather than dealing with every negative (or positive!) comment which occurs, instead aggregate with "there are 47 other comments similar to this one", started at 2015 May San Francisco

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC.org) legal work in hate crimes and an educational program called "Teaching Tolerance"

Being the extreme event

[https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2014/10/thecomingswarm Distributed Denial of Service] : DDoS'ing is the use of many machines to constantly ping one server (or a set of servers), in order to bring down that site or network. Used both in activism and in general attacks.

Matt says: "Russia is not the first to use flame wars and public

shaming as a tool to silence critics. And in their attacks and others I see similarities to DDOS style attacks in the internet. Reflector attacks in networks make use of loud commonly accessible services such as dns to overload communications with noise. Tying issues into other issues through fallacy or other exploitative means as a way to force bipartisanship and offense works similarly as a tactic."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html Shaming on Twitter]

[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/should-businesses-that-quietly-oppose-gay-marriage-be-destroyed/389489/ Should Mom-and-Pops That Forgo Gay Weddings Be Destroyed?]

If their Yelp rating goes down by a star does the punishment fit the

"crime"? Is there a financial loss at which social pressure goes from appropriate to too much? How about putting them out of business? Digital mobs insulting them and their children? Email and phone threats from anonymous Internet users? If you think that any of those go too far have you spoken up against the people using those tactics?

Doxxing, used both for attacking prominent women in gaming, but also for things like #hoodsoff

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=0 State-sactioned conversational propaganda] -- reminiscent of COINTELPRO