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
Projects
| Project name
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Origin
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Description
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Looking for
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| Checklist for making safe space
|
2015 February New York City >> 2015 April Nairobi |
details steps to consider when creating a safe space, how to act or be in safe space, and questions to ask during breakdowns. |
review, detail, quality assurance
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| Guide for Supporting Activism
|
2015 February New York City |
reviews the needs of activists, how to be a good ally by providing support of various sorts, networks of trust, self-care, and triage. |
detail, expansion
|
| Anti-Harassment Policies and Codes of Conduct
|
Geek Feminism |
templates and reviews of codes of conduct for communities and events |
contribution and edits
|
| How to Critique Me
|
2015 February New York City |
lays out options for paths for others to express discomfort or concern with your actions or words in a way you are able to hear, and hopefully improve. |
|
Articles and Resources
| (linked) Title
|
Quote, abstract, or summary
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| 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.
|
| 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.
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| Zero Trollerance
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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.
|
| Netsmartz
|
addressing self protection and civil behavior
|
Response
Projects
| Project name
|
Origin
|
Description
|
Looking for
|
| Self-Awareness Checklist
|
2015 February New York City |
is for those of us who need a reminder to breathe and take a step back when things are escalating. |
quality assurance
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| Countering Online Harassment Support Guide
|
|
COHSG is everything we collectively know about how to protect yourself from online attacks, in one handy guide. |
Testers (practical implementation)
|
| Trolling the Trolls
|
2015 April Nairobi |
automation of language detection, processing, and response to trolling comments. |
this project is at ideation stage, could use lots of work
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| Face Off
|
2015 April Nairobi |
proposes to create space for more in-depth conversation, otherwise impossible in short-form space. |
this project is at ideation stage, could use lots of work
|
Articles and Resources
| (linked) Title
|
Description
|
| 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
|
| 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.
Additional resource: The Paranoid Style in American Politics
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| ByeFelipe on Instagram
|
Calling out (surprisingly consistently) men who turn hostile when rejected or ignored.
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| Helplines
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(e.g., "B2C" ones like Crash Override Network, the new Revenge Porn Hotline in the US and UK, and "B2B")
|
Recovery
This section blank because we haven't found anything here. That's concerning.
Projects
| Project name
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Origin
|
Description
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Looking for
|
|
|
Cell 2 |
Cell 3 |
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| Row header A
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Cell B |
Cell C |
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Articles and Resources
| (linked) Title
|
Description
|
| Row header 1
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Cell 2
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| Row header 1
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Cell B
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Mitigation
Projects
| Project name
|
Origin
|
Description
|
Looking for
|
| TQ's Pro-Social Platform
|
2015 May San Francisco |
a way to build healthy interaction into the structure of a platform, and associated Parameters of Interaction as related to Sands and Ethan's uncomfortable networks. |
project is spec'd out, looking for contributors
|
| Visualizing solidarity
|
2015 May San Francisco |
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. |
this project is at ideation stage, could use lots of work
|
| Quiz to comment
|
2015 May San Francisco |
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. |
project is spec'd out, looking for contributors
|
| IntrospectionBot
|
2015 May San Francisco |
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. |
project is spec'd out, looking for contributors
|
| Aggregated comments
|
2015 May San Francisco |
rather than dealing with every negative (or positive!) comment which occurs, instead aggregate with "there are 47 other comments similar to this one" |
this project is at ideation stage, could use lots of work
|
| Wielding the Privilege Sword
|
2015 February New York City |
begins to spec out what to do as a person of privilege, in order to increase equality in the world. |
contributors, editors
|
| Communication Karma Score
|
2015 May San Francisco |
Matt suggested a way to get credit and signaling for being a good conversational partner, for using logical fallacies, etc |
this project is at ideation stage, could use lots of work
|
Articles and Resources
| (linked) Title
|
Description
|
| Opting Out of War
|
Goes over case studies of groups in conflict zones who decide not to join either side.
|
| 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?
|
| 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.
|
| Southern Poverty Law Center
|
legal work in hate crimes and an educational program called "Teaching Tolerance"
|
Being the extreme event
Articles and Resources
| (linked) Title
|
Description
|
| 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."
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| Shaming on Twitter
|
|
| Doxxing
|
used both for attacking prominent women in gaming, but also for things like #hoodsoff
|
| State-sactioned conversational propaganda
|
reminiscent of COINTELPRO
|
Other resources
- Online harassment lit review : focused on an academic perspective, covering understanding online harassment, trolls and trolling culture, flagging and reporting systems, volunteer moderators, automated detection and prediction of social behavior online, and speech and the law.
- This is Phil Fish : reviews the newness of the way we think of fame in online space, and how we respond to that.
- Tactical Tech's Gender and Feminist Initiatives : provides a comprehensive list of global and regional organizations, conversations, and initiatives focused on gender equality.