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The existing harms of social scripts we ran while in smaller, geographically-constrained groups are being amplified due to network effect. Tiny unchecked errors, scaled, become large harms as people find ways to exploit them, in life just as in software. - Meredith

Weaponized Social is a series of events, discussion, action, and surrounding community to examine the network effects of human interaction, to encourage the healthy and to deweaponize the powerful tools at our fingertips. We welcome you to join us at an event, on our mailing list, or to hold space as well.

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Events

Past

Upcoming

Tentative

2015 August Berlin

Patterns

Patterns are meant to be used both in building a topological structure that can be used to identify surface area in a person's online, written, and verbal communications (focused on public exchanges); as well as to determine possible responses and mitigations. We are seeking (and in lieu of finding one --building) an authoritative lisk of risk factors.

Matt says: "Can we build an analog to a Common vulnerability database for our public persona? Can we analyze our communications and identify those issues and mitigate the risk from them? Can this be automated in a way that reduces risk without increasingly complexity in this area?"

"Being able to reduce exposure to these sort of attacks, and strengthen the ability for a message to maintain a coherent and uncorrupted signal would be an ideal end goal. The secondary and yet still required goal is to ensure that any such approach is not complex for the person performing the act of communication. Unbalancing the capacity for discourse is a risk all its own."

Prevention

Community Guidelines

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

For Attacking

For Responding

Full Discussion

Face Off started at 2015 April Nairobi

Opting Out / Third Path

Opting Out of War : Goes over case studies of groups in conflict zones who decide not to join either side.

Education

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.

Nonviolent Communication / Self Efficacy

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

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

Defense

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.

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)

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.

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

Blocking

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

Multipurpose

Activiating Bystanders

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

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)

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/]

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 offence works similarly as a tactic."

Troll-Busters

Humor

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 analysing 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.

Societal Critique

Women, Action, and the Media : WAM! is a people-powered independent nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media.

WAM!s report on Twitter harassment and response

Shaming

Shaming on Twitter

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?

Publicly posting creepy messages

She took screen shots of the offending messages, superimposed them with remarks like “Tinder is not the solution to your marital problems” and uploaded them to her profile as a warning to future matches.

ByeFelipe on Instagram

Calling out dudes who turn hostile when rejected or ignored.

Doxxing

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

Automating Response

Trolling the Trolls : started at 2015 April Nairobi

Needs sorting

Helplines (e.g., "B2C" ones like Crash Override Network, the new Revenge Porn Hotline in the US and UK, and "B2B")
Online support (by a group for individuals - real-time, on-platform, e.g., LPJ, TrollBusters)
P2P support (in a specific service, e.g., Heartmobs, that "pull" as opposed to the out-in-the-wild, or "push" support of an LPJ)
This is Phil Fish

. http://netsmartz.org addressing self protection and civil behavior > Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC.org) legal work in hate crimes and an educational program called "Teaching Tolerance"