For Whom the Troll Tolls by Kim Renfrom Liz Crocker 33yo grad student mother o Reddit moderator for the main science subreddit r science 9 8M subscribers o Only her 11 others have this job w no pay o Been a mod for over a yr a half o Describes Reddit to newcomers as community made up of lots of little forums subreds Algorithm that takes popular stuff and put it on landing page o Her job as a moderator is to keep r science free of harassment and filled w quality content and discus sons about designated topic of forum o Moderates 5 diff subreds science everythingscience anthropology askanthro and badsocialsicence AMA ask me anything o Large part of the r science community w notable researchers scientists alongside the mods o Crocker asked Dr Cheryl Knott about fires in Indonesia and orangutan o Thread full of flagged comments waiting for mods to check Red cmmt been flagged reviewed by a reg redditor OR someone deleted it Yellow indicated comment was in the clear Trolls posting inappropriate quests Dealing w Trolls o Has to move quick when dealing w NSFW stuff o automoderator mods can automatically filter out obvious trolls using specific keywords Spoilers image hosting sites removied Banned domains most are porn or baad pseudo science sites Not everything gets filtered Chat app SLACK to stay in touch o What her fellow mods use o Person on team creates lots of integrations btwn the 2 sites o Helpful feature Mozilla extension for flagging bad posts o 900 comment mods Don t have permission to make changes but serve as an army of surveryors who spot smaller offenses o in order to become a comment mod for science have to hold BS Joined Reddit 3 yrs ago o Asked to moderate bc active on page o Invited to join r science team when lead mod was there Nallen decided needed a social science o Having active mods w diff science backgrounds team is guaranteed all tyoes of discussions o She is team s experienced anthropologist Amt of time spent modding is more than she wants to admit o Checks in morning btwn breakfast and getting ready o Does more on the T o Always in background Nallen reddit should always come 2nd Certain topics redditors get excited about Every subred has its own rules for r science 1 Every submission must be a direct link to or a summary of peer reviewed research with appropriate citations 2 The post must be based on recent scientific research 3 Comments must be on topic and not a meme or joke 4 Comments that only rely on the commenter s non professional personal anecdotal evidence to confirm or refute a study will be removed If you want to be a mod must be passionate bc you wont get paid o According to reddit rules regs all subred mods must be unpaid and work on a volunteer basis o Cannot crowdsource funds to go to meetups conventions accepting compensation for efforts o Bc of this team is flexible w allowing new volutneers and existing ones to cycle in out Sometimes overwhelming o Esp when prof did AMA about preventing sexual assault on college campuses Got heavily brigaded by upset ppl Difficult to mod Brigading term for mass downvote harassment concentrated on post by single group fm outside subreddit website AMA focused on minimizing on campus sexual assault but derailed into men s rights o Contacting reddit admins They didn t detect anything Group of paid employees working for reddit Separate role fm volunteer mod Still work together to troubleshoot site issues or come up w solutions to syst probs Admin has no control over messy AMA issue Downsides to herd of mentality of reddit o Don t want reddit to be something you re embarrassed to admit you re in o Admins banished several distasteful subreds dedicated to fat shaming transphobia and creepshots of kids Learning curve w reddit o Fickle machine of inside jokes niche subreds and confusing shifting rules fm one page to another o Considerations to have when thinking about posting something Figure out audience What they ll be interested in How to frame it in a way they ll find funny How academic can I be how genera how short how long what kind of tone o Once have jokes figured out realize you can contribute more o Smaller subreds perfect bc they often foster a more friendly sense of community o Becoming a mod provide several detailed comments receive invite fm existing mod o o o Some have forms to fill Fighting Online Trolls With Bots by Saiph Savage Internet can turn into horror show if ppl using platforms mock insult abuse harass and even threaten ea other o since early 1900s called trolling o most recently called cyberbullying o users have been fighting back but now owners and managers joining in Most recent effort comes fm Twitch o Players do this to show off their prowess and make money o Game fans do it for entertainment or learn new tips tricks to improve their play o Large group of ppl engaging w ea other can yield interesting cooperation Ex ppl watching stream make comments to help player For Sebastian Forsen some try to overwhelm or hijack chat away fm subject of game itself o In an effort to help users fight trolling twitch has dev bots software progs that can run automatically on platform to monitor chats Bots alert game s host aka streamer Streamer decided what action to take like block user fm channel Online bots can help change ppl s behaviors Bot could approach ppl using racist lang question em about being racist or suggest other forms of interaction to change how ppl interact w others Using bots to affect humans o Part of team that created a syst that uses twitter bots to do activist work of recruiting humans to do social good for their community called BOTIVIST Used to find out whether bots could recruit and make ppl contribute ideas about tackling corruption instead of just complaining Set up syst to watch twitter for ppl complaining about corruption in Latin America Identify keywords corrupcion and impunidad o When botivist noticed relevant tweets would reply asking questions to see if ppl would reply Those who engaged botivist asked follow up questions and for them to volunteer to help fight prob they were complaining about o Found botivist was able to encourage ppl to go beyond simply complaining about corruption pushing them to offer ideas and engage w others sharing their concerns Bots could change ppl s behavior Also found indivs began debating whether bots should be involved in activism o Human rxns to bots matter and inform how to design bots and what we tell em to do Kevin Munger used twitter