Neowin News Feed for: Harassment

Child safety groups urge Meta to halt metaverse rollout to minors

Usama Jawad — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:26:01 +0000

Child safety advocates have written a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to stop plans to make his metaverse, Horizon Worlds, open to younger audiences, or risk losing their trust again. Read more...

Twitter dissolves its Trust and Safety advisory group, puts legacy checkmarks on notice

Justin Luna — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:02:01 +0000

Twitter has disbanded its Trust and Safety council, a means for the platform to tackle hate speech, self-harm, suicide, and child exploitation. It will also remove all legacy blue checkmarks soon. Read more...

Sony's PS5 Accolades feature built to counter gaming toxicity is retiring due to low usage

Fiza Ali — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 19:14:01 +0000

Sony is setting the sun on a feature it introduced with the PlayStation 5 to help mitigate toxicity in online gaming. Accolades will witness its end in the fall of 2022 due to low usage. Read more...

WhatsApp CEO: We will not let governments read user texts

Anushe Fawaz — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 10:12:01 +0000

WhatsApp's CEO does not wish to change the app's security policy under any government regulation, especially the UK Online Safety Bill. He claims that the bill makes the app less desirable for users. Read more...

UK's Online Safety Bill postponed following the Prime Minister's resignation

Anushe Fawaz — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 14:16:01 +0000

Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson's resignation, the Online Safety Bill has been postponed. There are speculations that it will be discarded, however, it depends on the new Prime Minister. Read more...

Meta's Horizon Worlds introduces anti-rapist forcefields

Paul Hill — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 18:48:01 +0000

Meta has introduced a new feature called Personal Boundary in Horizon Worlds to stop other avatars coming within 4-foot of your character. It comes after a woman reported being virtually raped. Read more...

Teams now features better compliance policies and harassment detection

Usama Jawad — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 15:00:11 +0000

At its Ignite 2021 conference, Microsoft has announced better compliance policies for Teams including harassment detection in more languages and tighter integration with Communication Compliance. Read more...

Twitter web users can now soft block unwanted followers

Usman Khan Lodhi — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 21:32:01 +0000

The feature, tested with a small group of users since September, has been released to all web users today. The safety-focused feature will curb abuse and harassment on the platform. Read more...

Twitter will give you a heads up before entering 'intense' conversations

Usman Khan Lodhi — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 22:08:01 +0000

The latest Twitter experiment is aiming to promote harmony among users on the app. It lays out three bullet points when entering heated conversations, which serve as a reminder to remain cool. Read more...

Google is improving its search results to protect people from online harassment

Usama Jawad — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 05:10:01 +0000

Google has announced that it will be enhancing its Search service to better protect people from harassment online. It will do this by automatically demoting search rankings of predatory websites. Read more...

Instagram's new keyword-based tool will filter out offensive DMs

Usman Khan Lodhi — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 10:50:01 +0000

Instagram has announced new tools to effectively stop harassment on its platform, including a keyword-based tool to filter out offensive direct messages and a preemptive blocking option. Read more...

Slack rolls back ability to send custom messages with DM invites due to harassment

Steven Parker — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 20:00:01 +0000

Earlier today Slack enabled a feature where it was possible to send a DM invite to anyone on Slack, if you know their email address. It was also possible to harass that person with a custom message. Read more...

Facebook has apologised for naughty word blocking blunder

Paul Hill — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 18:42:01 +0000

Facebook's automated blocking systems went into overdrive recently when it caused a woman to be blocked from a local Facebook after she set the collection point to a historical part of Plymouth, UK. Read more...

YouTube plans to curb content promoting harmful conspiracy theories

Usama Jawad — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 03:50:01 +0000

After announcing that it would be removing videos containing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, YouTube has now stated that it will be removing all content promoting harmful conspiracy theories. Read more...

UN agency says kids forced online earlier due to COVID-19

Paul Hill — Tue, 05 May 2020 21:32:01 +0000

The UN ITU has warned that children are being forced online by COVID-19 at an earlier age than their parents anticipated. It said that this leaves children vulnerable to harassment and bullying. Read more...

UK: Campaigners call for anonymity in revenge porn cases and better police training

Paul Hill — Sun, 19 May 2019 08:58:01 +0000

Campaigners and experts have made calls for victims of revenge porn to be given anonymity when they report a crime. Revenge porn cases also saw a 23% drop in charges in recent years. Read more...

Facebook launches new tools to curb bullying and harassment

Paul Hill — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:56:01 +0000

Facebook has announced new tools in order to curb occurrences of online bullying and harassment. Users will now be able to report others, to Facebook, on behalf of friends and family. Read more...

Pew Research Center: 41% of Americans experience online harassment

Paul Hill — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 13:14:01 +0000

The Pew Research Center has published a new study which shows that 41% of Americans have been abused online. The main venue for this abuse was social media websites, mainly Facebook and Twitter. Read more...

New study finds online abuse not as pervasive among children as traditional bullying

Dreyer Smit — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 14:16:01 +0000

According to new research, your perception of what children and young adults experience online might be challenged after it was concluded that individuals do not experience as much online abuse. Read more...

Google is using machine learning to combat online trolling

Usama Jawad — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 16:52:01 +0000

Google partnered with Jigsaw to use machine learning to combat online trolling in a new project called "Perspective". Long-term aims include making online conversations safer as well. Read more...

Users should embrace a better internet, not fight it

Jett Goldsmith — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:18:01 +0000

The internet has a pervasive culture of completely uninhibited expression, at the expense of common decency. But with Twitter and reddit moving to ban harassment, we're shown that change is overdue. Read more...

'Revenge Porn' website operator convicted, could face up to twenty years in jail

Steven Parker — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 09:44:01 +0000

Up to two dozen victims were named in the criminal complaint which was filed in June last year, with some testifying that it had "ruined" their lives. Operator is now convicted facing a long stretch. Read more...

Man slapped with lawsuit for "revenge porn" website

Shreyas Gandhe — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:58:39 +0000

A Californian man has been accused of posting naked photographs of various women on a certain "revenge porn" website and demanding money through another website for removing the explicit content. Read more...

Router company Mediabridge banned from Amazon after harassing customer

Jake Schenberg — Fri, 09 May 2014 07:08:49 +0000

Mediabridge responded to a negative review by sending a threatening email to the reviewer, but it backfired when the reviewer posted it to reddit, prompting Amazon to revoke their selling privileges. Read more...