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adamchalmers's review
4.0
Great look at how the internet is largely "garbage" - unwanted content. Like how the stock market is 99% quants doing sub-millisecond trades, the internet is mostly garbage - spam, misinformation, trolling, harassment. Jeong focuses mostly on harassment because in 2015 it was the most relevant and least discussed kind of garbage (she'd be writing about misinformation if she revised it now).
Really good study of harassment online. She treats it as a content problem. Examines the history of anti-spam, and how it won technological battles (spam filtering) and ideological battles (anti-spam used to be considered a violation of free speech). Draws analogies between spam and harassment and looks at their differences.
Concludes that harassment is a platform issue in a similar way to spam, and it needs to be treated as such. Simple AI filters aren't enough (thanks Twitter), nor are underpaid staff working through mountains of tickets (thanks Facebook). Provides examples of thoughtful interventions you can use to reduce harassment (i.e. League of Legend's Tribunal system or Gawker blocking gifs in their whistleblower mailbox). Good read. Would be introductory material if I was teaching a course on Your Responsibilities As A Programmer.
It's also short and to-the-point. You could read it over an afternoon, and if you're designing a platform for thousands of users, you should.
Really good study of harassment online. She treats it as a content problem. Examines the history of anti-spam, and how it won technological battles (spam filtering) and ideological battles (anti-spam used to be considered a violation of free speech). Draws analogies between spam and harassment and looks at their differences.
Concludes that harassment is a platform issue in a similar way to spam, and it needs to be treated as such. Simple AI filters aren't enough (thanks Twitter), nor are underpaid staff working through mountains of tickets (thanks Facebook). Provides examples of thoughtful interventions you can use to reduce harassment (i.e. League of Legend's Tribunal system or Gawker blocking gifs in their whistleblower mailbox). Good read. Would be introductory material if I was teaching a course on Your Responsibilities As A Programmer.
It's also short and to-the-point. You could read it over an afternoon, and if you're designing a platform for thousands of users, you should.
dhgwilliam's review
5.0
Concise and persuasive. None of this will be news to anyone who follows the conversation about women in tech, but Jeong's framework for addressing garbage, and especially harassment, online is illuminating.
mochand's review
4.0
While slightly outdated for today, this book provides a good retrospective of the internet and harrassment up until around 2015. While it doesn't take into account political discourse as much as it should, it does a great job of highlighting personal attacks that have happened, specifically those targeted at women. At some point towards the end it does feel slightly repetitive and the overall style means it does have a tone akin to a college paper or thesis.
dylanw's review
4.0
2018 book is getting dated
It is a good treatise, but it is overdue for a second edition, especially in light of Facebook and Twitter taking on false political statements in 2020.
It is a good treatise, but it is overdue for a second edition, especially in light of Facebook and Twitter taking on false political statements in 2020.
ptaradactyl's review
3.0
It's...ok. I don't like that I only ranked it as ok, because I generally agree with the author. The challenge is that companies aren't looking at the impact on users as part of the system, so harassment has minimal impact to the system. I think that the book's problem is that it doesn't make a compelling case for why it should be viewed as part of the system.
I do think that it can & should, but I though that going in. I don't think the book would sway someone who did not.
I do think that it can & should, but I though that going in. I don't think the book would sway someone who did not.
kserra's review
5.0
(Note: Sarah's a friend.) Great, short introduction to online harassment and how it fits into the Internet ecosystem. Wished there could have been more examples, but given the length, it packs a ton of punch.
frumpleton's review
4.0
A good summation of online harassment and spam, and ways to deal with the problem, from a legal and user design/programming perspective.