Better Online Living Through Content Moderation
The focus of the article by Melissa King is to address victimized women online due to the easy exposure they face in the cyber world. The author points out examples of online harassment and how breaking them down in order of severity lessens how badly the harassment is graded. All women deal with being a victim on many different levels. Some simply suffer from anxiety and some even feel suicidal or begin to suffer from PTSD. King explains ways to notice when a potential attack could take place.
Using what they call a block list and privacy setting can help limit a woman’s exposure to being a victim to online attacks. Also being able to control the features of a person’s personal life will make them less of a target as well. The author discusses trigger signs from the media where the visual content displayed has a negative affect on past victims. It increases the likelihood of an anxiety episode or impulsive actions. Outside of physical victims being triggered, commercials have a consumer affect on individuals who buy items seen on television.
Commercials are well known for repetitious display of their products to attain the consumer’s attention and get them to purchase their product based on visual stimulation. Its what the author describes as subliminally transmitted information. They typically fill their messages with triggers to get you to spend your money. This course of marketing is very common in the U.S. and is used on all levels of high-end companies and low-end companies. The introduction of sales through the Internet has becoming a booming success for companies and majority of the time its where they receive their most profits.
Being able to reach a buyers pockets inside of their homes hundreds and thousands of miles away has made it easier for online advertising attackers as well. Television and Internet ads are somewhat restricted and regulated to what they can distribute to consumers. The article speaks on how the block list idea still requires some work to how respond to said content control with what individuals can be exposed to. King’s point of view on content control is that the tool is not as helpful as the users think. She claims it will more so worsen whatever they need help from instead of making it easier to deal with the exposure.
When it comes to legalities of using block lists, there has become an increase amount of demand for them because of a rise in hate groups. People are accusing others of defaming their character and suing for being placed on the block list. King thinks that women are being targeted because they are the minority in the business world. The use of moderate tools doesn’t have an effect on a person using mean or angry words toward someone. These particular words are not seen to cause actual harm to a person. In conclusion of the article, the importance of using guard tools is dependant on the individual but ultimately does not have an effect on protecting people. Its all a personal preference.