Blockchain-based Framework for Reducing Fake or Vicious News Spread on Social Media/Messaging Platforms

With social media becoming the most frequently used mode of modern-day communications, the propagation of fake or vicious news through such modes of communication has emerged as a serious problem. The scope of the problem of fake or vicious news may range from rumour-mongering, with intent to defame someone, to manufacturing false opinions/trends impacting elections and stock exchanges to much more alarming and mala fide repercussions of inciting violence by bad actors, especially in sensitive law-and-order situations. Therefore, curbing fake or vicious news and identifying the source of such news to ensure strict accountability is the need of the hour. Researchers have been working in the area of using text analysis, labelling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques for detecting fake news, but identifying the source or originator of such news for accountability is still a big challenge for which no concrete approach exists as of today. Also, there is another common problematic trend on social media whereby targeted vicious content goes viral to mobilize or instigate people with malicious intent to destabilize normalcy in society. In the proposed solution, we treat both problems of fake news and vicious news together. We propose a blockchain and keyed watermarking-based framework for social media/messaging platforms that will allow the integrity of the posted content as well as ensure accountability on the owner/user of the post. Intrinsic properties of blockchain-like transparency and immutability are advantageous for curbing fake or vicious news. After identification of fake or vicious news, its spread will be immediately curbed through backtracking as well as forward tracking. Also, observing transactions on the blockchain, the density and rate of forwarding of a particular original message going beyond a threshold can easily be checked, which could be identified as a possible malicious attempt to spread objectionable content. If the content is deemed dangerous or inappropriate, its spread will be curbed immediately. The use of the Raft consensus algorithm and bloXroute servers is proposed to enhance throughput and network scalability, respectively. Thus, the framework offers a proactive as well as reactive, practically feasible, and effective solution for curtailment of fake or vicious news on social media/messaging platforms. The proposed work is a framework for solving fake or vicious news spread problems on social media; the complete design specifications are beyond scope of the current work and will be addressed in the future.

Harm Imbrication and Virtualised Violence: Reconceptualising the Harms of Doxxing

This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing personal identifying information about someone on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Doxxing is not just a breach of privacy, nor are its effects limited to first‑order harms to an individual’s bodily integrity. Rather, doxxing increases the spectre of second-order harms to an individual’s security interests. To better understand these harms—and the relationships between them—we draw together the theories of Bhaskar, Deleuze and Levi to develop two concepts: the virtualisation of violence and harm imbrication. The virtualisation of violence captures how, when concretised into structures, the potential for harm can be virtualised through language, writing and digitisation. We show that doxxed information virtualises violence through constituting harm-generating structures and we analyse how the virtual harm-generating potential of these structures is actualised through first- and second-order harms against a doxxing victim. The concept of harm imbrication, by contrast, helps us to analyse the often-imbricated and supervenient relationship between harms. In doing so, it helps us explain the emergent – and supervenient – relationship between doxxing’s first- and second-order harms.

Modelling Cyberspace to Determine Cybersecurity Training Requirements

Cyberspace is a constantly evolving and expanding environment that is being used for an ever-increasing range of purposes. As such, it attracts numerous threat actors seeking to identify and exploit its vulnerabilities. In order to be able to fully mitigate the risk of compromise, it is necessary to first understand the nature and composition of cyberspace and how it is used. This chapter seeks to address this issue by presenting a method to model cyberspace in three dimensions with humans included as an integral part. Expanding beyond describing cyberspace purely in terms of technology and its uses, it explores geographic, political, and temporal aspects to reflect its dynamic nature. The first component of the model examines the varied attributes of cyberspace ranging from the landscape in which its components are located to how they are used. The second dimension investigates the path of data in all its forms from its source to destination, emphasising that cyberspace is fundamentally a communications medium and is not borderless. Thirdly, it focuses on the security dimension and the motivations of those with malicious intent, demonstrating the multidisciplinary and essentially human nature of cybersecurity in countering their activities.

Adapting Pre-trained Language Models to Rumor Detection on Twitter

Fake news has invaded social media platforms where false information is being propagated with malicious intent at a fast pace. These circumstances required the development of solutions to monitor and detect rumor in a timely manner. In this paper, we propose an approach that seeks to detect emerging and unseen rumors on Twitter by adapting a pre-trained language model to the task of rumor detection, namely RoBERTa. A comparison against content-based characteristics has shown the capability of the model to surpass handcrafted features. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms state of the art ones in all metrics and that the fine tuning of RoBERTa led to richer word embeddings that consistently and significantly enhance the precision of rumor recognition.

Repairing the damage: wishful, defensive, or restorative?

Damage, physically and to the psyche is inevitable. This is whether it is caused unconsciously, through consciously malicious intent, thoughtlessness, as collateral or just through a hostile environment or the warring of internal forces. At the group or social level, the last few years have seen much damage in terms of economic recession, climate change, racial inequalities, and domestic violence. The desire to repair follows such damage. The psychoanalytic focus on reparation sees the process as an attempt by a person to repair perceived damage to another or, more precisely, to an internal image of the other—a loved other. Large groups such as organisations and societies also do damage and sometimes acknowledge this and make attempts to repair—perhaps defensively, simply to restore their own reputation, but perhaps from guilt and remorse. This article will invite readers to think about reparation in terms of either fantasied wishfulness, or defensiveness, or its possible restorative capacity. My exploration rests on the premise that damage is always to the system and that both that which damages and that which is damaged suffer. It is in system restoration that hope re-emerges.

Acceptable Behavior or Workplace Bullying?—How Perpetrator Gender and Hierarchical Status Affect Third Parties’ Attributions and Moral Judgments of Negative Behaviors

Workplace bullying consists of repeated, long-term exposure to a variety of negative behaviors. However, it remains unclear when behaviors are seen as morally acceptable vs. become bullying. Moral judgments affect whether third parties deem it necessary to intervene. In this qualitative study, we first conceptualize and then explore via 27 interviews with Austrian HR professionals and employee representatives whether twelve diverse negative behaviors elicit distinct causal attributions and moral judgments. In particular, we examine how a perpetrator’s hierarchical position and gender shape the third parties’ evaluations. A qualitative content analysis reveals the behaviors vary in their perceived acceptability and associations with workplace bullying. Ambiguous behaviors require specific cues such a perpetrator’s malicious intent to be labeled workplace bullying. Overall, third parties judge behaviors by supervisors more harshly, particularly when managerial role expectations are violated. The majority of informants reject the notion that their perceptions are affected by perpetrator gender. Still, women who engage in behaviors associated with anger or a lack of empathy are often perceived as acting with intent. The findings suggest that the violation of social role expectations amplifies the attribution of dispositional causes (e.g., malicious intent). We discuss the relevance of perpetrator intent for research and practice.

Predictors of school bullying

Буллинг делится на два вида: физический и психологический. Первый проявляется в ударах, побоях, драках со злым умыслом. Второй – оказание психологического давления или эмоционального насилия путем словесного оскорбления, угроз, преследований, которые негативно влияют на психику ребенка. Психологическое давление является наиболее распространённым случаем в школе. Необходимо указать, что буллинг отличается от других понятий таких как «конфликт», «агрессия», «насилие». Ученые подчёркивают особенности этого явления: оно выражается в неравенстве сил агрессора и жертвы; действие происходит преднамеренно; психологическое давление, которое приводит к снижению значимости, самооценки жертвы; наличие групповой динамики; повторяемость события. Статья посвящена исследованию предикторов возникновение буллинга в школьной жизни учащихся. Автором рассматривается степень изученности темы исследования, проводится краткий терминологический анализ. Аргументируется позиция об ошибочности мнения о том, что проблема буллинга имеет отношение только к жертве и агрессору. Доказывает, то буллинг – это групповое явление, которое непосредственно негативно влияет на всех участников школьной травли. Автором детально рассмотрен каждый участник, а именно «жертва», «агрессор», «наблюдатели», «последователи» и «защитники», причины и последствия процесса травли на психологическом уровне. Bullying is divided into two types: physical and psychological. The first is manifested in blows, beatings, fights with malicious intent. The second is the provision of psychological pressure or emotional violence through verbal abuse, threats, harassment, which negatively affect the child's psyche. Psychological pressure is the most common case in school. It should be noted that bullying is different from other concepts such as "conflict", "aggression", "violence". Scientists emphasize the features of this phenomenon: it is expressed in the inequality of forces of the aggressor and the victim; the action is deliberate; psychological pressure that leads to a decrease in the significance, self-esteem of the victim; the presence of group dynamics; the repeatability of the event. The article is devoted to the study of predictors of the occurrence of bullying in the school life of students. The author considers the degree of study of the research topic, and provides a brief terminological analysis. The author argues for the fallacy of the opinion that the problem of bullying is related only to the victim and the aggressor. It proves that bullying is a group phenomenon that directly negatively affects all participants in school bullying. The author considers in detail each participant, namely "victim", "aggressor", "observers", "followers" and "defenders", the causes and consequences of the process of harassment at the psychological level.