Cyber nudges are when websites/social-media platforms similar to algorithms personalise the content to ‘nudge’ a person’s behaviour in a particular way. 

An example of this is during the US election, ex-Google engineer, Guillaume Chaslot had designed a program which investigated YouTubes algorithms and what was being recommended to their users. We all have experienced once finished with a YouTube video a ‘up next’ feature will pop up on the screen recommending a similar video. Chaslot’s program had gone through approx. 8,000 videos and came to the conclusion that most of the videos recommended by YouTube were in favour of Trump with a “surprising amount of conspiratorial content and fake news being damaging to Clinton”. Resembling a school yard or in class passing notes around to your crush or friend group. We all love controversy and gossip its almost part of human nature, we hear something interesting and then share that gossip around and in some cases use it to your advantage. In saying this it’s important not to overexaggerate what cyber nudges and algorithms do to influence the way we act, we alone still have a choice if we want to do something or not. 

Similar patterns are seen when it comes to far-right extremists and ‘click- bait’ posts from these major website/social-media companies. According to a Bloomberg report “the largest social-media networks have built algorithms that exacerbate… the Viral Screaming Effect. For example, YouTube executives knew that extreme and misleading videos were racking up tens of millions of views, but the company’s executives declined to intervene, because they were “focused on increasing viewing time and other measures of engagement,”. We do it all the time when we see a controversial far-right tweet for example we engage in that tweet, and other social media companies see it going viral, so they capitalise on it by making articles using it as a cash grab while also giving the public what they want. 

If we want to regulate what is seen and what isn’t its best to look at the regulator, which is what we call ‘the code’, the code is what regulates the net so if we start using that to our advantage can we prevent those conspiracy, ‘fake news’ videos from ever being published but in saying that how will that impact the internet?

I, who has been through 15 years of schooling, coincidently during the most technological constructed era to date. With the ubiquity of digital only increasing, technology is often blended into the background of our day-to-day lives with many of us subconsciously relying on it. It’s interesting that there is still a negative connotation surrounding people who spend excessive amounts of time on a computer or their phone. This can lead to a sense of anomie/lack of belonging which results to social strain which then ultimately can result in criminal activity. When an individual starts viewing themselves as an outsider, they tend to move towards others who feel the same and form a group and within it form a new set of goals/values in contrast to the ‘norm’ and majority of society. This is a case of subcultural theory. Within subcultures 2 learning theories are prevalent, Social Learning Theory and Actor Network Theory. Both focus on the premise of individuals learning and defining themselves through interactions with peers. 

Looking at some of the main motivations for hackers, Grabosky and Smith identified some including curiosity, terrorism, intellectual challenge and peer recognition. Thus, whilst there is a stereotype clouding over hackers to be immoral, not all hackers are ‘bad’, with a wide range of hackers working for police cybercrime units. However, there are still many limitations to be found within these programs. A study done by Hawkins et al. identifies numerous key findings concerning specialist cybercrime units withing Australia: one was that they found cybercrime units to be under-resourced which has led to strain in meeting demands. Another issue was that skill-level/training can’t keep up with the constant growing complexities of investigating cybercrime. 

Some of the suggested improvements towards cyberpolicing stated in session 7 were increasing the number of sworn and non-sworn officers, increasing awareness/education and offer more stability in cybercrime units. The Australian Cyber Security Strategy 2020 in place a total of 1.67billion dollars will be invested over 10 years. 

With the given approaches the biggest issue is the immense amount of money needed. So how can we fix that? Some changes that have come to mind are simply going old school for certain information and put it on paper a non-traceable traditional method which will prevent any cyber-terrorist attacks and any ‘black hat hackers’. 

When asked this I believed there are valid points for both views. 

Looking at a continuum of practices that form our concept of image-based sexual abuse it looks at disparate range of abusive behaviours with characteristics of the development/ creation and/or distribution of non-consensual or sexual images. For example, revenge porn, sexualised photoshopping, sextortion, ‘upskirting’, voyeurism etc. We put our focus on the coinciding nature including motives, modes and the effects on victims. 

When looking at the view of image-based sexual abuse being on a continuum of other forms of sexual violence, some of the common characteristics are (taken out of the session 6 pre- readings):

Some of the characteristics of image-based sexual abuse alone identified by Henry and Flynn (2019)

Henry and Flynn also examined the motivations of perpetrators and how certain websites are designed in such a way to favour a male’s perspective and how they objectify women. They found that most of the cases where people seeking sexual gratification or proving social status to and online peer network (much like teenage boy as opposed to revenge, which was one of the main focuses identified in the class PowerPoints).

There are some issues surrounding how to deal with punishment of image-based abuse, the question of what an intimate image is according to Australian law was asked. According to the Crimes Act 1900 [sec 91n] the definition of an intimate image is 

a). an image taken of someone’s private parts or engaging in a private act in which a person would expect to be afforded privacy. 

Or 

b). an image that has been altered to show private body part or an intimate act.

“It may be that, in the new media age, the terms of criminological questioning need sometimes to be reversed: instead of asking whether ‘media’ instigate crime or fear of crime, we must ask how the very possibility of mediating oneself to an audience through self-representation might be bound up with the genesis (birth) of criminal behaviour” (Yar, 2012, p.246)

In response to the quote from Yar, 200 years ago, criminologists were very narrow minded in their approach and absolute in what they believed in. Due to criminology and the study of why people commit crimes only jumping onto the scene so recently at the time. But as time goes by things and people evolve and so did the way we looked at crime. Yar reinforces that, we need to take multiple approaches at the issue to find out if technology is truly a catalyst for crime. Looking at it like this you can see evidence of people committing a crime and broadcasting it online for the whole world to see like what we saw in the Christchurch massacre. The internet gives us the opportunity to connect to people all over the world and get our points off just like as someone was to post something on their Instagram story or tweet something raising awareness for social issues. But some people use that privilege given to them and use it to their advantage by radicalising their own beliefs but in an evil way.

On March 15^th of 2019, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant, attacked 2 mosques located in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Al Noor Mosque and Lindwood Islamic Centre. As a result of these shooting, 51 people were killed. This was the biggest shooting in the country in over 200 years and took the attention of the entire media world. Tarrant had recorded the shooting in a way that made it look like it was in a video game. The gunman then proceeded to stream it on Facebook live for 17 minutes before it was eventually removed due to the viewers reporting the video. This incident led to “The Christchurch Call”, signed by 18 nations and 8 major technology governments setting out steps to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

Like I said before in a recent blog entry how would regulating the code and monitoring what people see, say and can’t do or access help the government/police respond to any situation that could arise and help them in decide on the best approach (reactive, proactive or deterrence).

Motivations for online justice:

- evidence and witness gathering 

- awareness and activism 

- demanding formal attention and action

- attempting to gather support from a sympathetic audience

When the unjust murder of George Floyd occurred, we saw 2 types of online informal justice occur, a bystander had recorded the act on his/her phone which ultimately led to it going viral online where it was liked, commented under and shared using the hashtag #BLM. Which brought light to many other unjust acts of police brutality or race driven attacks.

A protest began in Minneapolis a day after the video went viral where hundreds of residents rallied the streets to call for justice, in light of this and the potential of it going out of control the Minneapolis Police had come to a decision to fire all 4 police officers involved as well as launch an FBI investigation into the death of George Floyd.

Digitalism is another method of online justice which is “the collective use or threat of extra-legal violence in response to an alleged criminal act” – Moncada (2017, p. 408). There’s a saying “if you want something done right do it yourself” much like with digitalism there are cases of people not being happy with a situation is being handled and might not agree with the means so what they do is try and hand out justice themselves kind of like V from ‘V for Vendetta”. If someone is spreading hate speech online that is either false or could lead to extremist behaviour we see many cases of ‘hackers’ target that individual doxing them as a method of control.