[论文解读] No Easy Way Out: the Effectiveness of Deplatforming an Extremist Forum to Suppress Hate and Harassment

Anh V. Vu, Alice Hutchings+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Apr 14, 2023

Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection被引用 3

一句话总结

本文研究了针对长期存在的极端主义骚扰论坛 KIWI FARMS 的大规模行业主导下架行动的有效性。尽管多家科技公司协同努力试图破坏该平台，该论坛仍通过流量分散化和迁移到其他域名及 Telegram 快速恢复，仅造成活动量暂时下降 50%，对核心用户群体的长期影响微乎其微。

ABSTRACT

Legislators and policymakers worldwide are debating options for suppressing illegal, harmful and undesirable material online. Drawing on several quantitative data sources, we show that deplatforming an active community to suppress online hate and harassment, even with a substantial concerted effort involving several tech firms, can be hard. Our case study is the disruption of the largest and longest-running harassment forum Kiwi Farms in late 2022, which is probably the most extensive industry effort to date. Despite the active participation of a number of tech companies over several consecutive months, this campaign failed to shut down the forum and remove its objectionable content. While briefly raising public awareness, it led to rapid platform displacement and traffic fragmentation. Part of the activity decamped to Telegram, while traffic shifted from the primary domain to previously abandoned alternatives. The forum experienced intermittent outages for several weeks, after which the community leading the campaign lost interest, traffic was directed back to the main domain, users quickly returned, and the forum was back online and became even more connected. The forum members themselves stopped discussing the incident shortly thereafter, and the net effect was that forum activity, active users, threads, posts and traffic were all cut by about half. Deplatforming a community without a court order raises philosophical issues about censorship versus free speech; ethical and legal issues about the role of industry in online content moderation; and practical issues on the efficacy of private-sector versus government action. Deplatforming a dispersed community using a series of court orders against individual service providers appears unlikely to be very effective if the censor cannot incapacitate the key maintainers, whether by arresting them, enjoining them or otherwise deterring them.

研究动机与目标

• 评估多家公司协同开展的行业下架行动对一个长期存在的在线仇恨论坛的有效性。
• 理解独立存在的极端主义论坛在面对基础设施层面干扰时的韧性。
• 考察下架行动的意外后果，包括流量碎片化、向其他平台迁移，以及新用户群体中毒性水平上升的问题。
• 评估由私营部门主导的下架行动是否可作为应对网络仇恨与骚扰的适当、有效且合法的应对措施。
• 为政策制定提供依据，探讨政府是否以及如何介入在线内容管理，尤其是在私人行为者在缺乏司法监督的情况下采取行动时。

提出的方法

• 通过网络级监控和公开数据源，对 2022 年底至 2023 年初 KIWI FARMS 的流量、域名使用情况和平台可用性进行了纵向测量。
• 追踪了多个基础设施提供商（包括 DDoS 防护服务、域名注册商和网络提供商）参与的干扰行动。
• 通过流量模式、域名转换以及向 Telegram 等替代平台的迁移，分析了用户行为的变化。
• 收集并分析了围绕该行动的公开社交媒体讨论，以评估公众认知度和情绪倾向。
• 监测了论坛活动的变化，包括用户数量、发帖量、主题帖数量以及内容毒性水平在干扰前、中、后阶段的差异。
• 结合定性和定量数据，评估了在缺乏司法或执法介入的情况下，下架行动的长期可持续性。

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 多家科技公司协同开展的下架行动在多大程度上成功抑制了 KIWI FARMS 的活动？
• RQ2 该论坛的基础设施和用户群体如何应对干扰，包括向其他域名和平台的迁移？
• RQ3 在干扰期间及之后，用户参与度、毒性水平和社区结构发生了哪些变化？
• RQ4 为何尽管行业协调程度很高，该下架行动仍未能实现长期抑制？
• RQ5 私营部门主导的下架行动对言论自由、法律比例性以及政府在内容管理中的角色有何影响？

主要发现

• 下架行动导致论坛整体活动量暂时下降 50%，包括发帖量、主题帖和活跃用户数，但这种下降是短暂的。
• 约 87% 的普通用户在干扰期间离开了论坛，而核心用户群中有一半仍保持活跃和参与。
• 流量迅速碎片化，大量用户转向此前被废弃的域名，以及 Telegram 平台，后者活动量显著上升。
• 论坛在数周内经历了间歇性宕机，但随着行动失去势头，主域名的流量和活动完全恢复，甚至有所增加。
• 新用户在干扰初期几周内表现出毒性水平持续上升，表明该行动可能吸引了更多极端用户。
• 论坛管理员并未被瘫痪；由于未对关键维护者采取法律或执法行动，导致下架行动在长期内无效。