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Exciting Online Abuse App Developed Through Hack Harassment Initiative

It’s reassuring to know that through the Hack Harassment initiative, some of the most brilliant minds within the technology industry are working alongside each other to find solutions to the problem of online abuse and harassment.

This year the Hack Harassment initiative has been busy developing ideas to help combat online abuse and harassment. The Hack Harassment group, set up by Intel, Vox Media and Recode is a collaboration of the worlds leading minds within the technology industry who are creating ways of utilizing the latest technologies to develop solutions and tools to help users deal with the toxic effects of digital abuse.

The latest product to come out of the Hack Harassment incentive, initially designed to identify harassing speech – tells people just how intimidating they may be, offering both a numerical rating as well as example messages that could be seen as harassing. The App is currently under testing and is due to be released to the public over the next few months.

“I think technology is where this is happening, technology has a role to play to figure out ways to help in all this.”

Doug Fisher, Senior VP, Intel

The App’s creator, Alexi Bastidas, spent the summer during his internship with Intel designing the app which trawled through the darkest corners of Reddit and mainstream media sites such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal as well as Twitter, to ensure a wide scope of analysis across the web. Alex commented – “We’ve joked around that we’re trying to give our algorithm a liberal arts education.”

“It’s great to see incentives like Hack Harassment working in this way. We have always maintained the view that potential solutions lie within technology and that collaboration between the major stakeholders is the way forward.”

Dan Raisbeck, Co Founder, The Cybersmile Foundation

As the Hack Harassment effort continues to gather momentum we expect to see more innovative and exciting ideas and tools emerging from the group to help the technology and gaming industries in addressing the growing problem of online abuse and harassment. If you are affected by any type of online negativity we can help through our total access support services and our cyberbullying and digital abuse help center! For further information about Cybersmile and the work we do, please explore the following suggestions.

This app looks super exciting! Tweet us your thoughts over @CybersmileHQ!