Read the PDF ResourceGames and platforms need community guidelines to outline intent and the expected code of conduct. They lay down the foundation to build the social systems and player dynamics of your product. They inform reporting categories, community management, and player support practices.
Strong community guidelines are an important step towards setting your community’s tone by influencing healthy behavior norms. What are good community guidelines?
Use the language of…
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Penalty-and-reporting (P&R) systems are complex and require careful planning in their design, implementation, launch, and support as a live service. Knowing what to look out for ensures there are no surprises and helps a studio make informed decisions on introducing a new P&R system for existing titles.
Unlike many aspects of making games, P&R systems require a higher degree of due diligence. Failure to…
Read the PDF ResourceA key aspect of addressing disruptive behavior is understanding your game’s behavior landscape, a profile that helps define its areas of interaction and influence. By mapping out these areas, we developers can see how the choices we make, and the broader gaming context, influence our game as a social space.
Every game’s experience will create a different behavior landscape. Identifying what is important to you and your game will allow you to operationalize…
Video games have been popular in the United States for at least three decades, but the lockdowns and quarantines brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic kicked their growth as vital social spaces into overdrive.1 [i] Over 200 million people, 64 percent of American adults, regularly play video games- which include both online and offline games.[ii] A $159 billion industry, annual revenue from video games increased 9.3 percent this year, whereas revenue reported by traditional media such as movies…
By
Mark Kumleben and Samuel Woolley
Propaganda Research Team
Center for Media Engagement
University of Texas at Austin
Maggie Engler
Global Disinformation Index Much of online speech today occurs on social media platforms like Facebook where a few companies have attained an outsized influence on what is permitted discussion on the internet. The rules and enforcement of the rules around speech on social platforms have far-reaching societal implications -- they can determine…
In late 2018, Pew Research Center reported that social media sites had surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans, when one in five U.S. adults reported that they often got the news via social media.i By the following year, that figure had increased to 28% and the trend is only risingii. Combine that with a deeply divided polity headed into a bitterly divisive 2020 U.S. presidential election season and it becomes crucial to understand the information that Americans are exposed…
Since its inception, social media has played a key role in shaping social, cultural and political developments. This year in particular has seen a tectonic shift in the way communities across the world integrate digital and social networks into their daily lives. The novel coronavirus (and the disease it causes, COVID-19) has spread aggressively, claiming thousands of lives in the United States[i], devastating marginalized populations in major cities, crippling employment and economic…
Even in times of tragedy, there are glimmers of humanity. These moments of compassion, of kindness, give us hope for a better future for our children and our children’s children. Building a better world is what has motivated ADL’s work for more than 100 years, and what continues to impel us forward today. With that in mind, ADL’s professionals across the country have selected the decade’s Top 10 Moments of Hope in the United States. It’s hard to fathom how…
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Tell Lawmakers to Support Victims and Targets of Online Hate and Harassment
Join the FightOnline hate and harassment1 have increasingly become a common part of the online experience. Public attention has usually focused on harassment of celebrities and public figures. However, our recent work has shown that a substantial swath of the American public has experienced online harassment, with 37 percent of adults having experienced severe…
Executive Summary
This report explores the social interactions and experiences of video game players across America and details their attitudes and behaviors in a rapidly growing social space. Globally, video games are a $152 billion industry. Fifty-three percent of the total population of the US and 64 percent of the online population of the US plays video games.1 Video games have functioned as social platforms over the past three decades, with players around the world interacting with…
Read the Full Report
Can we use games to help people better connect with themselves and with others? Can we use game design to support perspective-taking, compassion, and care?
It may be surprising to hear that games—of all things—can help support connection and compassion.
Particularly when we often hear quite the opposite. Games have become well-known as communities where toxic behavior, such as bullying, harassment and hate occur. Just like other online…
The second in a series of reports co-authored by the Network Contagion Research Institute and ADL’s Center on Extremism New analysis of online behavior suggests similar ideological motivations and radicalization methods when comparing the perpetrators of the Pittsburgh and Christchurch massacres. Both killers announced in their preferred internet forums that they were about to commit violence and seemed to identify their fellow forum participants as community members who might…
Welcome to ADL’s online harassment help and resource guide. We know online harassment can be a scary and alienating experience, and we want to ease that pain as much as we can. If you feel you are in danger, contact law enforcement.
If you are being harassed online, know you are not alone. This harassment is not a reflection of your self-worth.
Step back and try to envision the outcome you want and try to proceed with that in mind.
Depending on the outcome you are seeking,…
Executive Summary
The American public has become increasingly aware of online hate and harassment in recent years. The scale and complexity of online hate has reached unprecedented levels as seen in sustained online harassment campaigns that violently threaten journalists to organized racist attacks launched against an African-American student leader by a far-right online community. High-profile targets of coordinated online harassment — such as Jewish journalists and African-American…
The following report is an analysis of computational propaganda, the Jewish American community, and the 2018 elections. As part of the wider paper series focused on “humanizing the effects of computational propaganda” this empirical work details the ways in which the Jewish socio-religious population in the U.S. is being disproportionately targeted with disinformation and abuse during this crucial political moment.
New Challenges Ahead for the Next Generation of Social Media The timeless mission of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all. The mission of ADL’s Center for Technology and Society is to ask the question “How do we secure justice and fair treatment for all in a digital environment?”
Since 1985, when it published its report on “Electronic Bulletin Boards of Hate,” ADL has…
New York, NY, January 17, 2025 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today welcomed the disciplinary action taken against multiple editors by the Wikipedia arbitration committee in the wake of a massive effort by anti-Israel editors to spread misinformation and hate across the platform. Among those topic-banned by Wikipedia from the Israel-Palestine discussion were Iskandar323, Selfstudier, Nableezy, Levivich and Nishidani – all of whom ADL has identified as being part of a bad-faith…
Episode 4.5: “Create Just Worlds": Can We Break Extremism's Hold on Gaming?Video games are supposed to be fun and provide players with safe, supportive communities. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, extremists are ruining gaming for everyone. On this month’s episode of extremely, Oren Segal and Jessica Reaves talk to Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, Policy Advisor on technology and law at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Rosenblat studies the societal impact of…
New York, NY, January 16, 2025, … Hate and harassment was recorded in almost half of online multiplayer game sessions tested with a range of religious, ethnic and national identity-based usernames, shows new research conducted by the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) Center for Technology and Society. Examples of hate and harassment included racial slurs, trash-talking or disrupted play. Identity-based harassment was present in one-third of play sessions across the four games …
New York, NY, January 7, 2025 ... ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) expressed deep concern today about Meta’s policy announcement in terms of their commitment to addressing antisemitism and hate. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director, issued the following statement: “It is mind blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate,…