It was much easier to police the internet when only a few million people were online
AOL used to literally kick people off the internet for trolling
When the number of internet users was in the low millions, it was a lot easier to punish bad behavior.
Today, with 3 billion people online, we’re asking why it can’t be done.
Twitter recently announced a new keyword filter tool to help combat online harassment. Users choose certain words to prevent tweets containing slurs from appearing in their mentions. It’s Twitter’s latest attempt at curbing online harassment, as it continues to face criticism for hosting some of the web’s most violent discourse.
With 140 million daily active users, it’s a smaller social network than Facebook’s 1.13 billion, Instagram’s 300 million, and Snapchat’s 150 million. Harassment still frequents these networks, but account verification tends to be tighter and/or terms of use stricter.
No one has found a perfect system. The internet is lawless, and most times, beautiful in its freedom. But since it’s inception, we’ve tried to make it safer.
1. The internet is a privilege
In the 1990s, internet service providers would literally prevent misbehaving users from getting online at all. Take the 13-year-old in St. Petersburg, Florida, who got booted from AOL when he told another user to f*ck off. His father later phoned AOL because he couldn’t access the internet and suspected a glitch.
AOL monitors were volunteers or paid employees known as wizards, guides, hosts, or moderators. That’s back when the company had enough manpower to monitor enough conversations to make a dent, especially kids’ rooms. “Kids and teen chats are always monitored,” AOL’s Kathie Lentz told The St. Petersburg Times. Imagine that today.
2. Web nannies
Prodigy, an online service provider founded in 1984, pioneered selling dial-up in the early 90s. In 1994, with 7 million people worldwide on the internet, it was a little easier to keep abusers in line. Prodigy had its own Alert Center, which employed dozens of monitors to literally watch how individuals chatted. Profanity was a no-no, as was “scrolling,” the practice of hitting the return button with the same message to bombard a chat room.
Monitors got online “when things got busy,” usually in the evenings when minors logged on, according to a 1995 USA Today article titled “Policing the Internet.” Seven people worked at Alert Center in the busy hours, 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. ET. Starting pay was $12 per hour.
3. “Safe” spaces
As the web grew, dot-com entrepreneurs saw potential in creating specialized sites and communities for certain demographics. Unfortunately, that made it easier for anonymous trolls and predators to target those groups. EWSonline.com was a chat site designed for teenagers who attended school together. Most chats were fairly routine, but some devolved into harassment, such as chat topics like “who are the hottest gurls in 8 grade, with a nice body?”
“There’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed between what is right and what is wrong,” founder Eric Sturgeon told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. He tried to get online at least once per day to monitor the site’s 16 forums and 13,000 users by deleting inappropriate content. Sturgeon was just 18 years old.
4. Software
SurfWatch was one of the first software tools that allowed users to block types of content on the internet. It launched in 1995. By putting the tools and choices in users’ hands, SurfWatch and its ilk helped defeat parts of the Communications Decency Act in Congress. The act, which aimed to censor certain web content, angered free speech proponents.
At first intended to block sexually explicit content, SurfWatch later expanded its offerings to schools, libraries, and parents. The software cost $49.95, plus a monthly subscription fee of $5.95, according to The Chicago Tribune.
In the mid-90s company IT departments also used software to monitor employees’ web behavior (and Solitaire games), despite concerns over spying.
5. Internet vigilanteism
Maryland resident Jayne Hitchcock got a phone call in 1996: ”You don’t know who I am. But do you know your name, phone number and address are all over the internet? I had something similar happen to me. I just wanted to warn you.” The calls that followed were men who wanted to share their sexual fantasies—up to 20 to 30 per day.
Hitchcock had fallen prey to an internet scam by a fake literary agency. After she notified law enforcement and posted about it online, the agency published her contact information and address, urging men to harass her with profane phone calls.
When the FBI wouldn’t help because Hitchcock technically hadn’t been threatened, she turned to friends in Usenet group misc.writing, one of whom was Stan Kid, a police sergeant. Kid tracked down the offenders and their phony business.
The story made national news in 1997. Now Hitchcock is a cybersecurity expert and founder of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA). “I don’t want someone else to go through this,” Hitchcock told Newsday. “I had nowhere to go. I had to depend on people I’ve never met in my life.”
6. User-led solutions
By 2000, the cops couldn’t keep up. The web had long outgrown AOL moderators. Even Congressional attempts at thwarting internet freedom were overturned. Judges ruled that the Communications Decency Act, colloquially known as “The Great Internet Sex Panic of 1995,” aimed at regulating internet porn, was a violation of free speech. “As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion,” said Judge Stewart Dalzell, one of the three Philadelphia-based federal judges.
Importantly, the decision also declared that service providers were not liable for the content their users published. Ultimately, the tools for prevention were put in the hands of users: Become your own internet bodyguard.
Organizations like CyberAngels and WHOA popped up around the year 2000, offering support services for victims of cyberstalking and harassment, who have been sent unwanted, profane, or sexual messages, for example. They offered grief support pages for victims, information about wanted stalkers, and legal services recommendations. Volunteers helped.
As harassment and hate speech has moved from chat rooms to social networks, critics are demanding better prevention tools from the world’s biggest tech companies. Some celebrities and influencers are quitting networks rather than face toxic abuse.
Twitter continues to do battle. Until a better solution comes along it’s diverting power into users’ hands, out of necessity, one keyword filter at a time.
