A 2017 Pew Research Center study reported that 41 percent of Americans had experienced online harassment, an increase from 2014. A more recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League showed that already more than half of Americans, 53 percent, say they experienced hate speech and harassment online in 2018.

What is going on? Why is the internet being inundated with harmful content? What is the origin of the problem and can we develop solutions to solve it?

To start sorting out this important topic, HeroX, a leading crowdsourcing platform, spoke with Jesse McCrosky, Sr. Data Scientist at Mozilla. Jesse is interested in the ethical dimension of the use of big data and the ways it may influence our societies.

Read the transcript of the interview here, but I also strongly recommend listening to the original audio version of the interview to fully benefit from Jesse’s knowledge and experience. Also, visit Jesse’s blog “Wrong, but useful” to get more insight into the problem.

I’d like to highlight a quote from the interview:

“The technology isn’t inherently evil, but people should be conscious of what they are doing and what content they’re consuming …. [R]emember that harmful content is first and foremost a social, not technical, problem. It reflects the divisiveness of our societies. As a society, we must learn to be sympathetic and compassionate and try to understand even people we disagree with. And this is the best way to fight back what has been done to us through technology.”

Very well said, Jesse!

Check out my eBook, “We the People of the Crowd…,” a collection of stories about crowdsourcing reflecting my personal experience in working with corporate and nonprofit clients.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/social-media-facebook-twitter-1795578/