Google Introduces an Anti-Harassment Filter: Google on Tuesday launched an open-source anti-harassment program named “Harassment Manager” to help female activists and journalists, specifically those who write about controversial topics or who are under dictatorial governments and take control of online abuse.
Google’s Jigsaw unit has published the source code of the open-source anti-harassment software on the Microsoft-owned open source repository GitHub.
Harassment Manager lets users document and control abuse directed at them through social media platforms, beginning with Twitter.
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“It lets users quickly identify and record dangerous posts, and mute or block harassers and block abusive replies in their tweets. Individuals can examine tweets about hashtags keywords, usernames, usernames or the date and then use the Perspective API to find comments that are likely to be harmful,” Jigsaw said in a blog post.
In addition to the collaboration with Twitter, the project involved partnerships with various NGOs in the journalistic and human rights arena.
The Harassment Manager code is accessible on Github and is open-sourced to individuals and non-governmental organizations to develop and modify their needs for free.
“We hope that this technology provides a resource for people who are facing harassment online, especially female journalists, activists, politicians and other public figures, who deal with disproportionately high toxicity online,” Jigsaw said.
The company is also looking at the day when developers and companies can adapt it to their particular requirements and then use the technology to assist others in need.
