Platystemon posted:

Coworker Banned From Madison Square Garden Due to Facial Recognition…but it isn’t him (NY) (self.legaladvice)

Disparition posted:

What kind of court do you go to prove it wasn't you?

www.tandfonline.com posted:

ABSTRACT

Masturbation abstinence practices have returned to the USA in the form of semen retention communities. Followers on one of these male, anti-masturbation forums, “NoFap,” on Reddit (denoted “r/NoFap”), have engaged in homicidal behaviors that appear to be linked to these sexual beliefs and practices. This study uses a systematic search on r/NoFap and two control forums (r/pornfree, and r/stopdrinking) to define a corpus of violent content. The study's goals were to describe the nature of threats on r/NoFap and suggest whether the violence might be attributable to sexual deprivation or false beliefs that non-sexual targets caused their violent urges. Of the 421 violent posts identified from September 2011 to September 2022, r/NoFap contained the majority (94.3%). Violent threats on r/NoFap mostly targeted pornographers, women, scientists, specific persons, or any person (i.e. homicidal “rage”). Violent threats against r/NoFap’s own followers were growing most quickly. Violent posts were well-supported with upvotes by other followers in r/NoFap. These data are important because NoFap may represent a growing threat for real-world violence.

The NoFap Army coalesced in online forums, bonded by their shared rejection of “PMO” (porn, masturbation, and orgasm) as a means to bolster their masculinity (Taylor and Jackson 2018) and fight conspiracies to keep men weak (Johanssen 2021). However, a disconcerting trend has emerged as posts within the NoFap Army online often veer into the realm of violent content. Multiple mass murderers have also been identified as NoFap Army followers, raising questions as to whether the violent content on NoFap may be inciting real-world violence. Why do posts in a forum against PMO contain any violent content at all? The goal of this study was to characterize posts with violent content on the largest NoFap forum on Reddit (denoted r/NoFap), drawing comparative analyses with other Reddit forums. By examining the unique features of violent discourse on NoFap, the goal is to establish a research framework for understanding and contextualizing violence in the online NoFap community.
…
The NoFap Army’s largest presence is on Reddit’s r/NoFap. r/NoFap followers have perpetrated violent acts. Connor Sturgeon had been posting online about his masturbation “addiction” and suicidality, including that he was following NoFap practices. He killed five people in the bank where he worked before being killed by police (McBride 2023; O’Brien 2023; Sturgeon 2018, 2019). A man from the UK, Jake Davison (2021, 2021), killed five before killing himself. Davison claimed to have been following NoFap practices on and off for years. Further, Nicholas Roske, who attempted to murder US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (Hurley 2022; United States v Roske 2022), had posted extensively in NoFap forums online. NoFap was recently described by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism as an “extremist” misogynist group (Perliger, Stevens, and Leidig 2023).
…

The return of masturbation stigma

NoFap started on Bodybuilding.com in 2004 as a challenge by a girlfriend to her boyfriend on the forum to abstain from masturbation (and sex) for 49 days (loney 2004). Followers responded by calling the girlfriend a “fkin bitch” and encouraging the original poster to lie to her, have sex with someone else, or sexually assault the girlfriend to teach her a lesson. NoFap November became a monthly challenge the men mistakenly believed would increase their testosterone (UniversityMisc 2009). NoFap peaked in popularity on bodybuilding.com in May 2011 (supersaiyan-dre 2011). In June 2011, the NoFap Army forum on Reddit r/NoFap was co-founded by Alexander Rhodes and another man under a pseudonym as “a venue for Redditers to openly discuss the many tangible benefits of NOT masturbating” (Rhodes and Ohropax 2011).

r/NoFap states “The rules for NoFap are “Absolutely NO fapping. No self pleasure AT ALL” (Rhodes and Ohropax 2011). NoFap followers are encouraged to use counter applications to display their days “clean” from PMO. Counter-applications currently have no data to support their efficacy in decreasing PMO and have raised serious privacy concerns (Henry et al. 2022). The abstinence period in NoFap is called “Rebooting,” which leaders claim will return the brain to its state prior to engaging in sexual behavior(s). The “nineteenth century understandings of onanistic self-harm” in NoFap has been described as grossly and scientifically inaccurate (Paasonen 2022). Accountability partners are encouraged by NoFap. Accountability partners are described as “pairs or small groups (2–20) who hold themselves accountable for their masturbation” (Rhodes 2013). NoFap followers, including youth, are instructed to create posts on NoFap, with their age in the title, to find these “accountability partners” (Rhodes 2013).

NoFap forums are overseen by moderators, who are responsible for reinforcing the rules of the group. The anonymous r/NoFap cofounder and moderator also moderates his own PickUp Artist forum on Reddit (r/truepickup, ohropax 2023). Pickup Artists focus on extracting sex from women, often using questionable tactics that they justify as part of a gender war; Pickup artists are sometimes credited as leading to the development of Incels (Banet-Weiser and Bratich 2019). This NoFap cofounder posts frequently about “getting laid,” including in r/NoFap forums (ohropax 2011). The other cofounder, Rhodes, described himself as a famous actor and bodybuilder who struggled with “severe bipolar disorder” and started NoFap to get “superpowers” (Rhodes 2013a: 2022; Rhodes and Ohanian 2015; Rhodes and Ohropax 2011). About 2013, Rhodes trademarked “NoFap” and started his for-profit company NoFap LLC and NoFap.com. Rhodes declared NoFap.com was “an online community helping those who want to refrain from masturbation” (Rhodes 2013d). “NoFap” remains a widely used phrase on YouTube and other platforms unrelated to the for-profit company (Hartmann 2020).
…
NoFap also appears to be harmful to mental health. The false health claims regarding masturbation on NoFap have contributed to the development of the “neurotic” anxiety disorder of Dhāt syndrome among followers (Prause 2023a). Dhāt is a fear that semen is being lost, leading to a host of unrelated ailments. Other scientists have noted that NoFap is leading men away from evidence-based care for underlying disorders, such as depression (Prause 2023b; Shahinyan et al. 2023). Finally, in contrast to other online support groups, more engagement in NoFap was associated with more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and erectile dysfunction (Prause and Binnie 2023).
…
NoFap leadership appears to promote violence and criminality in NoFap forums. A post in NoFap forums planned a mass murder/suicide, which a moderator described as deleting (leaks 2019). NoFap moderators have posted photographs of themselves on Reddit holding “an empty vodka bottle filled with water and some lighter fluid” (Rhodes 2012b) that appeared to be on fire (Rhodes 2012a). The NoFap leaders have posts on Reddit describing running from police after wrecking a car (Rhodes 2013b), vandalizing public bathrooms with their own excrement (Rhodes 2011), and a “kiln” where NoFap was founded that could be used to conceal dead human bodies (Rhodes 2013c). Requirements to become a NoFap moderator were described as “A distaste for the porn industry,” which Rhodes described would form “the elder council of a cult” (Rhodes 2014). Additionally, three other NoFap subreddits moderated by Rhodes have been banned due to a failure to provide moderation, including r/NoFapArmy (r/NoFapArmy has been banned from Reddit 2023), r/NoFapAccountability (r/nofapaccountability has been banned from Reddit 2023), and r/NoFapArmy (r/NoFapArmy has been banned from Reddit 2023) or due to violating Reddit rules in r/NoFapForever (This community has been banned 2023). Given the significant role of moderation in the health outcomes of these forums, such problematic leadership may be setting the stage for violence.
…

Disclosure statement

The authors were named in threats to harm and kill scientists posted on NoFap forums.
…

quote:

Disclosure statement

The authors were named in threats to harm and kill scientists posted on NoFap forums.

mawarannahr posted:

wtf

Let’s play something awful: a historical analysis of 14 years of threads

Brian McKitrick, Martin Gibbs, Melissa J Rogerson, Bjørn Nansen, Charlotte Pierce
Internet Histories 7 (2), 122-140, 2023

-

McKitrick, B., Rogerson, M., Gibbs, M., & Nansen, B. (2023). “What are you Bringing to the Table?”: The Something Awful Let’s Play Community as a Serious Leisure Subculture. Games and Culture, 18(3), 402-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221101310

Just awful enough: the functional dysfunction of the something awful forums
CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 2014 Pages 2407–2410 https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557193

-

Conflict talk in online communities: a comparative study of the Something Awful and 4chan web-forums (2012)

Leena Hagman

redleader posted:

post their usernames

Rochallor posted:

Never seen a journal go so hard before

The Saddest Rhino posted:

Lol

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

tokin opposition posted:

mawarannahr posted:

the last one is for a masters thesis in English... at a university in Finland

Milo and POTUS posted:

Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down

FFT posted:

This isn't entirely your fault but gently caress you anyway lmao

tokin opposition posted:

oh sorry lemme fix that

The first community examined in this study is the Something Awful forums (SA).

Something Awful is an Internet site consisting largely of different types of

humorous articles and columns, most discussing topics related to the geek

subculture such as technology, video games and Japanese animation (anime).

The

SA community boasts of being one of the largest and most strictly moderated

communities on the Internet.

This community requires a considerable investment

from it's members, as if a person wishes to post content to the community they

must first purchase an account.

Registering a basic account on the SA forum costs

10 dollars and registered users agree to follow all forum rules with the threat of

probation, ban or even a permanent ban (aka permaban) from the community.

Additional privileges, such as avatars, signature texts or archive access can cost

anywhere from 5 to 10 dollars, meaning that the investment of an SA member on

the community is not only ideological, but also financial.

Mechanically, the SA community does not differ much from the typical layout of

online discussion forums.

At the top of the forum homepage are the statistics of

the community at the current moment, indicating such things as amount of

members online, banned users and active threads.

When it comes to content, the

community consists of several sub-forums organized under topics, which in turn

may contain other sub-forums.

For example, the Discussion forum contains the

sub-category Games, which in turn contains such sub-forums as Traditional

Games and Let's Play.

Each of these sub-forums in turn has a list of ongoing

threads (conversations), where the most recently updated thread is placed at the

top of the page.

Each thread opens with an official OP (original post) which

introduces the topic.

The responses from other members appear beneath the OP in

the linear order of posting from top to bottom.

Like previously mentioned, members of the SA community are able to purchase

several privileges for their account.

These privileges can be used to customize the

users profile (adding identifiers), but perhaps more important to gain access to

closed parts of the community (archive access) and alternative methods of

contacting other members of the community (private messaging),.

The amount of

these personal identifiers is usually a good indication of a person's investment

towards a membership in the community, as more identifiers means a greater

financial investment.

All newcomers to the community automatically start with an

avatar picture declaring them as newbies aka newcomers to the forum, and just

getting rid of this status indicator will cost five dollars.

Some people immediately

invest more money in order to remove this label of a newbie, while some forgo

this investment, appearing to posses no interest in paying money to elevate their

status.

What makes this type of purchasing system especially interesting when examining

status in online communities is that it is also possible for forum members to

purchase privileges as a gift to other members of the community.

The members of

SA have established a peculiar system, where purchasing identifiers has become a

part of social power play in some of the conversations.

This system consists of a

fairly basic, at least in theory, reward/punishment system, where one member

subjectively evaluates another member's post and then reacts to it with a positive

or negative identifier he wishes to attach to the poster.

This type of identifier can

take many forms, but red text (sometimes combined with a picture) appearing

underneath the victim's user-name is usually a preferred negative identifier.

This

type of communication can sometimes happen as a joke between two members

who know each other, but it can also be seen as a form of confrontation or a face-

threatening action, as if a person wishes to rid themselves of a negative identifier

they will have to pay in order to do this.

Whatever the reasons behind this type of behavior, social identifiers play an

important part when it comes to interpersonal relationships in the SA forums.

Members identified as newbies are clearly indicated as having the least invested in

the community, which can affect they way other members view messages and

threads posted by members with this type of identifiers.

As newbies also have the

least to lose when it comes to their face-claims in the community, they sometimes

have to deal with accusations of registering in order to troll the community or

spread their own agenda.

This is especially true if the person is identified as just

recently becoming a member of the community.

An example of this would be a

thread discussing the behavior of person X, who is a member of another online

community.

While everyone else seems to be of the same opinion about the topic,

person Y stoutly defends person X.

If the other members in this occasion see that

person Y is labeled with status-lowering identifiers (newbie avatar, just registered

an account), it is very likely that someone will accuse person Y of being, in fact,

person X, or at least one of their close supporters.

A very different position is reserved for the other end of the scale, where we have

the moderators (mods) and administrators (admins) of the community.

These are

often people who have spent years in the community and posses a special interest

in the particular sub-forum they are supervising.

The moderators have the right to

punish members that break the established rules of the community, or otherwise

act in an undesirable way.

These punishments can take many forms, ranging from

a temporary probation for minor offenses to a permanent ban from the whole

community, in which case the offender is not only evicted, but also denied the

right to ever purchase another account.

Considering that registering just a basic

account on SA costs 10 dollars, one can see that the moderators hold a fair amount

of power in this particular community.

In order to prevent the moderators from

abusing their power, the rules of the community require that a suggested

punishment by one mod is reinforced by another before it can be put into action.

Since the punishments for an offense can be quite severe, SA is also known for

having a well documented, extensive list of rules, which the members often

consult in dispute situations.

These rules are recommended reading to newcomers

to the community, and the SA rules even include a section called ”Message to the

Newbies”.

We here on the Something Awful Forums are very elitist and strict assholes.

We pride

ourselves on running one of the most entertaining and troll-free forums on the internet.

This is accomplished by charging a $10 fee to filter out folks not serious about adhering

to the rules, and banning those who manage to slip through and break them.

We are very

serious about keeping our forums clean and troll-free, so please consider your account

an investment and treat it accordingly.

Read the rules, use common sense, and help keep

the SA Forums the best message board on the internet!

It is also strongly suggested that before registering an account on the forums a

person should lurk for a while, in order to understand what type of behavior could

potentially be frowned upon in the community.

The main rules stated on the actual

SA rules page are as follows and concern all the sub-forums in the community.

Low Content Posts: Please do not make posts containing no content (i.

e, "first post,"

"hello, I'm new here," etc.

).

These just litter up the forums and with over 100,000

registered users, we need to eliminate these as much as possible.

If you do not like a

thread, then just vote it a "1" and move on; replies consisting solely of trolling fall into

this category.

As a general rule, write as if you were speaking in real life to another

human being.

Do not use any catchphrases, memes, internet slang, or any other crap that

makes you look like a 12-year old.

Worthless Posts: We do not care if you are drunk or high; please do not inform us of

either.

Please do not register gimmick accounts and make posts as a gimmick, as they

are not funny.

Please do not post crap asking us to vote for you on some website, give

you referrals for free i Pods / flatscreens / spare tires, or any other semi-spam things.

Forum Fuckery: Don't gently caress up the forums or any user on the forums.

If you post a

malicious link (any URL with spyware or code designed to annoy people) you will be

banned.

Do not vote spam a thread with your friends because you don't like the person

who posted it; this makes the voting feature useless.

Do not make plans to annoy /

destroy other forums.

Stay On Target: Try to use the appropriate thread tag for your post.

This helps people

find your thread and makes the forums more user friendly.

Do not use the mod-only tags

or you will be autobanned by the server.

Contained Conflict: Keep all flamewars and other arguments in their appropriate

forums (FYAD, YCS, etc).

Respect the Mods and Writers: The moderators are here to keep the forums safe, sane,

and secure.

If they ask you to do something, please do it.

Please do not harass or

intentionally annoy the mods or insult the front page writers.

If you do not like the mods

or the moderation, feel free to not post here.

Harass and Sass: If somebody is harassing you on the forums then discuss it with them

over PM or email before contacting a mod about it.

Flames and insults do not constitute

harassment.

Please do not post others' personal information (phone number, addresses,

emails, etc.

).

Try to stay out of other peoples' personal lives as well.

Keep in mind

there's a good distinction between the Internet and real life.

Account Ability: Only one person may use a forum account.

Account sharing is a

bannable offense, so please keep your password secure.

Crazy Catchall: Please do not try to cleverly circumvent some rule listed here.

These

rules are general guidelines and are very flexible.

FYAD Freedoms: You cannot post illegal material, harass others by posting their

personal information or nude photos, spam thread subject lines to break the forum

tables, harass any admins or mods, or start forum invasions in FYAD.

I Hate Speech: Offensive terms such as "human being" or "friend of the family" may or may not be

bannable based on context of the sentence.

If they were meant as humor with absolutely

no offensive slurs meant, the user may not be banned or probated.

This rule is

completely, 100% subjective and is based on the mod reading the post at the time.

Use at

your own peril.

(SA forums 2012)

Aside from these general rules, there are also specific guidelines for posting

images, dealing with moderators and even a list of issues that may ”annoy” the

moderators.

This is not all, as each sub-forum may also have their own set of

rules, which are usually stated in a sticky (i.

e.

a thread which will always remain at

the top of the page by default) and enforced by the particular moderators of the

sub-forum.

For example, the Let's Play sub-forum contains an additional rule

prohibiting games with explicit sexual content (aka hentai games).

If a member of the community does break the rules enough to warrant a

punishment from a moderator, their personal profile is changed to point out the

nature of the punishment (probation, ban etc), the moderator who decided on that

punishment and the possible duration of it.

By clicking on this person's

punishment, which is visible beneath their name on every post they have made,

the other users are directed to a page where all that member's violations and

punishments are viewable by everyone else belonging to the community.

These

violations may also include comments from the moderator who requested the

punishment in the first place, such as “Trolling, don't come back here” or “No

need to get angry, take some time off”.

One interesting feature of the SA rules is that aside from the normal practice of

stating the norms of acceptable behavior, SA rules also control the level of

knowledge content present in the messages posted to the community.

As an

example of this, issues as ”low content” and ”worthless posts” seem to be equally

punishable compared to offenses such as “hate-speech” or “spamming”.

Indeed, it

appears that the SA community takes a fairly strict view on the type of Internet

slang which is used freely on many other online communities.

For example, while

the acronyms such as LOL (laughing out loud) may not be officially forbidden, I

have witnessed many occasions where a member of the community has been

punished for using Internet slang, or failing to express themselves understandably.

tokin opposition posted:

didn't even notice the slurs but it's kinda funny to probe someone for quoting the (old) rules

anyway they're removed

Platystemon posted:

They’re also the current rules, linked in the header.

tokin opposition posted:

Crazy Catchall: Please do not try to cleverly circumvent some rule listed here. These rules are general guidelines and are very flexible.

HootTheOwl posted:

Prester Jane?

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Kodak just released a new Super-8 film camera, for $5k. Continuing their trend of purposefully trying to go out of business.

mawarannahr posted:

wtf

Let’s play something awful: a historical analysis of 14 years of threads

Brian McKitrick, Martin Gibbs, Melissa J Rogerson, Bjørn Nansen, Charlotte Pierce
Internet Histories 7 (2), 122-140, 2023

-

McKitrick, B., Rogerson, M., Gibbs, M., & Nansen, B. (2023). “What are you Bringing to the Table?”: The Something Awful Let’s Play Community as a Serious Leisure Subculture. Games and Culture, 18(3), 402-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221101310

Just awful enough: the functional dysfunction of the something awful forums
CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 2014 Pages 2407–2410 https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557193

-

Conflict talk in online communities: a comparative study of the Something Awful and 4chan web-forums (2012)

Leena Hagman

1glitch0 posted:

Oh man I hope I'm named.

1glitch0 posted:

Oh man I hope I'm named.

Nichael posted:

There's also a Jitterbug type phone for trendy yuppies who want to live "disconnected" from screens or some bullshit. It's such an incredible market niche, for the most self-absorbed assholes on Earth.

lmao

Second Hand Meat Mouth posted:

Nichael posted:

https://x.com/Gizmodo/status/1727456952605941979?s=20