Friday, May 26, 2006

Flirting in chat rooms

Obvious research:
A study by the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering found that chat room participants with female usernames received 25 times more threatening and/or sexually explicit private messages than those with male or ambiguous usernames. ...

"Some messages to female usernames were innocuous, while others were sexually explicit ..." ...

The researchers also determined that simulated users or "bots" are not behind most of the malicious messages. "The extra attention the female usernames received and the nature of the messages indicate that male, human users specifically targeted female users," Cukier said.
Yes, of course females get more attention. It is not necessarily malicious to make a suggestive remark to a female name in an internet chat room. It is usually just flirting.

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