This article was taken from The WIRED World in 2016 -- our fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

In June 2015, a Canadian teenager awaiting sentencing for harassment, hacking and hoax calling (we can't name him due to his age) explained to the court why he had terrorised women he met through the game League of Legends: he was bored. Among his techniques was "swatting" -- using fake emergency calls to send armed police to a victim's home, expecting armed resistance.


In recent years, swatting, along with doxxing -- releasing somebody else's private information online -- and threats of death, rape and violence have become increasingly prevalent. Targets have been as diverse as Olympian Tom Daley, historian Mary Beard, actress Zelda Williams and Labour MP Stella Creasy. In many cases, these threats were delivered using Twitter and other social networks, leading a frustrated Dick Costolo, then Twitter CEO, to exclaim in a leaked memo: "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years."

Costolo's memo was widely supposed to be related to the "Gamergate" controversy, which made headlines in autumn 2014. Representing a loose confederacy of socially conservative gamers and developers, right-wing pundits, men's-rights activists and opportunists, the hashtag -- coined inexplicably by the actor Adam Baldwin -- acted as a rallying call across online communities against progressive voices in gaming and beyond.

Read next BBC Three to stream League of Legends World Championships BBC Three to stream League of Legends World Championships

Many of these voices, including the initial targets, video-game developer Zoe Quinn and feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, had experienced abuse from similar sources before. This episode, however, pushed online harassment on to the front page of The New York Times and sparked a debate on the obligations of internet businesses.

In the aftermath of Costolo's memo, Twitter has enhanced its reporting mechanisms, introduced content filters and made it possible for friends to share collective block lists -- a feature previously offered by third-party services such as Block Together and The Block Bot.


Google has declared that it will no longer list "revenge porn" -- sexually explicit photographs shared often by angry exes -- in its search results. Even 4chan and reddit, traditionally hands-off in their administration of content, have started to delete forums and ban users advocating harassment, or co-ordinating attacks on individuals.

The eyes of government have also turned, slowly, towards the issue. Baroness Shields, former head of Facebook Europe, has joined the Cabinet as Minister for Internet Safety and Security. Her wide brief ranges from protecting children online to removing "extremist" content. In June 2015, New Zealand's parliament voted through a bill punishing cyber-bullying with up to two years in jail, winning praise but raising concerns about free speech.

Simon Milner, Facebook UK's director of policy, is also sceptical of the benefit of governmental strong-arm tactics: "There are some countries that think they need to reach for the legislative toolkit, but we haven't seen any examples of a country successfully doing that," he tells WIRED. "What works better is dialogue based on trust, where questions are asked, but everyone works together."

Given the sheer volume of online traffic, human solutions need to be supplemented by better and smarter automated responses.


Riot Games, maker of League of Legends, has implemented a range of social initiatives, reporting tools and peer reviews to clean up its community. With 7.5m playing simultaneously, hand-fixing every issue would be hugely labour intensive.

Riot's latest innovation is a system that scans messages flagged as offensive and automatically contacts the sender with a breakdown of where they crossed the line. As machine intelligence becomes cheaper and faster, harassing behaviour will be identified and neutralised before a human even encounters it. The technology is maturing, and the political will seems to be present. 2016 will be the year when a mixture of human action and algorithmic herd immunity will be brought to bear on harassers.

Daniel Nye Griffiths is a contributing editor at WIRED