The end of trolls? 14-year-old Trisha Prabhu plans to solve the problem of cyberbullying. The teenager was selected as a global finalist in the Google Science Fair 2014, with her project Rethink, which revolves around a simple idea: encouraging teens to reread hurtful messages before sending them out into the digital world.
“Preventing cyberbullying at its source”
Prabhu hypothesized that teens might be less likely to troll if they have a warning system in place. To test her theory, she created the “Baseline” and “Rethink” systems, which ask users to post a series of pre-defined messages. The difference between the two is that the latter system warns users of potentially offensive messages and offers them the opportunity to reconsider before sending. Prabhu then conducted a total of 1,500 anonymous tests with teens ages 12 to 18. After sorting and processing the results, she found that 67 percent of those using the “Baseline” system posted the malicious comments. In contrast, less than five percent of participants using “Rethink” posted the messages.
The young woman is now working on a prototype that will show how the “Rethink” system can be integrated with today’s plethora of social networking sites. “My design includes a sophisticated framework with a sensitive filtering system that really catches the harmful ‘messages,’” says Prabhu.
