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Online hate in the form of trolling and cyber bullying has a grave impact on people. Some people have even taken their own lives because of such behaviour. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that prestigious institutions have started studying this subject matter.

Search giant Google has teamed up with researchers at Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences and the School of Computer Science & Informatics in order to gain a better understanding of hate speech on popular websites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

The initiative aims to unravel the social media ecosystem by looking at the complex relationship between user behaviour, flows of information and communication networks and how this can create socially abhorrent content.

“This is an innovative project that will generate computational social scientific insight into antagonistic online behaviour,” said Dr William Housley, the lead researcher and a Sociology Professor at Cardiff School of Social Sciences.

The project will also study the balance between self-identity, community, social cohesion, economy and culture, as well as freedom of speech during the digital age.

“Policy makers, commercial providers and relevant agencies require empirical data and social scientific interpretation in order to shape policy formulation, intervention and inform wider debates about the emerging contours, rights and obligations of digital citizenship in a 21st century democracy,” he added.

This project is important because people sometimes forget that social media is a form of communication where other human beings exist at both ends.

Neknominate, a game where a person posts a video of himself downing huge quantities of alcohol and then nominating a friend to outdo him, has become a social media craze with lethal consequences.

Believed to have originated in Australia, Neknominate started as a fun game, but the manner in which the drink was consumed became more outlandish while the amount of alcohol steadily increased.

For example, a woman was dared to strip in a supermarket while drinking beer. Another teenager guzzled alcohol from a toilet while his feet were held up by two acquaintances. Some even drank extreme cocktails with disgusting ingredients such as insects, dog food, engine oil, a dead mouse and a live goldfish.

As a result, five people under the age of 30 have died from the deadly alcoholic mix or excessive consumption.

“This is a lethal game,” said Drinkaware Medical Adviser Dr Sarah Jarvis in an interview with CNN.

“The point about alcohol is that it affects your ability to recognize that you’re in danger, and it absolutely affects your ability to react to danger. So we have a double whammy,” she added.

Neknominate is pure madness that needs to be stopped. Social media networks like YouTube and Facebook should also curtail it, said Brian Viner, whose own son has participated in the deadly drinking game.

“I was cross with him but more cross with the social media involved and the way this game has just spread,” he added.

Hackers are circulating credentials for FTP sites that include the New York Times and other organizations. These credentials are being offered for sale and some posted freely on forums and “hacker groups” around the Internet.

More than 7,000 FTP (file transfer protocol) sites are circulating, an analyst at Hold Security in Wisconsin says. The company monitors cyber-attacks and underground operations for hackers. It is responsible for noting the large data breaches at Target and Adobe Systems.

Black hat hackers are using the information to upload files to servers for unknown reasons. They could be planting software for use in distributed attacks, to gain further access into systems and networks, or to change website or other data.

The NYT says that they are taking steps to mitigate the attacks and close down the compromised servers and accounts, but did not elaborate any more.

Another organization on the list is UNICEF as well as several well-known Fortune 500 and other companies. Of the 7,000 credentials given, Hold Security says that many work, but most are either useless (do not allow file insertion) or no longer accessible.

So far, the perpetrators responsible for getting the FTP accounts is not known. They likely gained access to the FTP credentials through malware installed on worker’s computers at various organizations, key logging logins or similar. The list shows that many of the passwords are complex and not likely to have been gained through brute force guesswork.

Some of the files being uploaded to servers through the hacked credentials are .html files, which could be accessible to any Web browser and thus be used to spread more malware.

Internet trolls have the tendency to be sadists, psychopaths and followers of Machiavellianism, according to an online study conducted by psychologists from three Canadian universities: Winnipeg, Manitoba and British Columbia.

Machiavellianism is a philosophy that says that the end justifies the means, even if it means disregarding morality or exploiting others.

“It was sadism, however, that had the most robust associations with trolling of any of the personality measures. In fact, the associations between sadism and … scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists,” said the researchers.

Sadism is the tendency to derive satisfaction from the pain or emotional discomfort of other people. The study, which was recently published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, defined trolling as deceptive, disruptive or destructive behaviour on the internet with no apparent objective.

The study also noted that trolls post offensive comments because they enjoy how it angers other people, whereas cyberbullies say nasty things due to their limited comprehension or based on their beliefs regarding certain “hot button” issues.

Internet trolls exploit controversial topics to make certain individuals appear foolish or very emotional. If a person replies to their posts, trolling escalates further. Hence, internet neophytes are advised not to feed the trolls.

The research looked into the respondents’ internet behaviour, including the websites where they comment and the duration of their visits. They were also given personality tests that determined if they had a tendency toward sadism, narcissism, psychopathy or Machiavellianism.

The executive body of the European Union (EU) plans to globalise how the World Wide Web is governed in order to lessen the influence of the US government, which has implemented a massive spying program known as PRISM.

On February 12, the European Commission will file a policy paper that proposes the adoption of “concrete and actionable steps” to globalise key web functions, including the allocation of top-level domain names like .com and .org.

The US Commerce Department has indirect control over certain internet architecture elements, which it contractually grants to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

To ensure that internet traffic is routed properly, the executive branch of the EU will also suggest a timeline to completely internationalise the US-based ICANN, which manages important aspects of the internet’s backbone.

“Large-scale surveillance and intelligence activities have…led to a loss of confidence in the Internet and its present governance arrangements,” stated the draft policy paper previewed by the The Wall Street Journal.

The US Commerce Department previously said that it is open to discussions regarding how the internet is governed. However, the agency declined to reveal whether it would give up its control of certain internet architecture elements.

“The US government appreciates the thoughtful leadership of the internet technical community on this important issue,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence E. Strickling in January.

“We want to work collectively to make multi-stakeholder governance more inclusive while maintaining the stability of the open and innovative internet,” he added.

Apple hasn’t officially announced it yet, but the upcoming March event, at which the company usually rolls out new products or prototypes, is expected to include an announcement and rollout for the first upgrade to iOS 7, iOS 7.1. This will go along with the planned showcasing of the next-generation Apple TV.

The new iOS 7.1 has gone through several beta versions now, and seems to be close to launch-ready, if it isn’t already, so March would be good timing. Most of the updates aren’t earth-shaking or surprising and nobody is expected any kind of “secret” feature to be included.

Updates in beta so far have included tweaks to the way the Phone app works, improved Calendar, some speed improvements, and a lot of bug fixes. Outside of those changes, little else seems to be in the works if the beta versions so far have meant anything.

The greatest of those are the user-interface (UI) tweaks that have been made for the Phone. They can, for some, greatly simplify many things on the handset. The bug-fixes are, of course, a long time coming for many users and will make a lot of those who lamented upgrading to iOS 7 (some of whom even rolled back to the previous install) happier.

Now that we’re well into the month of February, we’re expecting to see an official announcement from Apple about whatever event they will be hosting in March.