Technologies

Twitter: Racist tweets after Euros final didn’t rely on anonymity

The torrent of abuse aimed at England’s footballers last month came almost exclusively from people who weren’t attempting to hide their identities.

If you’ve never been a victim of online abuse, it would be easy to assume that perpetrators of such abuse hide behind anonymous avatars and usernames that obscure their real identities. But that’s not the case.

Twitter revealed in a blog post Tuesday that when England’s footballers were targeted by racist abuse last month after they lost the Euro Cup final, 99% of the accounts it suspended were not anonymous.

The torrent of racist abuse aimed at three Black members of the England squad appeared on Twitter and Instagram in the hours following the match. It led commentators including Piers Morgan to demand that social media platforms prevent people from creating anonymous accounts in order to discourage them from posting racist comments.

The idea that anonymity is a primary factor in enabling perpetrators of abuse isn’t new, and in the UK there’s even been debate about whether to include banning anonymous online accounts in the upcoming Online Safety Bill. But the argument for social media sites to perform mandatory ID checks rests on the fallacy that if people can be held accountable for their actions, they won’t be racist.

The evidence Twitter provided on Tuesday validates what people of color have already been saying: that people will be racist regardless of whether or not an anonymous account shields them from the consequences. «Our data suggests that ID verification would have been unlikely to prevent the abuse from happening — as the accounts we suspended themselves were not anonymous,» said the company in a blog post.

Instagram didn’t immediately respond to a request for data on the accounts or comments it deleted for directing abuse at England’s footballers.

Also included in Twitter’s data was evidence that while abuse came from all over the world, the UK was by far the biggest country of origin for the abusive tweets. It also added that the majority of discussion of British football on the platform didn’t involve racist behavior, and that the word «proud» was tweeted more frequently on the day following the final than any other day this year.

For Twitter and other social media giants, putting tools in place to prevent racist abuse is an ongoing challenge. On Tuesday, Twitter said it would soon be trialing a new product feature that temporarily autoblocks accounts using harmful language. It’s also going to continue rolling out reply prompts, which encourage people to rethink what they’re tweeting if it looks like their language might be harmful. In more than a third of cases, this caused people to rewrite their tweet or not send it at all, according to the company.

«As long as racism exists offline, we will continue to see people try and bring these views online — it is a scourge technology cannot solve alone,» said Twitter in the blog post. «Everyone has a role to play — including the government and the football authorities — and we will continue to call for a collective approach to combat this deep societal issue.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 26, #899

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 26, #899

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough, with a really goofy purple category. If you need help sorting the answers into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Maybe?

Green group hint: Kate and Liz would also qualify.

Blue group hint: Think banking terms.

Purple group hint: Furry friends, with a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Verbs expressing possibility.

Green group: Women’s nicknames.

Blue group: Financial abbreviations.

Purple group: Backwards animals.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is verbs expressing possibility. The four answers are can, could, may and might.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is women’s nicknames. The four answers are Deb, Jan, Kat and Sue.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is financial abbreviations. The four answers are APR, CFO, IRA and SEC.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is backwards animals. The four answers are flow (wolf), god (dog), mar (ram) and tab (bat).

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Toughest Connections puzzles

We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.

#5: Included «things you can set,» such as mood, record, table and volleyball.

#4: Included «one in a dozen,» such as egg, juror, month and rose.

#3: Included «streets on screen,» such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.

#2: Included «power ___» such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.

#1: Included «things that can run,» such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 26 #633

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 26, No. 633.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun topic, especially if you love a certain mode of travel. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: All aboard!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Choo-choo!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GASP, GASPS, GAPS, PERT, SLEEP, GRATE, RATE, RAIN, BOAT, PASS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

COACH, QUIET, DINING, SLEEPER, OBSERVATION

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is PASSENGERTRAIN. To find it, start with the P that’s five letters down on the far left, and wind across and up.

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Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.