{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,13]],"date-time":"2026-04-13T19:54:22Z","timestamp":1776110062927,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"7","content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,18]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n            On social platforms like Twitter, strategic targeted attacks are becoming increasingly common, especially against vulnerable groups such as female journalists. Two key challenges in identifying strategic online behavior are the complex structure of online conversations and the hidden nature of potential strategies that drive user behavior. To address these, we develop a new tree-structured Transformer model that categorizes replies based on their hierarchical conversation structures, offering insights into the latent strategies underlying these interactions. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed classification model can effectively detect different user groups--namely attackers, supporters, and bystanders--and their latent strategies. To demonstrate the utility of our approach, we apply this classifier to real-time Twitter data and conduct a series of quantitative analyses on the interactions between journalistswith diverse cultural backgrounds and different groups of users--attackers, supporters, and bystanders. Our classification approach allows us to not only explore strategic behaviors of attackers but also those of supporters and bystanders who engage in online interactions. When examining the impact of online attacks, we find a strong correlation between the presence of attackers' interactions and\n            <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">chilling effects<\/jats:italic>\n            , where journalists tend to slow their subsequent posting behavior. Additionally, we find that attackers tend to negatively influence the posting behavior of other users within these conversations. As conversations deepen, replies often deviate from original posts and get more toxic. This paper provides a deeper understanding of how different user groups engage in online discussions and highlights the detrimental effects of attacker presence on journalists, other users, and conversational outcomes. Our findings underscore the need for social platforms to develop tools that address coordinated toxicity and foster healthier conversation dynamics. By detecting patterns of coordinated attacks early, platforms could limit the visibility of toxic content to prevent escalation. Additionally, providing journalists and users with tools for real-time reporting and de-escalation could empower them to manage hostile interactions more effectively. Enhanced moderation tools targeting coordinated behaviors, particularly among attackers, could ensure a safer environment for vulnerable groups like female journalists, ultimately supporting constructive discussions and resilient online communities.\n          <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3757668","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,16]],"date-time":"2025-10-16T17:06:01Z","timestamp":1760634361000},"page":"1-67","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["The Chilling: Identifying Strategic Antisocial Behavior Online and Examining the Impact on Journalists"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9545-3499","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yian","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4032-3501","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mukhilshankar","family":"Umashankar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7473-1418","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Eshwar","family":"Chandrasekharan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3315-6055","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hari","family":"Sundaram","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3097286.3097288"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/CDC45484.2021.9683414"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3134659"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3610191"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2660267.2660269"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3359276"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3134666"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3025453.3026018"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","first-page":"218","article-title":"Selection criteria in coordination games: Some experimental results","volume":"80","author":"Cooper Russell W","year":"1990","unstructured":"Russell W Cooper, Douglas V DeJong, Robert Forsythe, and Thomas W Ross. 1990. Selection criteria in coordination games: Some experimental results. The American Economic Review, Vol. 80, 1 (1990), 218-233.","journal-title":"The American Economic Review"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","volume-title":"Bert: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.04805","author":"Devlin Jacob","year":"2018","unstructured":"Jacob Devlin, Ming-Wei Chang, Kenton Lee, and Kristina Toutanova. 2018. Bert: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.04805 (2018)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2623330.2623703"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","volume-title":"Dynamic coordination games. Economic theory","author":"Gale Douglas","year":"1995","unstructured":"Douglas Gale. 1995. Dynamic coordination games. Economic theory, Vol. 5 (1995), 1-18."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/2056305119832588"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3491102.3502004"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/N19-1166"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/0471722146"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0899-8256(02)00504-3"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3479525"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3359252"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","volume-title":"Rethinking positional encoding in language pre-training. arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.15595","author":"Ke Guolin","year":"2020","unstructured":"Guolin Ke, Di He, and Tie-Yan Liu. 2020. Rethinking positional encoding in language pre-training. arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.15595 (2020)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","volume-title":"Political astroturfing on twitter: How to coordinate a disinformation campaign. Political communication","author":"Keller Franziska B","year":"2020","unstructured":"Franziska B Keller, David Schoch, Sebastian Stier, and JungHwan Yang. 2020. Political astroturfing on twitter: How to coordinate a disinformation campaign. Political communication, Vol. 37, 2 (2020), 256-280."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_22_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3610077"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_23_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v16i1.19314"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_24_1","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction","volume":"3","author":"Mariconti Enrico","year":"2019","unstructured":"Enrico Mariconti, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Nicolas Kourtellis, Ilias Leontiadis, Jordi Luque Serrano, and Gianluca Stringhini. 2019. '' You Know What to Do'' Proactive Detection of YouTube Videos Targeted by Coordinated Hate Attacks. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 3, CSCW (2019), 1-21."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_25_1","volume-title":"Sebastian Thrun, and Tom Mitchell.","author":"Nigam Kamal","year":"2000","unstructured":"Kamal Nigam, Andrew Kachites McCallum, Sebastian Thrun, and Tom Mitchell. 2000. Text classification from labeled and unlabeled documents using EM. Machine learning, Vol. 39 (2000), 103-134."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_26_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/P17-1082"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_27_1","first-page":"9343","article-title":"Integrating tree path in transformer for code representation","volume":"34","author":"Peng Han","year":"2021","unstructured":"Han Peng, Ge Li, Wenhan Wang, Yunfei Zhao, and Zhi Jin. 2021. Integrating tree path in transformer for code representation. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, Vol. 34 (2021), 9343-9354.","journal-title":"Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_28_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/2022.emnlp-main.210"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_29_1","volume-title":"Rana Ayyub: Targeted online violence at the intersection of misogyny and Islamophobia. Big Data Case Study","author":"Posetti Julie","year":"2023","unstructured":"Julie Posetti, Kalina Bontcheva, Hanan Zaffar, Nabeelah Shabbir, Diana Maynard, and Mugdha Pandya. 2023. Rana Ayyub: Targeted online violence at the intersection of misogyny and Islamophobia. Big Data Case Study. International Center for Journalists."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_30_1","volume-title":"The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists. UNESCO.","author":"Posetti Julie","year":"2021","unstructured":"Julie Posetti, Nabeelah Shabbir, Diana Maynard, Kalina Bontcheva, and Nermine Aboulez. 2021. The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists. UNESCO."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_31_1","volume-title":"The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists. Washington","author":"Possetti Julie","year":"2022","unstructured":"Julie Possetti and Shabbir Nabeelah. 2022. The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists. Washington, International Center For Journalists (2022), 13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/D19-1410"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_33_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3442381.3449861"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_34_1","volume-title":"Coordination patterns reveal online political astroturfing across the world. Scientific reports","author":"Schoch David","year":"2022","unstructured":"David Schoch, Franziska B Keller, Sebastian Stier, and JungHwan Yang. 2022. Coordination patterns reveal online political astroturfing across the world. Scientific reports, Vol. 12, 1 (2022), 4572."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_35_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3447548.3467391"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_36_1","volume-title":"Self-attention with relative position representations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.02155","author":"Shaw Peter","year":"2018","unstructured":"Peter Shaw, Jakob Uszkoreit, and Ashish Vaswani. 2018. Self-attention with relative position representations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.02155 (2018)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_37_1","volume-title":"Novel positional encodings to enable tree-based transformers. Advances in neural information processing systems","author":"Shiv Vighnesh","year":"2019","unstructured":"Vighnesh Shiv and Chris Quirk. 2019. Novel positional encodings to enable tree-based transformers. Advances in neural information processing systems, Vol. 32 (2019)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_38_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3359265"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_39_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/g1030242"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_40_1","article-title":"Visualizing data using t-SNE","volume":"9","author":"der Maaten Laurens Van","year":"2008","unstructured":"Laurens Van der Maaten and Geoffrey Hinton. 2008. Visualizing data using t-SNE. Journal of machine learning research, Vol. 9, 11 (2008).","journal-title":"Journal of machine learning research"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_41_1","unstructured":"Ashish Vaswani Noam Shazeer Niki Parmar Jakob Uszkoreit Llion Jones Aidan N Gomez \u0141ukasz Kaiser and Illia Polosukhin. 2017. Attention is all you need. In Advances in neural information processing systems. 5998-6008."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_42_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s13278-021-00815-2"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_43_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3366423.3380274"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_44_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2348283.2348358"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_45_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2623330.2623715"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_46_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2487575.2487648"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_47_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18653\/v1\/P18-1125"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_48_1","volume-title":"International conference on machine learning. PMLR, 11692-11702","author":"Zuo Simiao","year":"2020","unstructured":"Simiao Zuo, Haoming Jiang, Zichong Li, Tuo Zhao, and Hongyuan Zha. 2020. Transformer hawkes process. In International conference on machine learning. PMLR, 11692-11702."}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/3757668","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]],"date-time":"2025-10-17T01:54:59Z","timestamp":1760666099000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3757668"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,16]]},"references-count":48,"journal-issue":{"issue":"7","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,18]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/3757668"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3757668","relation":{},"ISSN":["2573-0142"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2573-0142","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,16]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2025-10-16","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}