Science in brief:

Banning eating-disorder search terms backfires

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - 18:27 StudyHall.Rocks

Website users with eating disorders still connect online.

The intentions were good: A social media website banned search terms used by people who intentionally choose a “pro-eating disorder” lifestyle. The problem is that banning the words backfired, according to Georgia Tech researchers.

    Those in pro-eating disorder communities intentionally choose eating disorders -- such as anorexia or bulimia -- as acceptable ways of living. To connect online, they use hash-tags such as “thinspiration and thigh gap.” The website Instagram censored these words in 2012, a Georgia Tech news release recounted. Users could post the censored terms, but they would not show up in search results.
    In studying how users responded to the censorship, Georgia Tech researchers examined 2.5 million pro-eating disorder posts from 2011 to 2014, the news release said. While postings of the censored terms decreased, eating-disorder communities made up new terms. Instead of typing "thinspiration, "they searched using thynspiration and thynspo. Thighgap became thightgap and thygap. Also, participation in the pro-eating disorder groups increased by as much as 30 percent.
    Stevie Chancellor, a doctoral student, led the study-- "#thyghgapp: Instagram Content Moderation and Lexical Variation in Pro-Eating Disorder Communities,” which was recently presented at a conference on social computing.

Gun laws can make a difference: Among the many issues in the presidential campaign: Should the government tighten gun ownership laws? Research from Columbia University shows that there is good reason to do just that.
    Gun violence tends to decline after countries pass restrictions on gun purchasing and ownership, according to new research. The review involved 130 studies conducted from 1950 to 2014 in 10 countries that had overhauled gun laws. Researchers found evidence of reduction in the firearm death rates in most of the countries after the laws were enacted, a university news release said.
    The study, published in the February issue of Epidemiologic Reviews, did not prove conclusively that restrictions reduce gun deaths. But researchers found that specific laws -- background checks and rules on storage -- can reduce certain kinds of gun deaths, such as intimate partner homicides and unintentional deaths in children.
    Laws that allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons or so-called “stand-your-ground” laws either had no effect or increased gun violence. The countries studied included the U.S., Australia, Austria, Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. Julian Santaella-Tenorio, a doctoral student in Epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School, is the study's lead author.

Case spotlights gun rights versus public safety

If you would like to comment, give us a shout, or like us on Facebook and tell us what you think.