Development of SNS Applications to Control Cyberbullying with Nudge Using Multilingual Translation

Cyberbullying on social networking sites can cause harm by increasing the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and attempts and should be controlled. To control cyberbullying in the long term, it is necessary to change the attitudes and behaviors of individuals who engage in harmful communication. In the current study, we focused on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), which are related to attitudes and behaviors. We developed two SNS applications (X-type and VRChat-type) that incorporate nudge using Multilingual Translation (NMT), which translates cyberbullying words into positive words in other languages. The process also exposes users to positive reactions from imaginary third parties who have seen these positive words. In this paper, we describe the development of two types of SNS applications and report the initial results of a pilot study to explore their potential utility.