For the second year in a row, Myles Cramer (MPA '24) has won the policy track of Duquesne University’s annual Hacking4Humanity hackathon. The competition, which is open to graduate and undergraduate students at schools around the greater Pittsburgh area, offers students a new way to engage with real-world social problems that can be improved with novel technical and policy solutions. ‘Confronting Online Hate’ served as the theme for this year’s event, with students competing in either the tech or policy track alone or in groups of up to four.
On the policy side, each individual or group prepared a policy memo and a three-minute presentation on any topic addressing the broad issue of online hate. Cramer’s presentation titled “Protecting Youth from Hateful Conduct & Sexual Harassment Online” was chosen as the best policy recommendation of day, discussing how current FCC broadcast standards that prohibit obscenity, indecency, and profanity in traditional broadcast media could be expanded to online gaming platforms and protect youth from sexual harassment and exploitation on the internet.
"Three out of four young people have experienced some sort of online harassment while gaming, and a more serious form of that harassment is sexual and gender based harassment," Cramer explained in his presentation. "The thesis behind this project is that by expanding 'indecency and profanity standards,' the FCC could address aspects of sexual harassment online and improve youth safety."
Myles will travel to Harrisburg in March to present his project to the office of Governor Shapiro, alongside the hackathon’s other winners.
This is the second time in as many years that Pitt’s Public and International Affairs students have taken the grand prize for policies presented at this competition, with Cramer joining classmates Dan Rudy (MPA ’24), Ryan Druffner (MPIA ’24), and Emmaline Rial (MPA ’24) to win in 2023 with their memo and presentation entitled “Protecting Victims of Hateful, Non-consensual Deepfake Pornography.”
More details and the full list of winners can be found on the event's website.
