The Center for Emerging Media's Marc Steiner Show aired a talk with our girl Jill from Feministe, the amazing Latoya from Racialicious and Danielle Citron from the University of Maryland (whose research is on online harassment) to discuss the ways that the blogosphere has been extremely hostile to female bloggers and what can be done to create a safer environment.
I'd bet every blogger who is a woman has experienced some form of online harassment. This is definitely a necessary discussion to be had. Click here to listen to the show, I'm waiting on the transcript.
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"Harrasment" and the Internet go hand in hand. The Internet is just the perfect medium for petty little people to act up anonomously.
And so, i'd like to take this opportunity to praise Feministing and all the good stuff you guys do over here.
There is a hell of a lot that I DONT like about this place, but I appreciate the job you guys do in maintaining a (usually) civil discourse on things that need discussing.
Why are you putting harassment in quotation marks? Do you think that the sexual remarks and threats of violence often directed toward female bloggers don't constitute real harassment?
"Harrasment" and the Internet go hand in hand. The Internet is just the perfect medium for petty little people to act up anonomously.
And so, i'd like to take this opportunity to praise Feministing and all the good stuff you guys do over here.
There is a hell of a lot that I DONT like about this place, but I appreciate the job you guys do in maintaining a (usually) civil discourse on things that need discussing.
I think the gentlemen at Penny-Arcade.com have a pretty solid theory; http://sc.tri-bit.com/images/7/7e/greaterinternetfuckwadtheory.jpg
Cheers,
SPiHC
I've dealt with internet harassment for years. It's aggravating, annoying and downright creepy sometimes. I've left a site due to so many people (predominately women in this case)constantly harassing me over my pro-choice stance. Some of the comments were downright brutal. One woman told me, "maybe your mommy should have had one." That one was more comical than cruel. There were some nasty remarks though. I ended up abandoning the account because there was no way to delete my profile.
I've been bothered on my personal myspace page. A couple times by individuals who found my links to the page from other site profiles that I had forgotten about. They'd (more or less) take the stalker route and message me there with why I'm such a bitch for being so liberal. Pardon me for not being fond of conservative viewpoints. Not to mention I'm sick to death of the same "liberal vs. conservative" debate.
On live journal I've had anonymous comments varying from grade school insults to people wanting to pick fights because I was involved in animal rights and was voicing my opinion on FFA and the like.
On an anti-declaw advocacy page I maintain I had a not so pleasant encounter with a girl who decided to tell me why she's pro-life and having three children of her own. She went on to tell me to "don't even give me that rape shit because I was raped and it's not the baby's fault.." Something to that effect with horrendous misspellings. I felt horrible for laughing when she typed "rapped" rather than "raped". She eventually left me alone after I started to delete her messages without reading. I had no interest in her life story and I doubt she'd care to hear my side of things either.
I don't post personal profile links just anywhere anymore. I've upped my privacy on some sites and keep to myself. I've had more than my fair share of harassment. I'm just thankful I haven't had any serious threats.
I often get comments telling me to just stick to blogging about diapers and baby food, and I regularly get called a c***. And then if I do talk about motherhood issues, I get comments telling me to stay in the kitchen where I belong and get off the internet.
Hey, look on the bright side: If people hate us this much, we're obviously doing something right!
PEOPLE (note: gender neutral) experience harassment online all the time. FRAs and MRAs receive a shit-ton of harassment daily in our emails.
Since the internet began, people experienced harassment, flaming, and trolling.
Why is it suddenly an "issue"? Because women experience it? Welcome to life. Now cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it. If you need me to call the waaaambulance, let me know.
This reminds me of the whole "take back the night" crap. 1 in *4* people who experience a violent crime is a WOMAN. OMG NO TEH WIMMINZ, SOUND ZEE ALARM!
Just because internet harassment happens all the time doesn't mean it's alright and we should "get over it". No one is whinging, "Oh whoa is me, someone doesn't like me." Some cases of harassment are severe enough to summon police. It isn't a joking matter to be taken lightly. Especially when this behavior can be carried over to every day life.
Yeah because 1 in 4 women being the victim of a violent crime is such a small insignificant number. Lets see, that's only a quarter of all women we're talking about here...and don't forget the fact that 99% of all rapists are men. That is such an unimportant statistic as well. We might as well not mention any of this because everyone here knows that it's all bull, especially the one about men being rapists, everyone knows that men don't rape women - it's actually lizard people dressed up as men! [sarcasm]
Hey "skin", no one here cares what an MRA Glenn Sacks worshiping turd has to say, so fuck off.
(btw, any of those stats (i.e. 1/4 women, 99% rapists are men) can be backed up by law enforcement / the department of justice - but all good little MRA trolls know that "facts" pulled out of one's ass is more reliable than facts from the department of justice)
The report put together by Citron is VERY good. It really details the problem and goes into ways to address it.
If anyone feels the need to respond to any cranks that have some problem with reading and comprehension and post proof of that in these comments, I suggest you refrain and read the report. Its a much better use of your time than responding to just any anonymous misogynist with a keyboard (so many assholes, so little originality....)
Timely! I was just threatened the other day with rape and mutilation ("I will rape and mutilate you") on Youtube because someone didn't like my vlog. Nice. Well, I tried reporting it to Youtube, and they said my form was caught by their spam filter and won't be read. It wasn't even a random sockpuppet account (they had videos and friends and stuff) so at least the user would get SLIGHTLY inconvenienced if their account was deleted but ... oh well.
I get a little bit of other harassment c/o the vlog. I talk about a few feminist issues but I do generally just talk about whatever pops into my head and so I get those daddy types who think that because I'm a young female they can talk down to me. Blah blah blah. (Most of my viewers are men between 45-55 or so, which is slightly creepy but expected, I guess.) That is what the block button is for, I suppose.
I sometimes worry about stalking and whatnot, since I am vlogging and putting a face on myself (or whatever that means), but I'm only ... encouraged by the fact that I'm probably thousands of miles away from most or all of the viewers. Most of my viewers are in the US and I am not. Whee. So if you want to rape and mutilate me, you'll have to pay $1000 and hop on a 14 hour flight. And then find me in an overcrowded sea of people.
I used to get a little bit of harassment when I was in forums where those daddy types were rampant. And I was much younger at that time. But I wised up and stopped hanging out there and then all that stopped. Oh, and OKCupid. I ditched that account on account of all the harassment I was getting for talking about gender and feminism and whatsits. Oh well. I'm better for not using OKCupid anymore.
I once got a comment on one of my vlogs that told me to kill myself. That really got to me because I've been suicidal in the past. It's not something to take lightly. I didn't think to report, instead I blocked the user and deleted the comment. I also disabled the comments to that video. I have another which I decided that if I get one more hateful comment on it, I will disable the comments there too.
I've experienced it as well -- usually it's not such a big deal, but there was one time where a line was really, really crossed. I was in a discussion with some guys about something (I think it was about whether the word "skinheads" usually refers to white supremacists -- the guys were arguing that it didn't) and at one point they just started talking to each other about what a bitch/whore/cunt I was, completely ignoring what I had to say. Okay, fine, annoying but whatever. But, after I called them on it, one of them said "See, this is why we shouldn't have let them vote," posted a GIANT picture (took up practically the entire screen) of a young anime girl's face, beaten black-eyed and bloody but still smiling in that insipid anime sort of way, with the text: "Who told you you could leave the kitchen?" and followed up with the comment (of course) "Either make me a sandwich or stfu."
I can't quite explain why, but it really felt like a really real threat, and one (I'm looking at you, IthacaSkin) that relied on a specifically gender-based context and mode of attack. If there had been some way to "report" this or otherwise do something about it, I definitely would have, but as far as I know there isn't really -- and the effect was to shut out both mine and all other women's voices in the conversation on the whole, because even though we ostensibly have a choice on whether or not to leave, no one should have to put up with that level of terrorizing.
"Just because internet harassment happens all the time doesn't mean it's alright and we should "get over it"."
You're right- just because something happens all the time is no reason to get over it. However, a few good reasons to get over it is:
1) Just because someone disagrees with you, or calls you an asshat, is no reason to blat on and on about online "harassment".
2) Online harassment is different from real life harassment- in real life, you can call the cops or have the person fired. Online, it's *up to you* to delete the comments and ban the person from interacting with you.
3) The Internet is the last FREE SPEECH place anywhere in the world, since Political Correctness has destroyed it everywhere else. You're just going to have to accept that fact that along with free speech comes the situation where someone says something that upsets you. Ohwellgetover it.
4) Unless you turn the Internet into another outpost of Political Correctness, online harassment will never stop. People will still voice their opinions in the last safe place they have to voice them- online. Instead of whining about it, maybe notice just how many people voice negative opinions on feminism- not just men, but the women too.
"No one is whinging, "Oh whoa is me, someone doesn't like me." Some cases of harassment are severe enough to summon police. It isn't a joking matter to be taken lightly. Especially when this behavior can be carried over to every day life."
Misleading and misconstrued, at best. Before making a case like this, you need to draw solid lines, not make big vague sweeping statements. Can online "harassment" be carried over in real life? In 99.9999999999% of the cases, no, it cannot, as the people have no real idea who you are and probably live thousands of miles away. Personally, as much as I might hate a person, I'm not willing to travel hundreds or thousands of miles just to stalk them. That's ludicrous.
Just because something "can" happen is no reason at all. All people "can" murder. Is that a reason to cut off everyone's arms? I "can", theoretically, trace your IP and find out what town you live in. Is that a reason to shut off the Internet?
Really, there's no real reason to get so worked up over online "harassment". If someone in your locality is scaring you, then by all means, call the police. However, if someone who lives in Florida and you live in Montana, then just gtfoverit.
The only reason to get up in arms over it is to initiate a campaign to silence detractors. This will probably never happen online.
I'm not one to preach PC and restrict free speech. Although my experiences are at most laughable there have been cases of harassment, yes genuine harassment, taken much too far. It doesn't matter if it's someone in another state or in the same neighborhood. Telling people to kill themselves and such, sexual harassment is just being ignorant.
Yes it's going to happen whether people like it or not. Harassment isn't strictly a female issue either. Mocking it as you did in your first comment isn't any better than the unwanted comments being discussed. Sure being an asshole is protected free speech but typically it's just as obnoxious as telling someone that they're ugly in a photo comment.
Serious cases of online harassment that have been taken "too far" (I'm taking this to mean: In Real Life) were perpetrated by people the victim new In Real Life. The harassment typically started In Real Life, and took place online and In Real Life in parallel. So it's not an example of "online harassment" as much as it is an example of the internet being used as an accessory or medium of Real Life harassment.
If someone threatens you over the computer, big deal. If someone actually acts on those threats, then that is a situation for the police or FBI.
It is doubtful, oh so highly doubtful, that 1 in even a million threats are serious or ever acted upon.
It is also doubtful that a person who takes the proper procedures (retaining anonymity) online has any Real Life risk.
It is also doubtful that a person with sufficient computer skills (read: Hackers) would actually take the time to trace IPs, stalk online, and do something in real life.
You're only real threat from an online "harasser" are if they live near you or know you in real life.
In fact, the only reason there's even any articles on feminist blogs, and the only reason online "harassment" has even become an issue, as illustrated by this particular page, is that some female (and feminist) bloggers were the recipients of some nasty posts and arguments were presented to them to the contrary of their ideological beliefs.
So here, limiting Free Speech, which is sacred on the Internet, and guising it under a campaign to stop harassment, we see that it is another method of thought control.
It might be worth your while to read something like this, a simple news article from a mainstream site that documents some of the kinds of stuff that we're talking about when we say "harassment" here, and the magnitude of the problem. It's really not that all us female bloggers are just whiny little girls with thin skin who can't deal with a civil disagreement or two.
"In 99.9999999999% of the cases" Evidence? Oh yeah, not so much
I love how unsafe the world has become for non-feminists too. That sux!
Bwahahahaha.
"thought control" again bwahahahahaha.
This stuff just keeps getting better. Those damn feminists and their amazing thought control.
The sacred freedoms of teh internets. tee hee
What else would you call it?
If you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of "harassment", and then lobby to make "online harassment" illegal, then you create an environment where dissenting opinions are illegal. What's this called again? Oh yeah, propaganda and fascism.
Sure, sometimes the way in which they disagree could be labeled offensive, and there's no doubt about that. However, making this huge campaign against people who disagree with you simply because some of what they say is unsavory to you, is an example of 1 party politics. What's that called again? Oh yeah, fascism and tyranny.
If you then moderate the content of the Internet, and lobby to have "hate sites" removed, that is impeding 1st Amendment rights and creating an environment where anyone who disagrees with your political doctrine as "hate speech" and removed. What's this called again? What's "agree with me or be punished called"?
Oh yeah. Thought control.
At any rate, this whole thing is another example of victim feminism. "The blogsphere is extremely hostile to female bloggers." Let's look at that claim. To date, has a single feminist blog been shut down by blogger.com, or have the authors of said blogs been investigated by the authorities?
As far as I know, "no" and "no".
But take a look at dissenters of liberal/feminist political ideallogy... several MRA blogs have been shut down (Fred X, Angry Harry, to name only 2), and people who write negative opinions about affirmative action have in the past been investigated for "hate speech".
So we would see in that way, the blogsphere is actually very accommodating to feminists and liberal blogs, but outright hostile and directly deleterious to blogs of the contrary.
Of course, you're always going to have that 1 or 2 nutters with 5 different handles who sign up for the sole purpose of spreading feces through a blog. The solution? Just friggin' delete and ban them.
Of course, you always have the people who express valid, logical opinions *with some hard language*. Instead of crying about it and using it an excuse to silence a detractor, just be academically MATURE and *deal with it*. It's life.
Instead don't cry about it and say "something needs to be done.'
This is an example of victim feminism because it falls along the lines of "oh noes, sum1 insulted the wimminz, we haev to maek shur no1 can insult the wimminz, so letz pass nulaws ti maek "hate blogs" illegal, so thowse blogs get shutted down, and lets maek it illegal to disagree with us, labeling it "harassment" so dat these ppl can goes to jail if we dunt like wat they say."
I'm glad the Internet is such a free place. Boo@ those who would seek to cause regulation.
I agree with your superficial point, which is that people should be able to put whateverthehell they want on the internet (and read whateverthehell they like, too). That's not what the OP is about though. The OP is about actual harassment directed at a particular person. If you think that going to a woman's blog and telling her that you're going to come to her house and rape her is about on par with putting up your own anti-affirmative action blog, then... I just don't know what to tell you, but you've got problems.
tl;dr
That wasn't really meant to be a personal attack at all, I genuinely mean to say that I can't wrap my mind around the notion that someone would see personal threats of physical harm to be anywhere near the same category as political disagreement (with the obvious implication that all your concern for freedom of speech/thought/whatever is misplaced if we're talking about the former and not the latter).
I've been called every name in the book and dealt with endless, bothersome messages and comments that I (of course) delete, block and move on. Yes it irritates me and if it's on a really shitty day I can get upset. There's nothing like having a stranger ridicule me over why they think I'm the biggest douchebag because I support "killing babies" when I just came back from a dear friend's funeral. I love it. I'm fucking upset from losing a friend and someone is going to freak out on me and they do not even fucking know me. I'm human and have emotions so I'll whine on occasion and move on. And like I said before my experiences aren't even the worst and may or may not qualify as harassment by your standards. Whatever it is, it's unprovoked and is completely unnecessary.
I find it absolutely ridiculous through that some people will go as far as searching other sites for someone just to bother them. Call it harassment, stalking, hate mail what have you. It's not necessary, it's upsetting to some people and it's just fucking aggravating. Now if someone is leaving me death threats you bet your ass I'm going to do more than just block and delete. Why wouldn't I take a death threat seriously? Wouldn't every normal, healthy person take it as a serious matter?
Thanks for this - I am super new to blogging and already there's a 15-page thread about me on the SomethingAwful forums and 2 pages on digitalgangster, both with my picture. I think this oughta help.
Post links, I really don't believe you post on either site.
No one here has to answer to you.
Um, I don't. And if you do you should be able to find it. I really have no interest in turning another random troll onto threads that personally attack me.
This was an interesting podcast; I'm about 3/4 through it.
The podcast mentioned some very specific behaviors such as slander, photo shopped nooses next to people's head, threatening one's kids, posting kid's names, home addresses, cyber-attacking people's websites and shutting them down: these are all indefensible acts. We need not get into the slippery slope arguments about free speech because it is already established that harassment, threats and slander, etc are not protected.
It's also an error in reasoning to argue that since everybody (meaning guys) has to deal with harassment that it's not a problem that warrants action. Referring to individuals as cry babies for example, adds absolutely nothing to the merits of the discussion and only further serves to shut down the conversation. Sound familiar? Frankly, threats of violence are not something that we should be looking to "keep up with the guys" on. If anything, the reports from people with both neutral and feminine web handles already suggest that the level of violent sexual harassment exceeds what men face, anyway. It's not surprising that what happens in real life is mirrored online.
At minimum we need a way to compile data, even if the method is less than scientific. It could be something as low key as a cyber-hollaback or some other gizmo or reporting system--at least we can keep the conversation going this way, then go from there.
"The podcast mentioned some very specific behaviors such as slander, photo shopped nooses next to people's head, threatening one's kids, posting kid's names, home addresses, cyber-attacking people's websites and shutting them down: these are all indefensible acts."
It is sounding a lot like 4chan/anonymous style attacks. I hate to say it but good luck stopping them. These style attacks are highly effective and have been made almost into an art.
It is a silencing technique. If you allow the attacks to see you are frightened they run. It is a form of terrorism. They want you to think about what you are going to say next time so they get their way. Yeah, it is tough seeing your face next to a noose and your house in a screenshot from google maps. Especially if they get a hold of your personal information. But you just have to keep going on. Because the FBI doesn't have the time to work on this type of thing (it is difficult tracking people online, especially if they know what they are doing), it takes too many resources and is something that falls into a grey area of law.
This kind of thing is here to stay. Filtering technology might in the future be able to stop it but for now nothing will fix it.
"Speared, completely."
HA HA HA HA HA!!!! You obviously
1) Did not even listen to the podcast;
2) Read my post as you have made points against things that are not relevant to the conversation. For example, I never argued anything about posting ONE's OWN address and kid's names online. I was referring to what was mentioned in the podcast which you obviously did not listen to otherwise you wouldn't have address that point the way you did. Oops!;
3) Don't understand the usefulness of non-scientific data. Polls and surveys are good example of this. Furthermore it's a place to start because it let's you know where to focus further research. Hell, maybe the problem really is being blown out of proportion. But hell if I'm going to take your word for it. No thanks. The first step in research is often simple observation and asking questions. Oops again for you!
How embarrassing for you! But thanks for the entertainment.
Troll is gone folks, sorry for the delay!
20 minutes later, troll is back, here: http://community.feministing.com/2009/01/president-obama-overturn-the-g.html#comment-214469 as "The Skinhead." Aw look, he has an MRA blog and he linked to us! How cute.