Online harassment of women at risk of becoming 'established norm'

[Tennis]

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...hed-norm-study

Harassment of women online is at risk of becoming “an established norm in our digital society”, with women under 30 particularly vulnerable, according to the creators of a new Australian study.


Nearly half the 1,000 respondents in the research by the digital security firm Norton had experienced some form of abuse or harassment online. Among women under 30, the incidence was 76%.

Harassment ranged from unwanted contact, trolling, and cyberbullying to sexual harassment and threats of rape and death. Women under 30 were overrepresented in every category.

One in seven – and one in four women aged under 30 – had received general threats of physical violence. Almost one in ten women under 30 had experienced revenge porn and/or “sextortion”.

The online quantitative survey was carried out with 1,053 women in Australia aged 18 and over in February this year.

Similar research was done on men’s experience of harassment online, but those findings were held off in order to publicise International Women’s Day, as well as the fact that the issue is disproportionately experienced by women.

Researchers found that women received twice as many death threats and threats of sexual violence as men.

One in four lesbian, bisexual and transgender women who had suffered serious harassment online said their sexual orientation had been the target. One in five online harassment cases attacked a woman’s physical appearance.

The findings suggested that women believed that online abuse was a growing problem and felt powerless to act over it.

Seventy per cent of women said online harassment was a serious problem in 2016 and 60% said that it was getting worse. More than half the women surveyed felt the police needed to start taking victims seriously.

But 38% of those who had experienced online harassment chose to ignore it, and only 10% reported it to police.

Melissa Dempsey, senior director for the Asia Pacific region of Norton by Symantec, said the findings showed a need for greater awareness and collaboration between the IT industry and law enforcement agencies – before online harassment became “an established norm in our digital society”.

Harassment is overwhelmingly taking place on social media, which facilitates 66% of cases – three times as many as by email (22%) or text (17%). Twenty-seven per cent of the women surveyed changed the privacy settings of their accounts after their experience.

The findings will likely fuel the argument that social networks such as Twitter and Facebook need to take greater responsibility for harassment on their platforms.


Twitter announced in February a renewed push to tackle abuse and threats made on the network. Around the same time, Facebook launched a tool to offer support to users perceived to be at risk of suicide.

Tara Moss, a Canadian-Australian author and advocate who partnered with Norton to help design the survey, said online abuse was just one form of violence against women, all of which needed to be addressed.

With nearly 96,000 followers on Twitter, she said she had often been the target of abuse online, and received a spike in threats when she was made a patron of the Full Stop Foundation, tackling rape and sexual violence.

Georgie Harman, the chief execution of beyondblue, a long-time partner with Norton, said the mental health organisation’s work was increasingly being carried out digitally.

She was especially concerned by figures that more than one in five (22%) of respondents who had experienced online harassment felt depressed and that 5% felt suicidal.

Harman said 65% of contact made to beyondblue was by women.

The Norton study coincides with a separate survey of about 1,000 women working in the Australian media, which found that more than 40% had been harassed on social media in the course of their work.

The survey by Women in Media, an advocacy group supported by the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, found that 41% said they had been harassed, bullied or trolled on social media while engaging with audiences.

Several were silenced or changed career as a result of this harassment, which ranged included death threats and stalking. Sixty per cent of respondents agreed that it was more likely to be directed at women than men.

Only 16% of respondents were aware of their employer’s strategies to deal with threats on social media.

It's a real shame that a lot of normal women on the internet have to deal with this type of stuff. What more should be done to tackle this issue?

[negawonka]

Nothing?

I am for gender equality and that works both ways. If you can't take people being mean on the internet then get off the internet, regardless of your gender, race, religion, or orientation.

People say stuff to get the maximum rise out of people, it is just the way of the world. Policing the internet wont change that, it will just make the internet suck more.

[Mellomania]

Do someone have the graph where it shows that men are harassed more than women?
Don't have it on hand atm.

[Shadowferal]

Just need to turn off the pc...if anyone is worried about being un-pc.

[Underverse]

The crazy thing about the internet is that you can be anonymous.

[Deleted]

How about outlawing social media?

[Hana Song]

Do someone have the graph where it shows that men are harassed more than women?
Don't have it on hand atm.

https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=me...d8-c5iNCNRM%3A

[Gasper]

Do someone have the graph where it shows that men are harassed more than women?
Don't have it on hand atm.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/2...ne-harassment/

This is from 2014...

Basically just saying generally men are slightly more harassed than women. However Women (this should be obvious) get more harassment dealing with sexual harassment and stalking.

Its almost like... its like real life...

Shocker.

[Tennis]

Nothing?

I am for gender equality and that works both ways. If you can't take people being mean on the internet then get off the internet, regardless of your gender, race, religion, or orientation.

People say stuff to get the maximum rise out of people, it is just the way of the world. Policing the internet wont change that, it will just make the internet suck more.

How can you say that? You just read how serious the issue is and you say nothing should be done?

[negawonka]

How can you say that? You just read how serious the issue is and you say nothing should be done?

What serious issue? Is the serious issue that people are mean on the internet? Well lets just get rid of the internet - that will solve that problem real fast .

[Tennis]

Do someone have the graph where it shows that men are harassed more than women?
Don't have it on hand atm.

The thread is about women being harassed and you're talking about some unrelated graph?

[Treeskee]

If women don't want to get harassed online they should stop camping in CoD and the kids will leave them alone.

Seriously though, as people have said. It's the internet!!!!!!!!!! Shitheads will be shitheads and decent folks will still be decent (for the most part).

[Damajin]

I think the Tyler the Creator cyberbullying tweet is appropriate here.

[nextormento]

Bigger switch off buttons.
Acknowledging the reality that online harassment is disproportionately tilted against males before letting imbeciles pass legislation to feel good without solving anything.
Blocking, lots of tools and filters to block and ignore other users.

And cultivating the values of anonymity.

[Tennis]

What serious issue? Is the serious issue that people are mean on the internet? Well lets just get rid of the internet - that will solve that problem real fast .

threats of rape and death. Women under 30 were overrepresented in every category.

Go read the OP bud.

[Shiira]

The thread is about women being harassed and you're talking about some unrelated graph?

If online harrasment is such an issue to you why are you talking about women when it affects men more often?

I am, of course, assuming that you are not showing disproportionate concern for the fraction of a non gendered issue that affects women, as no reasonable individual would do such a thing.

When a man gets harrassed online he ignores it. If women want to be equal to men they need to act like it.

[klogaroth]

Y'know what's quite noticeable about problems on the internet?

They were never as bad when the internet was the domain of "nerds" before nearly half the planet had access.

Kinda makes you wonder who it is that's causing the problems.....

[IIamaKing]

What more can be done? The individual ignore/block the user that is harassing them.

There, fixt. Some people are pieces of shit, you cant legislate or socially condition them to not be pieces of shit.

[BuckSparkles]

Oh noes, women are being harassed.

Guess what, everybody is treated like shit on the internet.

[Mellomania]

The thread is about women being harassed and you're talking about some unrelated graph?

Because harassment isn't a gendered issue, and stop trying to make it one.