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

[phillys]

As an Australian, I kind of am not really surprised that this article was published, because in the last 5 or 10 years pretty much everything has come to be seen as a risk of something. It's really like there are a lot of people trying to turn us into the laughing stock that is Britain. Reactions to the media and hot social issues of the day used to be there, but they were fairly slow and tempered, but now they're fast and furious, and kind of extreme. So now it's like there are so many more people trying to get in on the act, and trying to make an issue of everything. Like if something bad happens to someone, I used to feel bad for them, and at times I'd wonder what could be done to prevent things, but now when I see an issue being made, or someone had something bad happen to them, now I feel terrified because of legislation and/or drastic action being taken, and because someone somewhere did something bad or wrong, or an accident happened or whatever, all of a sudden everything's supposed to be my business and has to be in my face and it has to affect me personally. I've looked at the history, and it seems that a lot of new immigrants (some braindead politicians and business sectors decided to pretty much double our population within 5 years) are acting like Puritans where everything is a society/group thing because they ARE puritans. They come from societies which are heavily dictates and regulates citizens, and seem to think every country should be like this.

As a woman, I can say that I've been attacked and debated with on a whole lot of things, but I've never actually been attacked for being a woman, so I don't know. I guess I just got lucky, although I suspect that given that harrassment can range from some nasty comments one time to full-on death threats in real life and online stalking turning to real life stalking etc, for this article to be turned into a huge issue would be pretty wrong. I've read some forums where a gender debate has happened, and the vitriol has at times shocked me, but is it harrassment? In all honesty, the reality is that now I'm going to be subjected to a fullon education campaign, and I actually am someone who has kids, and in all honesty, it just feels like something more for the "won't someone please think of the children" crowd to be all worried about, and judge parents by. In all honesty, it seems to be making people a little more aggressive, if anything - not one specific issue, but when all are combined and they all add up.

So yeah. Risk of harrassment on internet becoming normal. Got it. My own personal take? I'll try not to contribute. Got it. Moderators moderating and taking steps to prevent it? Pretty sure I've seen them doing this, or at least trying to. Am I supposed to believe it's a new thing? don't really internet enough to know. I don't really social media so can't say.

[Deleted]

By introducing filters, comparable to spam filters, they don´t prevent people from producing spam mail, but prevent people from recieving them.

A couple of things will happen if the websites start policing themselves.

1. people will leave that site and use another one where they can post what they like.

2. Ur entrusting thought police to an outside organisation. These situations usually end up with the organisation simply policing ideas and opinions it doesnt like.

3. this is fukk all to do with spam.

As i said, these threats are ALREADY illegal and therefore any real threats can be dealt with ALREADY by the police.

I do not trust governments or companies to police social areas on the internet. It will end up being a place where opinions and ideas they dont like are deleted.

[nextormento]

That´s somewhat already in place, blocking for example, so what´s your point? Actually my idea would have them interacting with a bigger demographic because only the harassing messages would be blocked not everything from that person.

My point?
my point?
You failed to understand that any line on the sand leads irrevocably to other lines, eventually reaching to the collectives you'd otherwise support.

And then dragged it on different tangents in an amazing gish gallop of pretended nonsense. Trying to frame my response as something that I haven't endorsed. And you make it my point?
Your failure to understand a simple concept is not my point: it's your entire incapacity to process simple consequences.

There is not a single metric to define "harassing message" that doesn't involve the judgement of the victim after the fact.
The only implementation to prevent it, is putting a 3rd party to judge what might harass based on their specific judgement. If one wants to outsource that judgement, all the power to them. But, as the entire history of human exchange can show you: we're inexorably attracted to belligerency. We seek to push the boundaries of the rules. When companies implement harsh measures to curb these incidents, people flee to the next platform. We seek hands-off approaches to stuff. Those that remain in the more policed, and more polite, platforms are mercilessly dragged into irrelevancy.
That is the extent of curbing non-crime: becoming un-interesting.

You don't have them interacting with a bigger demographic: you make the platform less interesting for everyone involved. Trolls leave because they can't reach their target. Activists leave because nobody is there to trigger their feelings. And eventually only soccer moms and assorted hugboxes remain. Boring. Next platform, plox.

The other approach, which is not preventive, is education. Make it so that being mean to people doesn't grant response. Absolutely NO response. It's the old internet adage: don't feed the trolls. Except, you know: everyone is feeding the trolls. Specially those that will pretend to fight harassment (interest groups, activist bloggers, clickbait factories): creating and fostering it in the first place is their business strategy.
Cutting the feedback is the only effective measure to make them disappear. Blocking and filtering only serves to protect the victim. But it's another measure that increases the impact of these assholes: it's a response that empowers them. And they'll seek to keep their reign on the next interesting platform.

Alas, the no feedback approach is what we could describe as "toughen the fuck up and grow a thicker skin". Shit, we're blaming the victims, oh the humanity. It must be inhumane to tell victims -of their own judgement- that they don't have to, but can in fact do something about it. But see, I don't particularly care: if these victims want their filters, they should totally have them. I mean, why not?. It's their justified choice.
Besides, there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from developing them. Go ahead and start your own. Or invest in some company or kickstarter that does. Why don't we have millions of filters now?. Seriously. If it's such as pressing issue, someone should really go bank on such a requested feature.

But I won't pretend that this, in any way, "fights harassment": it perpetuates it, and provides more fuel to the outrage factory.

[Mayhem]

snip

You thinking there would be unwanted consequences because you can´t fathom how it´s supposed to work even though i said it maybe three times that no one would decide what harassment is. So, i ask you one last time, do you think there is someone who puts spam mails on a list? Yes i continue to use spam because that´s a fitting example. You occasionally still recieve some spam mail, you are able to communicate freely and despite it´s a system put in place that´s capable of filtering out the shit no one wants to read, wondrously it hasn´t silenced people, so this line in the sand hasn´t lead to other lines. You can also make it optional, you know, turn it on and off. And it would have the effect you think silences trolls, they get no response, zero, because the people can´t even read their shit.

It´s quite telling that you think activists can only communicate through harassment.

[nextormento]

You thinking there would be unwanted consequences because you can´t fathom how it´s supposed to work even though i said it maybe three times that no one would decide what harassment is.
It´s quite telling that you think activists can only communicate through harassment.

Considering I've been an activist through most of my life for a wealth a different topics, I find this assessment amusing.
You are still focusing on the perpetrator, when any workable notion of harassment is completely within the receiver's judgement: if I can deem X behavior as harassing, so can anyone deem activism as harassing. That is the only explanation I made, which you dragged through all sorts of tangents. You are unwilling to conceive how what today you deem as perfectly acceptable opinion, tomorrow may not be

You can repeat it thousand times: something needs to decide what harassment is. I don't care if it's a human or an algorithm. If victims want to outsource that judgement, all the power to them. I don't want those filters for me, thanks. If you want to develop, or finance, them go for it :].
But I won't pretend any implementation to be "fighting harassment": because harassment will find a way; just like spam does. It's not in the shape of mails: it's the 30 adds and requests that we need to block today per page. Filtering it out puts ingenuity to work, and exacerbates the problem elsewhere.

[Deleted]

There is not a single metric to define "harassing message" that doesn't involve the judgement of the victim after the fact.

100% agree.

I think that alot of this "harassment" is simply namecalling. And namecalling shouldnt be considered anywhere even close to death-threats and rape-threats.

The problem is that this SJW idiocy thats going on right now considers anything that someone finds offensive as all equally as serious. The truth is that most of this issue is just namecalling and people need to grow up.

Harrassment as defined by the law is very different to harrassment defined by SJWs.

We seek to push the boundaries of the rules. When companies implement harsh measures to curb these incidents, people flee to the next platform.

Exactly what ive already said... if a platform becomes heavily censored and controlled then the 'cool kids' will simply move to another platform where they can be themselves.

Twitter for example has taken a massive drop in usage over the past 12months... this happens to coincide with them implementing stricter control over peoples posts & language.

[Bigbamboozal]

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

It's related, you just don't like it because it doesn't match your agenda. Suck it up.

[Independent voter]

You can make millions if you come up with an AI that will filter out what women see, squelch trolls, etc. It would have to be smart enough to know all the human tricks.

c*nt will be recognized by a human as a bad word, an AI would have to know stuff like that.

[Vetis]

to read it correctly; young women want to shout their opinion over the internet and get no disagreement back.
Sorry the world isn't your tumblr echo chamber.

[Pann]

You can make millions if you come up with an AI that will filter out what women see, squelch trolls, etc. It would have to be smart enough to know all the human tricks.

c*nt will be recognized by a human as a bad word, an AI would have to know stuff like that.

There are already simple but effective systems that do this, such as block bots, but rather surprisingly, seeing as many advocate the victim of harassment ignoring it or blocking the abuser, this seems to upset the harassers and their apologists.

[Mayhem]

Considering I've been an activist through most of my life for a wealth a different topics, I find this assessment amusing.
You are still focusing on the perpetrator, when any workable notion of harassment is completely within the receiver's judgement: if I can deem X behavior as harassing, so can anyone deem activism as harassing. That is the only explanation I made, which you dragged through all sorts of tangents. You are unwilling to conceive how what today you deem as perfectly acceptable opinion, tomorrow may not be

You can repeat it thousand times: something needs to decide what harassment is. I don't care if it's a human or an algorithm. If victims want to outsource that judgement, all the power to them. I don't want those filters for me, thanks. If you want to develop, or finance, them go for it :].
But I won't pretend any implementation to be "fighting harassment": because harassment will find a way; just like spam does. It's not in the shape of mails: it's the 30 adds and requests that we need to block today per page. Filtering it out puts ingenuity to work, and exacerbates the problem elsewhere.

It would help if you´d read all of my post and don´t start writing an answer as soon as you think you´ve read enough. I wonder why you left out the part where i wrote you can make it optional so everyone can decide for themselves if they want to use it. Are you using adblock?

[nextormento]

It would help if you´d read all of my post and don´t start writing an answer as soon as you think you´ve read enough. I wonder why you left out the part where i wrote you can make it optional so everyone can decide for themselves if they want to use it. Are you using adblock?

Right back at you: If you take any response as disagreement that's on you.
I've agreed with your filters since the very beginning. In fact, my first post on this thread endorses them. I'm quoting the relevant parts of your post. The rest is essentially fluff. But I can expand on my take on the bits we agree with: because we clearly agree on them for different reasons. And I want to bridge the argument to reiterate my encouragement to anyone that wants to develop them and bank on this burgeoning market.

Yes, I am.

[Tennis]

Oh sick article. Just fucking kidding its the guardian. Let me guess which site your next flame bait article will be from.... Huffington post? salon?

Guardian is a very good site. I don't appreciate your attitude.

[Deleted]

I don't appreciate your attitude.

This is what SJWs do; thought policing.

[Maltah]

1,053 women in only ONE country with a population of over 23 million... that's a decent sample size, right? As a woman, I've never been harassed at any point in the past 20+ I've been online interacting with people I don't know. That should hold about as much weight as this "Study" in proving that harassment doesn't exist on the internet among anonymous strangers.

[Emode]

Men are more likely than women to receive threats and abuse online.

[Deleted]

1,053 women in only ONE country with a population of over 23 million... that's a decent sample size, right? As a woman, I've never been harassed at any point in the past 20+ I've been online interacting with people I don't know. That should hold about as much weight as this "Study" in proving that harassment doesn't exist on the internet among anonymous strangers.

It is a decent sample size, for that country.

[Maltah]

It is a decent sample size, for that country.

That is an important factor.

Men are more likely than women to receive threats and abuse online.

But if they aren't sexual in nature we can just dismiss them entirely, and then make the remaining data support our bias.

[Mayhem]

Right back at you: If you take any response as disagreement that's on you.
I've agreed with your filters since the very beginning. In fact, my first post on this thread endorses them. I'm quoting the relevant parts of your post. The rest is essentially fluff. But I can expand on my take on the bits we agree with: because we clearly agree on them for different reasons. And I want to bridge the argument to reiterate my encouragement to anyone that wants to develop them and bank on this burgeoning market.

Yes, I am.

Then why this talk about silencing activists or one line in the sands leads to another... that doesn´t really reads as agreeing. Chipsus crisp, i swear this forum sometimes.

[Nadiru]

Women can't handle the bants, more at 11.