8 ms·

Now this, is bullshit. We cannot sacrifice every little freedom we have in the name of security. I might get downvoted to hell for saying this, but women have

Now this, is bullshit. We cannot sacrifice every little freedom we have in the name of security. I might get downvoted to hell for saying this, but women have to learn to be comfortable with some degree of harassment if the only alternative is to convert the internet into some limited speech zone.

tomp 11y ago
> women have to learn to be comfortable I'm a bit reluctant to generalize like this... I think it's mainly a (relatively) small group of people (women and men) that are pushing this agenda to suit their other interests, using "women" simply as an excuse that people can easily emotionally identify with. None of the women I know are bothered by this kind of "violence".
- pluma 11y ago
  The particularly nefarious aspect of this is that they try abuse the feminist label for credibility and then victimise themselves to avoid criticism. To paraphrase "you shouldn't treat women as if they are more vulnerable/inferior but you can't criticise me because I'm a woman and any criticism by you is sexist even if you are a woman yourself".
mnkypete 11y ago
Because there is only two possibilities? I don't think it should be necessary (or desirable) to get comfortable with harassment... It should neither be necessary to cross-check EVERY single post or comment someone writes, I personally see A LOT of middle ground between these two options ... One could think of: - Calling out harassment / reporting it - A better education regarding stuff like that (yes, this is an offline-first problem, only amplified trough anonymity)
- Spivak 11y ago
  I think the middle ground is letting each platform self-moderate, and let users decide where they want to post. If you want to be anonymous and filter absolutely nothing then you can, if you want to aggressively moderate hate speech then go for it. If government gets involved then its likely going to be all or nothing.
bruceb 11y ago
This is the attitude that is frustrating. Should the net be free of censorship? Of course. But the dismissive attitude of some of the absolute vile garbage that is online is annoying. It isn't "some degree of harassment" it is god awful. Easy to be dismissive when you are not subject of something. Women by far are the target. A tad more empathy instead of dismissing something with the attitude their complaints are some needlessly whining
- brighteyes 11y ago
  > Women by far are the target. That is actually not true, see for example: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/01/the-darkest-side-of-online-harassment-menacing-behavior/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/01/the-darkest-... By perpetuating this false stereotype, you're doing more harm to gender equality than harassment does. Online harassment can be bad - I've suffered it myself - but at least it's fairly equal in harming everyone. The stereotype that men are harassers and women are victims arises because there are a few famous women that have been harassed very publicly. Why have there been more famous cases of women than men, when surveys do not find a large gender difference in actual harassment? I suspect it's that very stereotype of women as victims. It's an easy narrative to fall into, as you are doing right here.
  - bruceb 11y ago
    How does this link prove your point? Doesn't measure the intensity nor does it go in to general atmosphere of hate. Having post after post about "fat chicks" that is not specifically aimed at you can still be incredible painful.
    - brighteyes 11y ago
      The very first chart shows women are not the "by far" targets of online harassment. Look at the numbers. Anecdotes like "posts about fat chicks" are not convincing. There are plenty of anecdotes going both ways.
      - 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
As a society we have the prerogative to balance values like freedom from harassment and free speech. I fall strongly in favor of free speech myself, but nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable. Democracy means that people get to live in the society they want to live in.
- tomp 11y ago
  > nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable Why don't they just turn off the computer?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Apply that to yourself. Turn off your computer now, and leave it turned off for the next week. Include your phone. Include any online connectivity you have at work.
    - tomp 11y ago
      How about being reasonable and doing it only as much as necessary? Block people on twitter, avoid going to "hateful" websites and report abusive emails as "spam"?
      - geofft 11y ago
        Sarah Jeong's recent book The Internet of Garbage has a good discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of handling abuse as if it were spam, and argues in favor of a solution that is technically similar to current spam filtering, though not the same. Well worth reading for anyone interested in building productive solutions to the problem of abuse.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable Can you elaborate on this a bit? For instance, what about Kim Davis? Or extending Kim Davis' claims only a very little, those Mennonites and Quakers who pay only 48% of their Federal Income Tax because their religion makes them very uncomforable with the 52% of federal spending that goes to Department of Defense. And yes, I may have the exact percentage wrong, don't pick nits.
mahouse 11y ago
> women have to learn to be comfortable with some degree of harassment What women are harassed regularly anyway? Only the most prominent ones. So what? You should see the responses to all of Trump's tweets. What if he started crying "oh remove all of this, I feel unsafe!!"
- wingless 11y ago
  >Trump White? Check Male? Check Cis? Check Straight? Check So no one would care, and perhaps people would go even harder on him.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
tveita 11y ago
Those are obviously not the only two choices. There's a lot individual communities can do to recognize and mitigate the problem, even on Hacker News. Not starting off the discussion with "women have to learn to be comfortable with some degree of harassment" would have been a great start.
DannoHung 11y ago
I honestly wonder if people would be so dismissive of this if they were subjected to the same levels of harassment that some people are getting. I think that'd actually be interesting in the way that Hitchens allowed himself to be waterboarded to see if it was really all that bad. Y'know? Put up or shut up. But not the scaredy cat way that Hitchens did it with a safeword and all. You'd have to commit to it.
- zanny 11y ago
  Can you not just block harassers on facebook? I never use the thing (or Twitter) so I have no idea, but I cannot imagine such services becoming popular without an ignore list. The other alternative is that famous people are being harassed. In which case... well... that happens to famous people in real life too. It doesn't matter if you are online, once you have fame, your life is going to be harassment anywhere. You just need to make a sudonym personal account and not present yourself publicly on forums like facebook or twitter, and only share your new handles with people you trust.
  - DannoHung 11y ago
    What you're missing is that the sort of harassment in question isn't nasty names and unwanted messages on Facebook, it's using every piece of available information to stalk and threaten the physical safety of the people in question. To the point of finding out where people live and following everyone they know personally who has a social media presence and posting things like, "Jane is at the bar downtown tonight, I hope someone kills that slut." Celebrities deal with this sort of thing by hiring bodyguards and other personal security teams. An average person cannot have that kind of protection.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  > I honestly wonder if people would be so dismissive of this if they were subjected to the same levels of harassment that some people are getting. As the Pew link posted earlier pointed out, men get harassed more than women on the internet. So, looks like the answer is yes.
geofft 11y ago
The internet already is a limited speech zone. Women who are not comfortable with the current degree of harassment are not speaking. If you think that it's important to preserve the internet as a free speech zone for those who are already freely speaking, and not for those who aren't, that's certainly a position you can take. But please say it in those terms.

tomp 11y ago

> women have to learn to be comfortable I'm a bit reluctant to generalize like this... I think it's mainly a (relatively) small group of people (women and men) that are pushing this agenda to suit their other interests, using "women" simply as an excuse that people can easily emotionally identify with. None of the women I know are bothered by this kind of "violence".

pluma 11y ago
The particularly nefarious aspect of this is that they try abuse the feminist label for credibility and then victimise themselves to avoid criticism. To paraphrase "you shouldn't treat women as if they are more vulnerable/inferior but you can't criticise me because I'm a woman and any criticism by you is sexist even if you are a woman yourself".

mnkypete 11y ago

Because there is only two possibilities? I don't think it should be necessary (or desirable) to get comfortable with harassment... It should neither be necessary to cross-check EVERY single post or comment someone writes, I personally see A LOT of middle ground between these two options ... One could think of: - Calling out harassment / reporting it - A better education regarding stuff like that (yes, this is an offline-first problem, only amplified trough anonymity)

Spivak 11y ago
I think the middle ground is letting each platform self-moderate, and let users decide where they want to post. If you want to be anonymous and filter absolutely nothing then you can, if you want to aggressively moderate hate speech then go for it. If government gets involved then its likely going to be all or nothing.

bruceb 11y ago

This is the attitude that is frustrating. Should the net be free of censorship? Of course. But the dismissive attitude of some of the absolute vile garbage that is online is annoying. It isn't "some degree of harassment" it is god awful. Easy to be dismissive when you are not subject of something. Women by far are the target. A tad more empathy instead of dismissing something with the attitude their complaints are some needlessly whining

brighteyes 11y ago
> Women by far are the target. That is actually not true, see for example: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/01/the-darkest-side-of-online-harassment-menacing-behavior/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/01/the-darkest-... By perpetuating this false stereotype, you're doing more harm to gender equality than harassment does. Online harassment can be bad - I've suffered it myself - but at least it's fairly equal in harming everyone. The stereotype that men are harassers and women are victims arises because there are a few famous women that have been harassed very publicly. Why have there been more famous cases of women than men, when surveys do not find a large gender difference in actual harassment? I suspect it's that very stereotype of women as victims. It's an easy narrative to fall into, as you are doing right here.
- bruceb 11y ago
  How does this link prove your point? Doesn't measure the intensity nor does it go in to general atmosphere of hate. Having post after post about "fat chicks" that is not specifically aimed at you can still be incredible painful.
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    The very first chart shows women are not the "by far" targets of online harassment. Look at the numbers. Anecdotes like "posts about fat chicks" are not convincing. There are plenty of anecdotes going both ways.
    - 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

As a society we have the prerogative to balance values like freedom from harassment and free speech. I fall strongly in favor of free speech myself, but nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable. Democracy means that people get to live in the society they want to live in.

tomp 11y ago
> nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable Why don't they just turn off the computer?
- DanBC 11y ago
  Apply that to yourself. Turn off your computer now, and leave it turned off for the next week. Include your phone. Include any online connectivity you have at work.
  - tomp 11y ago
    How about being reasonable and doing it only as much as necessary? Block people on twitter, avoid going to "hateful" websites and report abusive emails as "spam"?
    - geofft 11y ago
      Sarah Jeong's recent book The Internet of Garbage has a good discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of handling abuse as if it were spam, and argues in favor of a solution that is technically similar to current spam filtering, though not the same. Well worth reading for anyone interested in building productive solutions to the problem of abuse.
bediger4000 11y ago
nobody has to learn to get comfortable with something they find objectionable Can you elaborate on this a bit? For instance, what about Kim Davis? Or extending Kim Davis' claims only a very little, those Mennonites and Quakers who pay only 48% of their Federal Income Tax because their religion makes them very uncomforable with the 52% of federal spending that goes to Department of Defense. And yes, I may have the exact percentage wrong, don't pick nits.

mahouse 11y ago

> women have to learn to be comfortable with some degree of harassment What women are harassed regularly anyway? Only the most prominent ones. So what? You should see the responses to all of Trump's tweets. What if he started crying "oh remove all of this, I feel unsafe!!"

wingless 11y ago
>Trump White? Check Male? Check Cis? Check Straight? Check So no one would care, and perhaps people would go even harder on him.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

tveita 11y ago

Those are obviously not the only two choices. There's a lot individual communities can do to recognize and mitigate the problem, even on Hacker News. Not starting off the discussion with "women have to learn to be comfortable with some degree of harassment" would have been a great start.

DannoHung 11y ago

I honestly wonder if people would be so dismissive of this if they were subjected to the same levels of harassment that some people are getting. I think that'd actually be interesting in the way that Hitchens allowed himself to be waterboarded to see if it was really all that bad. Y'know? Put up or shut up. But not the scaredy cat way that Hitchens did it with a safeword and all. You'd have to commit to it.

zanny 11y ago
Can you not just block harassers on facebook? I never use the thing (or Twitter) so I have no idea, but I cannot imagine such services becoming popular without an ignore list. The other alternative is that famous people are being harassed. In which case... well... that happens to famous people in real life too. It doesn't matter if you are online, once you have fame, your life is going to be harassment anywhere. You just need to make a sudonym personal account and not present yourself publicly on forums like facebook or twitter, and only share your new handles with people you trust.
- DannoHung 11y ago
  What you're missing is that the sort of harassment in question isn't nasty names and unwanted messages on Facebook, it's using every piece of available information to stalk and threaten the physical safety of the people in question. To the point of finding out where people live and following everyone they know personally who has a social media presence and posting things like, "Jane is at the bar downtown tonight, I hope someone kills that slut." Celebrities deal with this sort of thing by hiring bodyguards and other personal security teams. An average person cannot have that kind of protection.
13thLetter 11y ago
> I honestly wonder if people would be so dismissive of this if they were subjected to the same levels of harassment that some people are getting. As the Pew link posted earlier pointed out, men get harassed more than women on the internet. So, looks like the answer is yes.

geofft 11y ago

The internet already is a limited speech zone. Women who are not comfortable with the current degree of harassment are not speaking. If you think that it's important to preserve the internet as a free speech zone for those who are already freely speaking, and not for those who aren't, that's certainly a position you can take. But please say it in those terms.