11 ms·

That’s how it works when you’re a woman on the internet

124 points by laurex 5y ago

mcphage 5y ago
Ouch. This is really painful to read. I don't really know how I'd handle a sustained campaign of cruelty hurled at me, and I don't want to find out. It sucks she doesn't have that option.
lr4444lr 5y ago
I hope I don't get downvoted too badly for this, but do we have any statistics on the number of people who actually commit illegal acts (direct specific threats or acts, stalking, etc.) as a percent of the people post vitriolic online comments? I suspect it's a very small proportion. That isn't to excuse anything, but I only have so big an emotional budget for outrage, and I prefer to prioritize my efforts to help people in keeping with real vs. perceived danger.
- Afton 5y ago
  You could posit that this woman is in no danger whatsoever and it would still meet my budget for outrage. I guess we have different budgets.
- greenie_beans 5y ago
  you should probably get off of slatestarcodex.com and maybe read some more personal essays like this. like how the hell would you even begin to quantify something like that? what do you compare it to? is somebody legitimately feeling unsafe not enough for this to be a problem?
- neaden 5y ago
  The thing is it only takes one person to kill you.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    That's true, but it only takes one shut-in to threaten to kill you on the internet to characterize every person who disagreed with you as an abuser. It's a common media tactic, apart from the fact that it's definitely horrible to be a woman or a minority on the internet. That's why we need pseudoanonymity.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      > That's why we need pseudoanonymity. What do you mean by pseudoanonymity? You can't hide the fact that you're a woman on the internet if you're writing about the experience of being a woman, for instance. And the author here got her share of anti-semitic and anti-trans hate, despite not actually being either of those things.
      - chucksta 5y ago
        What we currently have is pseudo anonymity. It is generally anonymous, but it's not truly because there is still some form of identifiable information which could be linked back. As for hiding the fact, you don't have to write in first person, you could write about a fictitious person, or could change identifiable information and disclose that. It clearly doesn't matter what you say, people will assign what they assume anyway, ie trans or jewish.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    True, but the question is how likely it would be that the person is from that group, or from just walking down the street. Relative risk can help people prioritize their actions with constrained resources - tackle violence in their city, or tackle it by somehow targeting hate speech on the internet.
    - alex_c 5y ago
      The Internet Hate Machine is both targeted and somewhat randomized. Statistics don't help when you are the target. How would you begin to gather statistics and estimate risk for something like this, for example? When the video from the Proud Boys’ founder made its way into my Google alerts, I didn’t know who he was at first. I was so distracted by the strangeness of someone making a takedown video about me that I didn’t think to look into who was actually behind it. ... I took a closer look at the video. It had 24,000 views already. Some of the commenters were talking about the city I lived in. I was alone in my house, sitting in front of my computer, thinking, Oh no. Maybe this isn’t a funny story. Maybe this is a scary story.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        "How would you begin to gather statistics and estimate risk for something like this, for example?" The FBI tracks hate crimes. That could be a starting point. Various federal agencies provide protection and investigation of threats for political/judicial figures. It seems their analysis of what percentage are credible, and which ones are attempted, could provide good data. We also have to view the risk as seen by the other commenter. They might not be outraged about this due to them not being a target by not becoming notorious on the internet and engaging with hate groups. This is largely the same as someone in a city saying the city is safe, but never going to the bad area. Is it a problem - yes. Is it one that directly affects them - no. Is it something they will take action on - it depends on their other priorities.
    - mocheeze 5y ago
- culi 5y ago
  Just curious, in what ways do you prioritize your efforts to help people facing real danger? I'm particularly curious about how those efforts compete with showing sympathy to someone talking about their experience with this
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    Maybe I'm just too old school, but I was raised with "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me". Not, of course, that I don't want to help someone who's bullied by everyone at school, because being a social outcast with no friends is miserable, but you don't have to use Twitter, or associate your personal account with your professional work.
    - culi 5y ago
      Getting death threats and incels posting your personal address, the names of your family members, etc all over 4chan is a qualitatively different experience than being called a name. It kinda seems like you're just trying to place yourself above her despite never in your life having to face that experience. Not to mention that she makes a living online and has to have an online presence.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Emotional danger is quite real and people can carry the trauma of it through the rest of their lives. As per the plate story she related, whether that was thrown by a rando or someone out to get her can't be known, but what can be known is that she'll never be certain either way and feel the fear of recent emotional hate coupled with physical threats. Death threats and hate speech on the internet cause a serious amount of societal harm - extreme censorship also causes serious harm... I don't know what the answer is but I know that anyone who is absolutely fanatically devoted to either end of the spectrum to the point of "knowing they're right" is wrong.
- burkaman 5y ago
  This article is about several types of real danger, one of which is the vitriolic online comments themselves. It doesn't have to escalate to a crime to be a problem.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  So let me ask you would you be OK with be ok with someone close to you being subjected to a constant bullying/harassment campaign as long as they don't "really hurt" them? Second question: even if the statistics are that only 1 in whatever people actually is dangerous. If you get 100s of hate messages a day, how do you know that one of them isn't a physical threat. Because that is the intent create fear, torture can be pretty effective just through threats of violence.
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    Making a physical threat crosses a line, and those people need to be dealt with. As for dealing with the trolls making gas chamber jokes, I'd just stop reading Twitter. Or the Facebook/YouTube comments. Frankly, I don't think reading the yammerings of the unwashed masses on unpaid, unverified social media accounts is some kind of requirement for living a productive life, even when you make your bread through online content. Sorry if it sounds harsh, that's just what I think, and what I'd tell a loved one.
    - mocheeze 5y ago
      She did go to the police with the threats. They sent her away. Now what's the plan if authorities won't act? Wait for congress to hold hearings on one's behalf after the violence is done? Most police wouldn't be happy with their personal and loved ones' information being posted online with the purpose of making threats of violence or other harm.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Last year we lost a pretty darned good emulator author, Near, because they, and their friends and family, were systematically harassed until they finally ended up taking their own life. Maybe you should reconsider the line between "real" and "perceived".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
commandlinefan 5y ago
Well, the title here is "That's how it works when you're a woman on the internet" - but then she goes on to give example after example of times when she deliberately went out and picked a fight (with, in fairness, people who deserved to be stood up to). A man could and would get the same level of vitriol aimed at him for similarly provocative posting.
- magneticnorth 5y ago
  I missed the examples where she went out and picked a fight - the closest I'm seeing is a tweet where she talks about agreeing with a guy who called her good-looking at the gym. Can you be more specific about the "example after example" where you expect men would get similar levels of vitriol?
  - giantg2 5y ago
    - kritiko 5y ago
      If you're going to blame the victim, at least read TFA: "the founder of the far-right neo-nazi group the Proud Boys had done a whole episode of his YouTube series about a comic I’d made."
      - giantg2 5y ago
        I did read the article. I mistook the part about the other guest seeing the YouTube video as her doing a podcast. My bad.
    - magneticnorth 5y ago
      She didn't interact with him in any way - he made a long youtube video in response to one of her comics: "the founder of the far-right neo-nazi group the Proud Boys had done a whole episode of his YouTube series about a comic I’d made." His video got a lot of attention, but she was not in it, nor did she ever interview him as far as I can tell from the article.
mpfundstein 5y ago
I don't know. My wife does not have those experiences. She happily buys stuff at Amazon, chats with relatives and friends on social media, and is active in some subreddits. I don't know of a single harassment issue so far. maybe less generalisation would help?
- Gigachad 5y ago
  I’m guessing these experiences come from being someone who runs a blog and is somewhat of a public figure.
  - mpfundstein 5y ago
    agree. but the title does not say this. it says "thats how it works when you're an (arbitrary) woman on the internet". but would not be click-baity enough I guess.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      I'm sorry what is the purpose of this nitpick? It's a title obviously it doesn't tell the whole story, that's why there is a story. What's next are you going to complain that there is no actual mockingbird being killed in Harper Lees book?! Is it that you don't agree with this person's politics why you are so dismissive?
    - detaro 5y ago
      Well, then we hope nobody "influential" picks on a meaningless random tweet by your wife so she stays arbitrary.
  - fknorangesite 5y ago
    Sure. And, also, being a woman. Do you genuinely think that a man with this level of medium-notoriety would so consistently get abuse like this?
    - giantg2 5y ago
wedn3sday 5y ago
Its things like this that have made me start to think that anonymity on the internet does more harm then good. If every person who wrote comments online had to have their own real name next to the comment, some of this abuse would be mitigated. True, it would make secret communication harder, but if I have documents I want published in the Washington Post, I could just fedex an envelope to Woodward and/or Bernstein.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Anonymity on the internet would make it easier for people to tweet about trivial stuff without exposing their meatspace identity. The fact that we expect people to reveal their "Real Names" on social media is a huge facilitator for abuse.
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    I thought the same thing, but then I thought more, and wouldn't the abuse still happen? If she was pseudo-anonymous, but still clearly a women, wouldn't these people still hate on her? They would just use her username rather then her real name. They'd still try and dox her as well. It doesn't seem like it would really solve the issue.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      Why would they hate on her? She would be just a rando posting about her day at the gym, as opposed to a semi-public figure that people might want to pick a fight with for unrelated reasons. She wouldn't have to stand behind everything she posts with a public real-world identity, only the stuff that's actually relevant to, e.g. her broader work.
      - Miner49er 5y ago
        As a writer, isn't Twitter a place where she can do her job? I think her Twitter is a part of her work. So I was more thinking she would be totally pseduoanonymous (published writing and all). I wasn't picturing a split like you suggest. I don't think that really works with her career, her Twitter is part of her writing. Plus, part of her hate is from her "broader work". The comic that the Proud Boy guy targeted.
evilotto 5y ago
This is not ok.
culi 5y ago
I'm sorry to start off a comment with "I'm not a X, but" but here goes I'm not a woman, but I do have experience being doxxed by groups on the far right. Me and a few other friends/organizers (~4-12 in total with varying degrees of severity) had our pictures plastered on 4chan. Someone really close to me got labelled "the president of antifa" and I can promise you most of 4channers are really dumb enough to think that's a thing. The main people who outed us were clearly a joke. They paraded around our IP addresses as if it was our GPS coordinates. They threatened to turn us into the FBI (this was when Trump tried to label antifa a terrorist org). [PS none of us considered ourselves members of antifa lol]. Mostly we made jokes about it and printed out the 4chan comments calling our friends soyboys or whatever. But my close friend, the president of antifa, had her name out there and someone used a people finder website to find her mom's home address, phone number, etc. We all had to close down our social media for a while to protect each other's privacy and safety. I know to most people 4chan is a joke. But just look at January 6th as an example. These people are stupid enough to believe that some tiny as group of students protesting climate change could be the leaders of antifa, but they're also stupid enough to act on that. I don't think most people really understand what it means to have your name, face, and other personal information out there with the types of people that got radicalized enough from pizzagate memes to walk into a pizza store with a rifle Incels might be a tiny group. And that could give most people the reassurance that they'll never win an election or whatever. But when it's the case of something this individualized, the very fact that they exist is a big threat to your safety
- mpfundstein 5y ago
  what did you do to get doxxed by 4chan?
  - culi 5y ago
    We just started a club in college. It kinda did everything. We helped the teacher's union organize and plan strikes. We organized climate strikes. We helped the college Dems campaign against the college Republicans who sneaked their way in with a fake party, we helped organize a Food Not Bombs chapter which took foodwaste and turned it into meals for houseless folks, we campaigned for more community gardens, etc So a little bit of everything
stillkicking 5y ago
sbate1987 5y ago
alex_c 5y ago
So imagine a world where telepathy exists, and everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts. And there are no filters. With enough effort you learn to only "hear" thoughts in a certain range, but you can't filter out or block thoughts at will. And no one is able, or willing, to filter their own thoughts. They're just out there for everyone to hear. And they can be aimed at specific targets. Imagine the cross-section of thoughts you would hear all the time. Most of it mundane - work, family, food, shopping, day to day life. Some stand out through the noise - strong emotions like love, lust, happiness, pain, hatred. Some beautiful, some terrifying, some outright vile. A true cross-section of humankind's deepest thoughts. Now imagine the loudest ones start finding others like them, and start to aggregate and cluster - mentally, not physically. Feeding and amplifying each other and getting louder and bigger. And they start to look outward, and find the thoughts they hate, and feed on those. There are no physical restrictions, no limits on distance or speed, just thoughts bouncing around and searching and filtering each other. And imagine that once groups hit a critical mass, they also start to gather physically. And it's no longer just thoughts, but physical actions, encouraged by the entire group. Of course - the Internet is not telepathy, there are filters, and not everyone participates. But it's the closest we've come to it as a species so far. And this is who we are...
- sasaf5 5y ago
  > And this is who we are... This is what we became after being optimized for engagement.
  - WithinReason 5y ago
    4chan is not optimised for engagement, it's one of the most basic messageboards.
  - skulk 5y ago
    Image boards like 4chan are almost entirely free from adtech engagement optimization, so no. This is who we are when we are given a place to air our petty grievances with no accountability to prior postings.
  - alex_c 5y ago
ilaksh 5y ago
It's weird to me to see that stuff in Twitter screenshots. Because, Twitter seems so public to me. Don't they risk getting banned immediately just saying things like that? Or does Twitter only really police people who harass celebrities? 4chan.. I mean, it seems like the only reason 4chan would still be allowed to exist is to make it easier for the FBI etc. to monitor the kind of garbage that goes on in 4chan in one place.
aaron695 5y ago
[dead]
giantg2 5y ago
I agree the treatment is terrible. My curiosity is piqued though. What was the comic that set this all off? It's mentioned several times in the article and the comments, but did I miss the link to it?
- giantg2 5y ago
  My searching hasn't found much. Perhaps it's this one (because it deals with women's empowerment)? Interesting life satisfaction graph in there. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20959863/women-happy-chores-gender-gap https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20959863/women-... This seems to say "comics" to mean more than one. So maybe it's just the common theme that she talks about (women's issues) that they hate? https://thenib.com/forever-alone/ https://thenib.com/forever-alone/ Looks like YouTube must have taken down the video. A weird side note is that it looks like there's a video of the guy doing a Tedx talk. I didn't know they let people like that do those.
  - tomatotomato37 5y ago
    Yeah it's that first one, I checked the 4plebs archive for the relavent posts. Doesn't seem to be any specific reason they targeted her beyond the usual /pol/ cancer that's tainting so many boards nowadays https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/234859630/ https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/234859630/
lnxg33k1 5y ago
So if you learn Italian hand gestures you don't need to remove your headphones to tell people to fuck off
- cafard 5y ago
  There's a perfectly good, time-honored, well-understood American hand gesture.
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    Lol yeah fair :D
RickJWagner 5y ago
lamontcg 5y ago
All the replies in here that attempt to deny or reduce this problem are why we're going to lose freedom of speech sooner or later. The people who aren't free speech absolutists are getting sick and tired of shit like this. And the free speech absolutists in one way or another just come off as blaming the victim. You're losing the argument (although not in this particular echo chamber).
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  So... what would you have those people do instead? Agree that we should restrict freedom of speech, for fear that if they disagree we'll... lose freedom of speech?
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Stop denying the problem and blaming the victim to start with. I don't have good solutions, but that certainly isn't a good solution.
sleepingadmin 5y ago
Absolutely not. Painting a political activist provocateur's experience online as representative of how women are treated online is ridiculous at best. No, that's called kicking the hornet's nest and then getting stung. Her story... She's at a party and doesn't know anyone but happens to be sitting next to someone who is an expert in white supremacy, who knows her extensively including her work, and is aware of criticism of her work? This story is swiss cheese at best. Clearly a fabricated story that's casting shadow on the rest of the story. Then again the rest of the story is nothing but anonymous comments from random open forums on the internet? There's no credibility here. Why is literally everyone is made out to be white supremacists? If you live in a world where everyone around you is a white supremacist; you're either a white supremacist or you have done something to create it. I'm leaning toward the author being a white supremacist. Hence why the white supremacist expert knew her so well.
- rukuu001 5y ago
  > Painting a political activist provocateur's experience online as representative of how women are treated online is ridiculous at best. It’s any woman with a decent profile online - a year or two ago a bunch of women in the tech space posted the Twitter DMs they received every day for a week or so - a tsunami of crap saying they’re ugly, they’re stupid, they’re going to be raped/killed etc. > Why is literally everyone is made out to be white supremacists? She didn’t say that, but did post screenshots of a bunch of slurs based on her surname.
  - sleepingadmin 5y ago
    >It’s any woman with a decent profile online - a year or two ago a bunch of women in the tech space posted the Twitter DMs they received every day for a week or so - a tsunami of crap saying they’re ugly, they’re stupid, they’re going to be raped/killed etc. I dont wish to disregard this possibility that a visible female on the internet may be mistreated. Absolutely the case I can see this. However, this political activist provocateur very clearly is sticking their nose deep into the hornets nest. Their experience is certainly not even close to being representative of 'women on the internet' >She didn’t say that, but did post screenshots of a bunch of slurs based on her surname. She did say this. Her story literally starts how she meets a 'white supremacist expert' in person. Which is not a thing in reality, she's either stupid and was being mocked or the story is just fabricated. Which is my take on it in OP. She's clearly just faking much of it.
mrlonglong 5y ago
I felt sick as I read through that whole article. It just astounds me that there are actually people like this out there writing this verbal diarrhoea. If only their mothers knew what they were doing I'd hazard a pretty good guess they'd get a whole earful and a lot more else. Those people really need to stfu and sort their pathetic lives out.
lnxg33k1 5y ago
I think this is very wrong and offensive to the memory of All journalists who have sacrificed themselves to tell the general population about facts, including women. Like Galizia, Siani etc. The proud boys are not attacking you because you're a woman but because you're against their herd. This is just some sort of woke bullshit, if you want to be an author be an author and complain about the rights of authors and journalist to be safe from physical repercussions over their content but quit the crap about being attacked as a woman author, and the victimism for a couple of posts of 4chan and twitter, that people have been killed The issue is not about the gender, the issue is about the violence of people disagreeing with some point of view, unfortunately I would have no sympathy for your point of view as described in this article even if I of course would not be as raging and repressive as the people reported

124 points by laurex 5y ago

Ouch. This is really painful to read. I don't really know how I'd handle a sustained campaign of cruelty hurled at me, and I don't want to find out. It sucks she doesn't have that option.

lr4444lr 5y ago

I hope I don't get downvoted too badly for this, but do we have any statistics on the number of people who actually commit illegal acts (direct specific threats or acts, stalking, etc.) as a percent of the people post vitriolic online comments? I suspect it's a very small proportion. That isn't to excuse anything, but I only have so big an emotional budget for outrage, and I prefer to prioritize my efforts to help people in keeping with real vs. perceived danger.

Afton 5y ago
You could posit that this woman is in no danger whatsoever and it would still meet my budget for outrage. I guess we have different budgets.
greenie_beans 5y ago
you should probably get off of slatestarcodex.com and maybe read some more personal essays like this. like how the hell would you even begin to quantify something like that? what do you compare it to? is somebody legitimately feeling unsafe not enough for this to be a problem?
neaden 5y ago
The thing is it only takes one person to kill you.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  That's true, but it only takes one shut-in to threaten to kill you on the internet to characterize every person who disagreed with you as an abuser. It's a common media tactic, apart from the fact that it's definitely horrible to be a woman or a minority on the internet. That's why we need pseudoanonymity.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    > That's why we need pseudoanonymity. What do you mean by pseudoanonymity? You can't hide the fact that you're a woman on the internet if you're writing about the experience of being a woman, for instance. And the author here got her share of anti-semitic and anti-trans hate, despite not actually being either of those things.
    - chucksta 5y ago
      What we currently have is pseudo anonymity. It is generally anonymous, but it's not truly because there is still some form of identifiable information which could be linked back. As for hiding the fact, you don't have to write in first person, you could write about a fictitious person, or could change identifiable information and disclose that. It clearly doesn't matter what you say, people will assign what they assume anyway, ie trans or jewish.
- giantg2 5y ago
  True, but the question is how likely it would be that the person is from that group, or from just walking down the street. Relative risk can help people prioritize their actions with constrained resources - tackle violence in their city, or tackle it by somehow targeting hate speech on the internet.
  - alex_c 5y ago
    The Internet Hate Machine is both targeted and somewhat randomized. Statistics don't help when you are the target. How would you begin to gather statistics and estimate risk for something like this, for example? When the video from the Proud Boys’ founder made its way into my Google alerts, I didn’t know who he was at first. I was so distracted by the strangeness of someone making a takedown video about me that I didn’t think to look into who was actually behind it. ... I took a closer look at the video. It had 24,000 views already. Some of the commenters were talking about the city I lived in. I was alone in my house, sitting in front of my computer, thinking, Oh no. Maybe this isn’t a funny story. Maybe this is a scary story.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "How would you begin to gather statistics and estimate risk for something like this, for example?" The FBI tracks hate crimes. That could be a starting point. Various federal agencies provide protection and investigation of threats for political/judicial figures. It seems their analysis of what percentage are credible, and which ones are attempted, could provide good data. We also have to view the risk as seen by the other commenter. They might not be outraged about this due to them not being a target by not becoming notorious on the internet and engaging with hate groups. This is largely the same as someone in a city saying the city is safe, but never going to the bad area. Is it a problem - yes. Is it one that directly affects them - no. Is it something they will take action on - it depends on their other priorities.
  - mocheeze 5y ago
culi 5y ago
Just curious, in what ways do you prioritize your efforts to help people facing real danger? I'm particularly curious about how those efforts compete with showing sympathy to someone talking about their experience with this
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  Maybe I'm just too old school, but I was raised with "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me". Not, of course, that I don't want to help someone who's bullied by everyone at school, because being a social outcast with no friends is miserable, but you don't have to use Twitter, or associate your personal account with your professional work.
  - culi 5y ago
    Getting death threats and incels posting your personal address, the names of your family members, etc all over 4chan is a qualitatively different experience than being called a name. It kinda seems like you're just trying to place yourself above her despite never in your life having to face that experience. Not to mention that she makes a living online and has to have an online presence.
munk-a 5y ago
Emotional danger is quite real and people can carry the trauma of it through the rest of their lives. As per the plate story she related, whether that was thrown by a rando or someone out to get her can't be known, but what can be known is that she'll never be certain either way and feel the fear of recent emotional hate coupled with physical threats. Death threats and hate speech on the internet cause a serious amount of societal harm - extreme censorship also causes serious harm... I don't know what the answer is but I know that anyone who is absolutely fanatically devoted to either end of the spectrum to the point of "knowing they're right" is wrong.
burkaman 5y ago
This article is about several types of real danger, one of which is the vitriolic online comments themselves. It doesn't have to escalate to a crime to be a problem.
cycomanic 5y ago
So let me ask you would you be OK with be ok with someone close to you being subjected to a constant bullying/harassment campaign as long as they don't "really hurt" them? Second question: even if the statistics are that only 1 in whatever people actually is dangerous. If you get 100s of hate messages a day, how do you know that one of them isn't a physical threat. Because that is the intent create fear, torture can be pretty effective just through threats of violence.
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  Making a physical threat crosses a line, and those people need to be dealt with. As for dealing with the trolls making gas chamber jokes, I'd just stop reading Twitter. Or the Facebook/YouTube comments. Frankly, I don't think reading the yammerings of the unwashed masses on unpaid, unverified social media accounts is some kind of requirement for living a productive life, even when you make your bread through online content. Sorry if it sounds harsh, that's just what I think, and what I'd tell a loved one.
  - mocheeze 5y ago
    She did go to the police with the threats. They sent her away. Now what's the plan if authorities won't act? Wait for congress to hold hearings on one's behalf after the violence is done? Most police wouldn't be happy with their personal and loved ones' information being posted online with the purpose of making threats of violence or other harm.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Last year we lost a pretty darned good emulator author, Near, because they, and their friends and family, were systematically harassed until they finally ended up taking their own life. Maybe you should reconsider the line between "real" and "perceived".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

commandlinefan 5y ago

Well, the title here is "That's how it works when you're a woman on the internet" - but then she goes on to give example after example of times when she deliberately went out and picked a fight (with, in fairness, people who deserved to be stood up to). A man could and would get the same level of vitriol aimed at him for similarly provocative posting.

magneticnorth 5y ago
I missed the examples where she went out and picked a fight - the closest I'm seeing is a tweet where she talks about agreeing with a guy who called her good-looking at the gym. Can you be more specific about the "example after example" where you expect men would get similar levels of vitriol?
- giantg2 5y ago
  - kritiko 5y ago
    If you're going to blame the victim, at least read TFA: "the founder of the far-right neo-nazi group the Proud Boys had done a whole episode of his YouTube series about a comic I’d made."
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I did read the article. I mistook the part about the other guest seeing the YouTube video as her doing a podcast. My bad.
  - magneticnorth 5y ago
    She didn't interact with him in any way - he made a long youtube video in response to one of her comics: "the founder of the far-right neo-nazi group the Proud Boys had done a whole episode of his YouTube series about a comic I’d made." His video got a lot of attention, but she was not in it, nor did she ever interview him as far as I can tell from the article.

mpfundstein 5y ago

I don't know. My wife does not have those experiences. She happily buys stuff at Amazon, chats with relatives and friends on social media, and is active in some subreddits. I don't know of a single harassment issue so far. maybe less generalisation would help?

Gigachad 5y ago
I’m guessing these experiences come from being someone who runs a blog and is somewhat of a public figure.
- mpfundstein 5y ago
  agree. but the title does not say this. it says "thats how it works when you're an (arbitrary) woman on the internet". but would not be click-baity enough I guess.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I'm sorry what is the purpose of this nitpick? It's a title obviously it doesn't tell the whole story, that's why there is a story. What's next are you going to complain that there is no actual mockingbird being killed in Harper Lees book?! Is it that you don't agree with this person's politics why you are so dismissive?
  - detaro 5y ago
    Well, then we hope nobody "influential" picks on a meaningless random tweet by your wife so she stays arbitrary.
- fknorangesite 5y ago
  Sure. And, also, being a woman. Do you genuinely think that a man with this level of medium-notoriety would so consistently get abuse like this?
  - giantg2 5y ago

wedn3sday 5y ago

Its things like this that have made me start to think that anonymity on the internet does more harm then good. If every person who wrote comments online had to have their own real name next to the comment, some of this abuse would be mitigated. True, it would make secret communication harder, but if I have documents I want published in the Washington Post, I could just fedex an envelope to Woodward and/or Bernstein.

zozbot234 5y ago
Anonymity on the internet would make it easier for people to tweet about trivial stuff without exposing their meatspace identity. The fact that we expect people to reveal their "Real Names" on social media is a huge facilitator for abuse.
- Miner49er 5y ago
  I thought the same thing, but then I thought more, and wouldn't the abuse still happen? If she was pseudo-anonymous, but still clearly a women, wouldn't these people still hate on her? They would just use her username rather then her real name. They'd still try and dox her as well. It doesn't seem like it would really solve the issue.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Why would they hate on her? She would be just a rando posting about her day at the gym, as opposed to a semi-public figure that people might want to pick a fight with for unrelated reasons. She wouldn't have to stand behind everything she posts with a public real-world identity, only the stuff that's actually relevant to, e.g. her broader work.
    - Miner49er 5y ago
      As a writer, isn't Twitter a place where she can do her job? I think her Twitter is a part of her work. So I was more thinking she would be totally pseduoanonymous (published writing and all). I wasn't picturing a split like you suggest. I don't think that really works with her career, her Twitter is part of her writing. Plus, part of her hate is from her "broader work". The comic that the Proud Boy guy targeted.

evilotto 5y ago

This is not ok.

culi 5y ago

I'm sorry to start off a comment with "I'm not a X, but" but here goes I'm not a woman, but I do have experience being doxxed by groups on the far right. Me and a few other friends/organizers (~4-12 in total with varying degrees of severity) had our pictures plastered on 4chan. Someone really close to me got labelled "the president of antifa" and I can promise you most of 4channers are really dumb enough to think that's a thing. The main people who outed us were clearly a joke. They paraded around our IP addresses as if it was our GPS coordinates. They threatened to turn us into the FBI (this was when Trump tried to label antifa a terrorist org). [PS none of us considered ourselves members of antifa lol]. Mostly we made jokes about it and printed out the 4chan comments calling our friends soyboys or whatever. But my close friend, the president of antifa, had her name out there and someone used a people finder website to find her mom's home address, phone number, etc. We all had to close down our social media for a while to protect each other's privacy and safety. I know to most people 4chan is a joke. But just look at January 6th as an example. These people are stupid enough to believe that some tiny as group of students protesting climate change could be the leaders of antifa, but they're also stupid enough to act on that. I don't think most people really understand what it means to have your name, face, and other personal information out there with the types of people that got radicalized enough from pizzagate memes to walk into a pizza store with a rifle Incels might be a tiny group. And that could give most people the reassurance that they'll never win an election or whatever. But when it's the case of something this individualized, the very fact that they exist is a big threat to your safety

mpfundstein 5y ago
what did you do to get doxxed by 4chan?
- culi 5y ago
  We just started a club in college. It kinda did everything. We helped the teacher's union organize and plan strikes. We organized climate strikes. We helped the college Dems campaign against the college Republicans who sneaked their way in with a fake party, we helped organize a Food Not Bombs chapter which took foodwaste and turned it into meals for houseless folks, we campaigned for more community gardens, etc So a little bit of everything

stillkicking 5y ago

sbate1987 5y ago

alex_c 5y ago

So imagine a world where telepathy exists, and everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts. And there are no filters. With enough effort you learn to only "hear" thoughts in a certain range, but you can't filter out or block thoughts at will. And no one is able, or willing, to filter their own thoughts. They're just out there for everyone to hear. And they can be aimed at specific targets. Imagine the cross-section of thoughts you would hear all the time. Most of it mundane - work, family, food, shopping, day to day life. Some stand out through the noise - strong emotions like love, lust, happiness, pain, hatred. Some beautiful, some terrifying, some outright vile. A true cross-section of humankind's deepest thoughts. Now imagine the loudest ones start finding others like them, and start to aggregate and cluster - mentally, not physically. Feeding and amplifying each other and getting louder and bigger. And they start to look outward, and find the thoughts they hate, and feed on those. There are no physical restrictions, no limits on distance or speed, just thoughts bouncing around and searching and filtering each other. And imagine that once groups hit a critical mass, they also start to gather physically. And it's no longer just thoughts, but physical actions, encouraged by the entire group. Of course - the Internet is not telepathy, there are filters, and not everyone participates. But it's the closest we've come to it as a species so far. And this is who we are...

sasaf5 5y ago
> And this is who we are... This is what we became after being optimized for engagement.
- WithinReason 5y ago
  4chan is not optimised for engagement, it's one of the most basic messageboards.
- skulk 5y ago
  Image boards like 4chan are almost entirely free from adtech engagement optimization, so no. This is who we are when we are given a place to air our petty grievances with no accountability to prior postings.
- alex_c 5y ago

ilaksh 5y ago

It's weird to me to see that stuff in Twitter screenshots. Because, Twitter seems so public to me. Don't they risk getting banned immediately just saying things like that? Or does Twitter only really police people who harass celebrities? 4chan.. I mean, it seems like the only reason 4chan would still be allowed to exist is to make it easier for the FBI etc. to monitor the kind of garbage that goes on in 4chan in one place.

aaron695 5y ago

[dead]

giantg2 5y ago

I agree the treatment is terrible. My curiosity is piqued though. What was the comic that set this all off? It's mentioned several times in the article and the comments, but did I miss the link to it?

giantg2 5y ago
My searching hasn't found much. Perhaps it's this one (because it deals with women's empowerment)? Interesting life satisfaction graph in there. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20959863/women-happy-chores-gender-gap https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20959863/women-... This seems to say "comics" to mean more than one. So maybe it's just the common theme that she talks about (women's issues) that they hate? https://thenib.com/forever-alone/ https://thenib.com/forever-alone/ Looks like YouTube must have taken down the video. A weird side note is that it looks like there's a video of the guy doing a Tedx talk. I didn't know they let people like that do those.
- tomatotomato37 5y ago
  Yeah it's that first one, I checked the 4plebs archive for the relavent posts. Doesn't seem to be any specific reason they targeted her beyond the usual /pol/ cancer that's tainting so many boards nowadays https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/234859630/ https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/234859630/

lnxg33k1 5y ago

So if you learn Italian hand gestures you don't need to remove your headphones to tell people to fuck off

cafard 5y ago
There's a perfectly good, time-honored, well-understood American hand gesture.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  Lol yeah fair :D

RickJWagner 5y ago

lamontcg 5y ago

All the replies in here that attempt to deny or reduce this problem are why we're going to lose freedom of speech sooner or later. The people who aren't free speech absolutists are getting sick and tired of shit like this. And the free speech absolutists in one way or another just come off as blaming the victim. You're losing the argument (although not in this particular echo chamber).

commandlinefan 5y ago
So... what would you have those people do instead? Agree that we should restrict freedom of speech, for fear that if they disagree we'll... lose freedom of speech?
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Stop denying the problem and blaming the victim to start with. I don't have good solutions, but that certainly isn't a good solution.

sleepingadmin 5y ago

Absolutely not. Painting a political activist provocateur's experience online as representative of how women are treated online is ridiculous at best. No, that's called kicking the hornet's nest and then getting stung. Her story... She's at a party and doesn't know anyone but happens to be sitting next to someone who is an expert in white supremacy, who knows her extensively including her work, and is aware of criticism of her work? This story is swiss cheese at best. Clearly a fabricated story that's casting shadow on the rest of the story. Then again the rest of the story is nothing but anonymous comments from random open forums on the internet? There's no credibility here. Why is literally everyone is made out to be white supremacists? If you live in a world where everyone around you is a white supremacist; you're either a white supremacist or you have done something to create it. I'm leaning toward the author being a white supremacist. Hence why the white supremacist expert knew her so well.

rukuu001 5y ago
> Painting a political activist provocateur's experience online as representative of how women are treated online is ridiculous at best. It’s any woman with a decent profile online - a year or two ago a bunch of women in the tech space posted the Twitter DMs they received every day for a week or so - a tsunami of crap saying they’re ugly, they’re stupid, they’re going to be raped/killed etc. > Why is literally everyone is made out to be white supremacists? She didn’t say that, but did post screenshots of a bunch of slurs based on her surname.
- sleepingadmin 5y ago
  >It’s any woman with a decent profile online - a year or two ago a bunch of women in the tech space posted the Twitter DMs they received every day for a week or so - a tsunami of crap saying they’re ugly, they’re stupid, they’re going to be raped/killed etc. I dont wish to disregard this possibility that a visible female on the internet may be mistreated. Absolutely the case I can see this. However, this political activist provocateur very clearly is sticking their nose deep into the hornets nest. Their experience is certainly not even close to being representative of 'women on the internet' >She didn’t say that, but did post screenshots of a bunch of slurs based on her surname. She did say this. Her story literally starts how she meets a 'white supremacist expert' in person. Which is not a thing in reality, she's either stupid and was being mocked or the story is just fabricated. Which is my take on it in OP. She's clearly just faking much of it.

mrlonglong 5y ago

I felt sick as I read through that whole article. It just astounds me that there are actually people like this out there writing this verbal diarrhoea. If only their mothers knew what they were doing I'd hazard a pretty good guess they'd get a whole earful and a lot more else. Those people really need to stfu and sort their pathetic lives out.

lnxg33k1 5y ago

I think this is very wrong and offensive to the memory of All journalists who have sacrificed themselves to tell the general population about facts, including women. Like Galizia, Siani etc. The proud boys are not attacking you because you're a woman but because you're against their herd. This is just some sort of woke bullshit, if you want to be an author be an author and complain about the rights of authors and journalist to be safe from physical repercussions over their content but quit the crap about being attacked as a woman author, and the victimism for a couple of posts of 4chan and twitter, that people have been killed The issue is not about the gender, the issue is about the violence of people disagreeing with some point of view, unfortunately I would have no sympathy for your point of view as described in this article even if I of course would not be as raging and repressive as the people reported