If harassment isn't tackled soon, many women will go permanently offline to avoid online abuse:
2023 will be the year that women leave the internet. Women already face enormous risks online. A Pew Research report of a US survey shows that one-third of young women report having been sexually harassed online and that women report being more upset by these experiences and seeing it as a bigger problem than men do. A UNESCO study of journalists found that 73 percent of women surveyed had experienced online violence, and 20 percent said that they had experienced physical attacks or had been abused offline in connection to online abuse. In response, women journalists reported self-censoring, withdrawing from online interactions, and avoiding interacting with their audiences. Filipino-American journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa wrote about the online abuse that she faces, at one point receiving an average of over 90 hate messages per hour. After she investigated wrote about campaign-finance irregularities around then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello's employer received hundreds of thousands of harassing WhatsApp messages and threats of physical confrontation—so much so that her employer, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, was forced to hire a bodyguard for her. She also had to cancel all events for a month. What both women shared was that they dared question power while being visible on social media.
It isn't just famous or highly visible women who are facing enough online abuse to consider leaving social media. A YouGov poll commissioned by the dating app Bumble showed that almost half of women age 18 to 24 received unsolicited sexual images within the past year. UK Member of Parliament Alex Davies-Jones put the phrase "dick pic" into the historical record during the debate on the UK Online Safety Bill when she asked a male fellow MP if he had ever received one. It is not, as she said, a rhetorical question for most women.
[...] And the effects of online harm against women are chilling. We can look to research that's been done in societies where women face more social restrictions to see the impact. In a pioneering research study, Katy Pearce and Jessica Vitak found women in Azerbaijan opting out of being online because the potential real-world repercussions resulting from online harassment were simply too high in an honor-based culture with high degrees of surveillance. In other words, women faced an impossible double standard: unable to control their image on social media but punished severely for it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Captival on Monday December 26, @06:01PM (7 children)
More censorship, more speech control, more massive government oversight. Hooray! That'll certainly make things better for everyone.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:21AM (6 children)
It looks like you're trying to write an insightful post. Can I help?
You seem to have not noticed the entirety of history, where "regulation" by religion, dictatorships, Royalty, inherited wealth, etc. literally OWNED every part of everything that humans did. The recent (~100 years ish) emergence of regulation that WE control is sweet, sweet liberation compared to the rest of human existence. Carry on now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 27, @02:12PM (5 children)
Yeah, I think you've contributed something here. I'm not real sure that you've contributed precisely what you intended.
Have you ever asked yourself why society has tolerated the imposition of regulations by those authority figures you mention? Do you realize there is safety in relying on those figures? There is danger in freedom, after all. Complete freedom of choice in clothing, for example, might result in being ostracized by society, or worse. Females more than males, but unspoken and/or spoken dress codes can get anyone in trouble. A scene from 'The Last Emporer' has a youngster treading dangerously close to execution because the inner lining of his jacket is yellow, or, Imperial Yellow. Historically, people have feared witches. The young lady who dresses differently than her peers risks being branded a witch, if not a harlot. (hard to say which is worse, witch or harlot - I guess it depended on which society you lived in)
Many people fear freedom, fear decision making, fear responsibility. They want a strictly codified set of rules to live by, so they can learn the rules, and live their lives free of fear. Even bad rules are better than no rules, because they can blame Authority if things go wrong.
Regulation by religious figures bears some examination. Where did the regulations come from? Why? How? Dietary regulations are often based on empirical evidence that violating certain rules can result in death or worse. Eating pork is a pretty common taboo, and we can blame the trichinella worm for that.
My point is, before you mock the rules makers too much, maybe you should step back a pace or two, and examine the rules you are mocking.
Back to the immediate subject of discussion. People today fear what might happen to them in the cyberworld, free of rules and regulations. The internet is so new, we haven't established a strong set of taboos. People are afraid of witches, afraid of bad juju and voodoo. People want rules that will keep all of those bad things away from them.
And, as always, there are zealots ready and willing to step in to provide those rules.
And, yes, you're mostly right. There is little difference between today's zealots, and the religious zealots from milennia past.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:26AM (4 children)
I guess you regards rules as emerging from a place of knowledge - for our own good? - whereas I regard rules as passed down from some distant, arbitrary hierarchy (e.g. the divine right of Kings). The march of civilization is we the people loosening the grip of inherited inequality. Laws, for example, protect us from the unfettered power of absolute rulers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 28, @05:05AM (3 children)
You have guessed wrongly, my erudite Coward.
It would be more accurate to state that laws, rules, regulations, custom and tradition survive centuries and millennia because they work. I mentioned trychonosis. 3, or 4, or 5 thousand years ago, science hadn't identified the worm, or the means by which the worm caused the debilitating disease. Rather, through empirical evidence, it was observed that some people who ate pork were cursed with this disease. Whether they blamed it on demons, or on the hogs, or whatever, it was observed that people who ate pork became diseased. The taboo was put into place, centuries of religious enforcement followed, and people ultimately stopped eating pork in much of the world. And, no one, or almost no one, was afflicted with trychinosis any longer.
Which is part and parcel to some of my arguments against progressive agendas for society. You just don't screw with the proven methods by which society preserves itself. Once you've erred, and fucked society up, you can't just change your mind and go back to what you used to have - it's gone forever.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday December 28, @06:00AM (1 child)
Agreed. It's arrogant to think that any historical rule was simply invented on a whim. The eating of pork is a good example, but there are many others. For example, rules and laws against theft, murder etc have been on the books for thousands of years. I doubt that they were brought in capriciously by someone on a whim!
Laws against incest and adultery are also very practical for lowering the proportion of adverse inheritable genetic conditions from parents. Why adultery? Because in a small town, you could very easily marry your half-sibling without being aware of it if one or the other of your parents cheated. Knowing your ancestry / biology is very important in small clan-based groups (which was most of humanity until a few hundred years ago), where inbreeding could be disastrous. Most people view adultery laws as being moralistic, but they actually have a solid basis in the survival of the species (from a historical perspective).
I'm fine with laws being changed, provided we know what the potential side-effects of that change could be and undertake a proper risk-based analysis. This often requires the assistance of historians and people from "both sides" of the debate, as it can be easy for a strong advocate (one way or the other) from being blinded to potential drawbacks of their proposed position. It's one of the dangers of cancel culture today - those who cancel have no interest in an alternative viewpoint, blinding themselves to any possible flaws in their position. Bad policy is sure to follow.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Vocal Minority on Wednesday December 28, @07:26AM
Whilst I agree to some extent, a couple things to consider are:
The survival of morals may not be directly related to human thriving/freedom/etc. (this is arguable, see JBP's commentary in Piaget)
The underlying reality is always in a state of flux. Existing morals may not be adequate for emerging challenges (e.g. climate change/nuclear weapons/global surveillance) or are rendered unnecessary by technological changes (e.g. antibiotics/birth control)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @07:02AM
Well you are very cherry-picking one rule. It's actually dumb that this became a "rule" maintained by authority.
I would argue knowledge, which does not require obedience since "it makes you sick" is pretty convincing, is sometimes usurped by authority to give itself unwarranted heft. If we're going with religion, then the Bible contains many odd phrases about the meek inheriting the earth, and the kingdom of god belonging to those who work the land and not some far away pharasees (overlords), which are perverted over time into supporting power-based hierarchies. Clownish example: the prosperity gospel.
Perhaps we are arguing two sides of the same coin. I certainly like some of your other posts further down this thread. Here's a book (by someone smarter than me) about where I'm coming from: http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html#12 [theabsolute.net]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday December 26, @06:07PM (3 children)
Wonder how advertising power houses like Alphabet, Meta and Amazon are going to deal with more than 50% fewer eyeballs to market to?
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday December 26, @09:47PM (2 children)
Well, they say an eyeball for an eyeball [sic] would make the whole world blind [quoteinvestigator.com], so extrapolating from that ... I'm guessing ... additional funding put into machine vision research?
Very good point, though. Going a day without buying gasoline as a protest is useless, because you'd still have to fill up yesterday or tomorrow even if it doesn't affect the wrong people. Going a week without advertising eyeball impressions from a whole group, though:
If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. If every microwave or car or washing machine in a mid-sized city went on strike for a week due to the robot uprising, you'd hear about it (unless the cell phones went on strike too).
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday December 27, @02:18AM
Somehow this reminds me of the ancient Greek comedy "Lysistrata".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata [wikipedia.org]
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday December 27, @02:34AM
Or why I don't believe the ad companies when they screech that "We're not going to advertise on $BigPlatform anymore!"
Uh... can they really afford to dump all those clients? Because ad agencies don't sell to the public; they sell their services to business. And if they're not doing that job, business will go elsewhere.
Actually, I like this scenario... that many fewer ad agencies!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 26, @06:32PM (36 children)
Only women face abuse on social media. Men are never targeted at all.
FFS, can we sunset the constant claims to victim hood? Everyone takes flak from everyone else sometimes.
Women won't quit the internet for the same reason they don't quit any other sphere of life, because there is good that goes along with the bad.
And, by the way, can we stop treating women like they're made out of porcelain? They are not fragile and weak. They can give as good as they get.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday December 26, @06:41PM (27 children)
Oh yeah? How come they've been treated like second-class human being for centuries if they're so strong then?
Women can be as opinionated as men, but they're physically weaker. That's just biology. And when it comes right down to it, men have used and will use their physical advantage to bully women and dominate them if the law doesn't strongly protect them. Not because they're women, but because human beings are pretty shitty at treating their weaker brethren with respect.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday December 26, @07:07PM (12 children)
Physical advantage is irrelevant in the internet. The only possible effect of applying more force there is to break your own keyboard or touch screen.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday December 26, @07:34PM (10 children)
Furthermore, women are statistically more likely to have better language skills and the Internet, as may be seen, is text. That switches the advantage strongly away from men.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by srobert on Monday December 26, @07:59PM
Nahhh, broads ain't got no better language then me.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday December 26, @10:19PM
Yes, but there's one tragic flaw [youtu.be] you've overlooked (assuming it's true). I mean, you could always outsource it to someone lacking that flaw, or adapt ChatGPT for evil instead of good, or for "that would be a good point if it wasn't made in such a boring way."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26, @11:42PM (6 children)
LOL. Someone thinks "better language skills" are the key to navigating discourse on the internet. LOL. (Yes, my use of LOL is ironic here. Because trolls often easily dismiss anything they disagree with simply with things like "LOL" or other mocking internet-speak.)
Here's the reality: "better language skills" for women generally relate to things like being able to articulate things a bit better or to see nuance in language.
Nuance in language doesn't matter on the internet, though.
When I think of internet interactions, I often think of a debate I had once in an undergraduate class on environmental policy. This was back before social media or anything as expansive as the internet today existed. I had been on debate teams in high school, and I understood the value of solid rhetoric. I understood how one can often push rhetoric to say things that might be slightly misleading, but it could be helpful to your argument. As long as you don't say it in a way that the other side can exploit, and as long as you have good comebacks, you can "win" a debate often when you're on a weaker side, at least in terms of audience perception.
When it was my turn to debate, I came to class with a lot of information, but also a willingness to exploit strategies against my opponent. I knew I had be chosen to defend the weaker position environmentally (and, honestly, factually), but I thought the point of the exercise was debate. (It was partly an "environmental politics" class, and we spent a lot lot of time talking about irrationality in environmental arguments.) So, when I realized my opponent wasn't as well-prepared in certain background knowledge, I started arguing using facts, but they were misleading facts. A good opponent would have called me on it and had a rejoinder, but they didn't. I was pretty much "mopping the floor" with them until the teaching assistant jumped in and started correcting me and pointing out nuances I was deliberately leaving out. Suddenly, I wasn't having a debate anymore about "winning" -- it became about "the truth."
And that's a completely different type of conversation.
Most of the time, I'm personally more interested in the "truth" in online discussions. But 95%+ of people on the internet seem more interested in "winning" than in the truth. People get rewarded for BS and bluster on the internet, not nuance. They are trying to "win" the debate, like I was in my class, but on the internet there often isn't an authority figure to step in like my TA and clarify what was true and what was just my bluster.
In sum, what matters is frequently tenacity, aggressiveness, and the ability to sound confident (whether you're right or not). THOSE are more masculine traits, often pushed by the same testosterone that fuels physical superiority.
I've encountered many trolls on the internet over the years who are capable of sticking around and arguing and spouting nonsense until you finally just have to give up and concede that it's not worth your life to debate this person. There is only one case (in my own experience) where I've known such a person to be a woman, and a multitude where I've known those people to be men.
One can see it, for example, in a number of prominent lesbian forums that have been abandoned and remade (often elsewhere) in the past few years, due to the influx of trans women (who often still have a lot of testosterone coursing in their blood). Women created forums to allow discourse that was often less aggressive, more nuanced, and more focused on female perspectives -- only to sometimes be overrun by those who naturally have more masculine hormones causing them to act more aggressively and taking over discussion.
It used to be considered reasonable, even in liberal circles, to acknowledge this. I recall myself reading an article in The New Yorker maybe 12 years ago or so that discussed (as part of a larger set of issues) that some women at historically all-female colleges were feeling discomfort at including transsexual women. In those early days, there was an acknowledgement that even when it didn't have to do with physical prowess, stereotypically male aggressiveness could change dynamics in all-female communities.
It was a legitimate thing to discuss 15 years ago. Today, you are labeled as "transphobic" even to express such thoughts.
I respect everyone's opinions and ability to do what they want with their bodies and try to use whatever pronouns they prefer. But it's not unreasonable to also acknowledge that male hormones change body AND brain development. Aggressiveness is not exclusively a male trait, but it is often more prominent. Styles of argumentation are often different among those who have more of those male hormones -- and hormone therapy may or may not always shift dynamics that may have already been learned or have come more naturally through brain development.
Anyhow, I really didn't want to turn this into something about trans folks (who often deal with a lot of significant challenges in their lives, and who deserve reasonable accommodations). But reactions from lesbian communities which have been overrun by a minority of trans women are one of the clearest indicators that one doesn't "win" on the internet by words alone. And sex is often still important in determining who tends to be more aggressive in online interactions vs. who tends to be more nuanced or conciliatory.
So no, I don't at all agree that "better language skills" "switches the advantage strongly away from men." To the contrary, the type of language skills you're mentioning aren't what one needs to dominate anonymous discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @01:07AM
I think they still have womyn on crystal.cafe and mumsnet. Not sure.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @05:42AM (2 children)
Wow... an off-topic mod for addressing the comment that was the parent to mine. Yeah, I know I told a brief meandering story to make the point, but bolded it to help those TL;DR types to see the relevance.
Oh well... I've seen SoylentNews declining for years. I stopped posting under my name years ago because of the "winning an argument" masculine toxic bullshit. I tried actually posting a longer comment here for the first time in a few months because I see the discussion declining.
But I guess nobody wants discussion anymore here.
Guess it's time to completely stop commenting now. Fuck you all.
Peace out, bros. Have fun with your strange playground of bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @05:59AM (1 child)
Ragequit over one downmod? Most of us are not getting mod points anymore because the system is broken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:39AM
There are mod points?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday December 27, @06:27PM (1 child)
Those are very good observations. As a counterpoint, there are also strong arguments that females, of all species, are no less aggressive [theguardian.com]. That is also the case with people but the aggression seen from males is direct and in your face. Aggression from females is usually very indirect and often quite complicatedly so.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:44PM
In fact it could even be better for the species if many young guys do dangerous new stuff. e.g. the crap and unlucky die, while the survivors have a higher chance of having genes with some redeeming qualities.
Joke: if a woman had the obsessive urge to wash her hands frequently, she might start seeking professional help.
But if a guy had a similar urge he might form a group/subreddit with other guys and start arguing about which is the best soap, conditioner, detergent/chemical, water, fastest/cleanest/"bestest" technique, etc...
And for similar reasons that's why so many talk about initiatives to encourage women to do stuff (STEM etc). Whereas in contrast you need armed cops/guards, fines and prison to discourage guys from doing stuff... ;)
[1] To produce a human baby the species needs the woman for about 9 months. The guy doesn't have to be around for that long. So to sustain a human population with a particular attrition rate you won't need as many guys as you need women.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:03PM
Seriously though, guys are better at feeling confident and "compartmentalization". Whether they're right or wrong. Testosterone plays a significant part in this.
Ever seen those fail/awesome videos? Notice that more guys are doing the dangerous/stupid stuff?
So in an argument on the internet where the guy doesn't care about the woman's feelings; the guy won't give a fuck - hurt feelings who cares.
(Score: 2) by https on Tuesday December 27, @06:28PM
The medium used to deliver a threat cannot change the fact that a threat has been delivered.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26, @07:11PM (1 child)
Only real women. Our sick society is "fixing" that by allowing men to pretend to be women. Just consider the women's sporting records that are being crushed by men pretending to be women.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:13PM
Men have never had to pretend to be women in order to rape.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday December 27, @01:02AM (2 children)
I agree. It's not fair at all that we treat them as disposable labor, only good for doing physical and mental work. Whenever there is any risk of death or injury, we just send more meat. War, construction, hazardous industries, etc. We don't give a fuck if they suffer from high suicide rates, or low education prospects either. It's high time we started treating them as actual human beings for once since the start of recorded history.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:41AM
"They" still vote for Trump. It's like being an asshole isn't limited to men.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 27, @05:10PM
It's funny how damn near 100% of the time I hear a man whining about their victimhood like this it turns out they were also opposed to allowing women and gays into the military in the first place.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BlueCoffee on Tuesday December 27, @03:02AM (5 children)
How come they've (women) been treated like second-class human being for centuries
Ya so? Until the 1900s, most men have been treated like second-class human beings throughout history.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 27, @02:32PM (3 children)
Touche mod needed.
It seems that people have forgotten history. The illegitemate third cousin of the king's cousin had rights and privileges that the common man could only dream of, for most of history. The kind's favorite servants could do no wrong, and the king's high ranking officers could do as they pleased, so long as they didn't displease the king. Farmers, craftsmen, laborers, even merchants could be kicked to the curb at will, never mind their women.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday December 30, @02:05AM (2 children)
Note that all those privileged relations/friends etc of the King that were treated so well were usually men. The royal women were political pawns and the female servants sex toys when young and disposable at all ages.
You have to compare like to like, or rather class to class
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 30, @12:07PM (1 child)
Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake because she didn't fall down and spread her legs.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 31, @01:05AM
Good point
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday December 30, @02:03AM
So what you are saying is that women have been treated like 3rd or 4th class people by the 1st and 2nd class men.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Tuesday December 27, @01:06PM (2 children)
Because everyone who isn't in the elite ruling classes has been treated like a second-class human being for centuries. Women have managed to figure out how to get more sympathy than men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:31AM
(Pssst the secret is.... blowjobs)
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday December 30, @02:09AM
Women have been treated shittier then men of the same class up until recently (and still in some cultures). It was only about a hundred years back that women were allowed to own property and no longer had to get a mans permission to do so much, like opening a bank account.
(Score: 1) by ShovelOperator1 on Monday December 26, @08:16PM (1 child)
What I see in modern Internet, is that harassment and blatant discrimination of men is not only perfectly acceptable, but encouraged. Mostly in advertisement.
The content policy is directly related to advertising reach. This is not about information or knowledge anymore, the advertisement is in the first place, and the information is not important, may be even false. This is the corporate Internet.
So, the thing in advertising is the audience. By its definition, advertisement must show negative example to draw potential customers away from not buying a product. Putting any minorities there will cause the reduction of the audience. It could be seen in early 1980s television, when advertisers got many targets except minorities, so they started to put people from mostly racial minorities to TV shows as "placeholders" to get a wider reach of ads. Being exploited this way is not something that makes you feel better especially when you are already discriminated group.
But this moved on to employment and corporations, when some people from minorities explicitly said that they don't want to get a "Man of colour" job position. There is an interesting book about it called "Anatomy of a TV in USA" or alike, it's from 1980s and I forgot who wrote this.
This way advertisers got rid of their "whipping boy" as it was more optimal in that time, but it started to cause problems. So they found ugly men - and it's easy to be ugly in this photoshopped world - that they are a group that can be used as a negative stereotype and can be another target by selling them products simultaneously.
And when being exposed on such meme, the thought is automatically "they're ugly, they're outcasts, we can harass them". And radicalization goes on both sides - we have a "white knights" and "involuntary celibates", both performing the fallacy I don't know how is it called, but it's like being angry on a rifle because it shoots. The question is: will we get to the Rwanda level, or someone more clever will use one of these groups against their spiteful countries first?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:44AM
Looks like somebody just discovered Divide and Rule...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Monday December 26, @08:17PM
Maybe you have had a different experience, but misogyny has been the norm on the internet since I started using it in '97.
It hasn't changed a whole lot in that regard.
YMMV
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:49AM (3 children)
> Only women face abuse on social media. Men are never targeted at all.
Think about it - who hates women and only loves men? The gays. The gays and trans are ruining teh Internets for all of us. We need to DO something to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @11:51AM (1 child)
Think about it -- who hates women? Other women. Nobody hates or dislikes women as much as other women. They might get physically abused and hurt by men but nobody hates women as much as other women. The sisterhood just goes so far.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:34AM
Wait, I'm thinking about it... it's bullshit! Amirite???
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 28, @01:13AM
I swear to God! [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 27, @05:07PM
We can sunset those claims when there are no longer women around who were victimized by policies that treated them as sub-humans.
They've only been allowed to vote for a hundred years and own their own checking accounts for like 50. So we've got a few years left...
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday December 26, @06:34PM (1 child)
That's sexist. Women can drive themselves even in Saudi Arabia now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @09:52AM
True facts. Women can drive themselves from the daycare to the kitchen at will, praise be to Allah.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Monday December 26, @06:37PM
Just replace honor-based or have it include politics and it describes the online experience everywhere, not just in various repressive regimes in the far-beyond-izstan. The surveillance is everywhere. You are just kidding yourself if you don't think governments in the west are not doing more or less the same as the less desirable governments around the world. They are just not as up front about it or have out-sourced it to the Big-Tech-Complex. The goal and repercussions might be slightly different (unless you count control of the masses as the primary reason) at the moment but it's here. They might not act upon it right now but the data is gathered and one day it might get used against you.
I am sure that it must suck to be them and in their situation if it as as described. It is somewhat hard to imagine since I guess I'll never get the same level or online harassment as them. That said I'm not sure they'll be missing out on much if the Internet as it is described here is turning into a sausage-fest-cesspool. As the saying goes -- not much of value was lost. Or they just have to create their own internet ... with blackjack and male-hookers.
While one shouldn't blame the victim I do sometimes wonder if part of it isn't also a bit self inflicted. Some of these journalists and talking-heads-figures goes out of their way to shove their opinions down the throat the public and it's all fine as long it's a one direction communication from them but when they get told back that they can go and fuck themselves, or even if it's put a lot more nicely, or they get called on their bullshit they instantly go to the defensive setting that this must be cause they are women and not that they are or have been somewhat asinine themselves and they had this coming. Not to then mention that women also harass women, even with sexually explicit language. As noted men get it to but it's different -- they get told to go and die and they are stupid/retarded or just less manly (cause it's only super-duper-macho-men-YMCA-style on the net). While women get told the same plus some extra about how more cock could apparently cure all that ails they. So I'm less certain that one is worse or better then the other. It's just men appears to be just sucking it up or shrugging if off or they just care less what semi-anonymous-idiots on the internet think and say.
Is this great logging off going to happen in the same soon as all general tech development and progress (ie always about a decade away)? Cause there is no way in hell that half the human race will just stop being online cause parts of the other half are being dicks about it, literally. I would be somewhat surprised if women in large logged off permanently, the idea presented here is more or less extrapolated from various news pieces and a survey from Azerbaijan. While the issues might be somewhat global I doubt it will happen. A very low risk event I would say.
Personally I don't want the internet to be turned into some kind of gigantic curated AOL hellscape even tho Zuck and the others would probably love it if that happened. But if the internet just isn't for you there is no requirement to actually be here, or do anything but lurk. Just stop sharing everything all the time, there is no need to share all your pics and opinions around the clock and somewhat never expect to be getting any kind of pushback.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 26, @08:20PM (9 children)
i'd say, come on over to my place: i treat women with respect and you'll get all the lovin' i can give... depends, i guess, how many women show up at one time. Hmmm....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday December 26, @08:44PM (2 children)
If you say "you'll get all the lovin' i can give," many women will interpret that as a threat of rape.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 26, @09:10PM
Well, there's no respect in rape and no love either, so....
How about I'll give them all the respect they can handle? Sooooo romantic! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26, @09:13PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by aafcac on Tuesday December 27, @04:22AM (5 children)
That's not true. It's pretty well established that women have a very distorted sense of reality and what they say they want isn't what they actually respond to. I'm not sure how else you'd react to surveys where women rate 2/3 of the men as being less attractive than average if there weren't some sort of distorted thinking going on.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 27, @01:28PM (2 children)
The "distorted sense of reality" is the article. Women are NOT quitting the Internet. There are huge advantages to communication that doesn't require all the risks of physical presence.
As to that female deviousness you mention, it's a necessity. What's a woman to do when a man wants to blame his troubles on her, threatens violence, and, as is the case most of the time, she can't win a physical altercation with him? Even if she could win a fist fight, it's best avoided. Turning to threats of violence is often a failure of imagination. Eloquence works often enough that being good at it pays off.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday December 27, @10:56PM (1 child)
That's all the more reason to stop crying wolf and treating men like tools. So much of this is the byproduct of treating men like garbage so even the ones that aren't creeps aren't willing to step in to stop bad behavior. Men do respond to public pressure on most cases, none of the abusive behavior that women complain about are normal male behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:40AM
Son, it sounds like you have studied the women carefully. It's time you go outside from the basement and catch yourself some live females and conversate with them personally.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday December 27, @01:45PM (1 child)
No, it's very well established that (female) women aren't a hive mind — we all have individual preferences when it comes to picking out guys, just like men have for women.
That's pretty simple to explain: people's perception of what qualifies as an 'average' person is based on all of their experiences, not just the individuals depicted within a small survey, plus it will be heavily colored by what they find appealing.
If I see 15 guys at the grocery store and compare them to all other men I've seen, the percentage that I consider more appealing, less appealing, or average is going to depend on who happens to be there, and the next woman you ask might very well give you completely different answers. Realistically, it's not going to be an even "5 average, 5 superior, 5 inferior" split with both of us agreeing on which guys fall into which categories. (That's also completely ignoring, of course, that what a person finds sexually attractive is different from which traits they find appealing in a prospective long-term relationship.)
(Score: 1, Redundant) by aafcac on Tuesday December 27, @10:52PM
And yet you don't see that with men to anywhere near that extent, men are much more accurate in the same articles. Women don't need to be a hive move for a cognitive distortions to cause problems. So it takes is a peer group co-signing on the idea that the husband, birthday it makes stranger was a jerk, even if the woman was wrong in an effort to spare her feelings.
(Score: 1, Troll) by crafoo on Monday December 26, @08:44PM (5 children)
Sounds great to me. Excellent result.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday December 26, @08:54PM (3 children)
Posting in reply just to spite you :) Die mad, you salty little incel loser!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @01:37AM (2 children)
Ok femcel. How's your Escape from New York?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 27, @09:58PM (1 child)
Is this some new definition of *cel I don't know about that includes "in a committed, monogamous relationship for just over 10 years?" Do enlighten me, snowflake :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @11:26PM
Hey - speaking of snowflakes - How's that emergent-C going up there?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday December 27, @03:58PM
I was going to comment that there are far too many assholes in this world who would see this as a victory, but this particular asshole just made my point better than I ever could have.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by corey on Monday December 26, @09:47PM (2 children)
As above. Another article pushing the false idea that “the internet” is social media. Plus that big online shopping website.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 27, @05:14AM
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 27, @01:03PM
Lot of husbands might be only too pleased if their shopaholic wives would abandon online shopping!
(Score: 1, Troll) by EJ on Tuesday December 27, @12:22AM (2 children)
Guy In Real Life
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Tuesday December 27, @09:47AM (1 child)
Ah yes, the internet. Where men are men, women are men and kids are FBI agents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @10:37AM
And all of them are called Bubba.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, @02:07AM
Rubin, Rubin, I've Been Thinking
Traditional Song
Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking.
What a strange* world this would be
If all the men were all transported
Far beyond the northern sea!
Rachel, Rachel, I've been thinking.
What a strange world this would be
If the girls were all transported
Far beyond the northern sea!
Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking.
Life would be so easy then!
What a great world this would be,
If there were no tiresome men!
Rachel, Rachel, I've been thinking.
Life would be so easy then!
What a great world this would be,
If you'd leave it to the men!
Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking.
If we went beyond the seas,
All the men would follow after
Like a swarm of bumblebees!
Rachel, Rachel, I've been thinking.
If we went beyond the seas,
The girls all would follow after
Like a swarm of honeybees!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, @04:53PM
I hope you do Karen and without asking to speak to the Internet Manager...
Meanwhile I'm pretty sure I'll still see more women than guys on instagram, onlyfans, pornhub, etc. ;)