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Jake Swearingen writes at The Atlantic that the Internet can be a mean, hateful, and frightening place - especially for young women but human behavior and the limits placed on it by both law and society can change. In a Pew Research Center survey of 2,849 Internet users, one out of every four women between 18 years old and 24 years old reports having been stalked or sexually harassed online. "Like banner ads and spam bots, online harassment is still routinely treated as part of the landscape of being online," writes Swearingen adding that "we are in the early days of online harassment being taken as a serious problem, and not simply a quirk of online life." Law professor Danielle Citron draws a parallel between how sexual harassment was treated in the workplace decades ago and our current standard. "Think about in the 1960s and 1970s, what we said to women in the workplace," says Citron. "'This is just flirting.' That a sexually hostile environment was just a perk for men to enjoy, it's just what the environment is like. If you don't like it, leave and get a new job." It took years of activism, court cases, and Title VII protection to change that. "Here we are today, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not normal," said Citron. "Our norms and how we understand it are different now."
According to Swearingen, the likely solution to internet trolls will be a combination of things. The expansion of laws like the one currently on the books in California, which expands what constitutes online harassment, could help put the pressure on harassers. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Elonis v. The United States, looks to test the limits of free speech versus threatening comments on Facebook. "Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?" asks Swearingen. "Too many people do too much online for things to stay the way they are."
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @02:55AM
Yup, none of us are as cruel as all of us are. I can't disagree with that, though I'm not convinced it's a big enough concern to warrant a federal government and all that it brings. Whether I like it or not the federales already police a lot of the more serious actions that these kids engage in. Do you think we need new legislation targetting any repeat poster of contact meant to annoy? That sounds pretty extreme in the other direction.
You may have a point about the swatting thing, perhaps I need to reconsider this as a response. Personal challenges and calls to authority are two different beasts entirely.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:49AM
> Yup, none of us are as cruel as all of us are.
That's not what I am saying. It isn't about ganging up on someone. It is about how one person can use the net to do accomplish a lot. In this case accomplish a lot of harassment. For example creating hundreds of sockpuppet accounts so that the victim must either block all new contact from everybody or accept harassment on a regular basis. Then there are things like impersonating the victim in order to ruin their reputation.
> Do you think we need new legislation targetting any repeat poster of contact meant to annoy?
That's sufficiently vague to be impossible to argue about. There is a line, the argument about is where that line needs to be drawn.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:38AM
I actually have a solution to this problem, though you may not like it. Sometimes I forget my positions on things, otherwise I probably would have brought this up sooner. I'm kind of stealing it from Thieves' Emporium [amazon.com] (not recommended), though I have no idea if it originated in that book. Basically we split the internet up into a bunch of smaller networks based on trust, so in order to be in a network you have to be invited. The networks are run however they're run, some by community consensus and others in an authoritarian manner. The important thing is that they all have their own message boards (and other services), but whoever runs a network can allow or block other networks from accessing their boards. This means that if a user is being unruly they'll get reported to whoever runs their network, and if the entity running the network lets their users be fucktards then their network will get banned by the other networks. The author of Thieves' Emporium envisions a system where everyone has an individual username, but I think Anonymous Cowards would be fine as long as you could tell what network they're coming from so that the owner of the network would be ultimately responsible for policing them. It's a distributed system based on reciprocity and trust, not a monopoly on violence. I understand the risk of Balkanization, but I think most people would be able to get access to the different divisions if it went that way.
I wasn't trying to be vague, I was trying to ask your opinion of the California legislation I originally quoted from TFA. But yes, it is really vague. We can certainly agree on that.
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:45AM
To be clear, I'm not necessarily talking about physical networks. I'm talking about a system built on top of the existing infrastructure, or better yet on top of a CJDNS/OpenLibernet style meshnet. A network of people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:45PM
> I actually have a solution to this problem,
Great theory. If you don't want the government to get involved then it falls on you to make your theory reality so that people have an alternative to government regulation.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:27PM
I can't disagree, but I don't see turning to the government's monopoly on violence is a valid response even in the absense of such a system.
Thanks for a reasonable and articulate conversation with me, Anonymous Coward.