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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:15PM
It is well known that men and women instigate domestic violence at roughly the same rates. [scientificamerican.com] However that fact is only half of the picture - it does not account for severity. Men tend to punch and choke while women tend to slap and scratch, thus women experience injury from domestic abuse at 2x the rate of men. That is what explains the reactions in the video you cited. In neither case is the victim injured, but the potential for escalation to injury is much greater when the man is the aggressor. The people who intervene are doing so not because of what has happened but what is likely to happen if it continues unchecked.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 24 2014, @02:50PM
How very dismissive of you. I guess because men usually choke and punch, it doesn't matter when women do it at all. Secondly, if you look at the video, she grabs the guy by the hair and literally throws him against a steel fence. That's merely amusing and OK because statistically, men punch and choke. One of the commentators on that page said this:
That's your logic.