"A woman's opinion is the miniskirt of the internet"

[HedleyLamarr]

I was sent a link to an article in yesterdays Independent by Laurie Penny which made me quite stabby on her behalf. I honestly do not understand the mentality of men who set out to threaten and intimidate women who put forward an opinion they don't like. Surely it's against the law to do this? If not, then should it be?
Pleas note it isn't her I got angry about, but those attacking her via their keyboards.

Bookmarking

New statesman here about women writers online abuse. Well worth reading for this section.

Got to go now, be back later

Thanks for that link SinicalSal. Very interesting and quite disturbing. The threats to rape with the writers' addresses added on is particularly vile. If I disagree with a piece I say so, and give a reason. I see no reason to threaten, nor do I dish out abuse willy nilly.

I had no idea that this is the experience of female journalists and bloggers.

How imensely and

Internet is a strange place.
I don't think there is anything you can do from a legal perspective, until it crosses over into RL. I don't think there should be legal sanctions for being a dickhead on the internet - where would it end?
It should be left in the hands of web communities and ultimately site owners. to do what, exactly, I don't know.

This is in no way a defence of nasty inadequates who set out to upset people, of course. I just think introducing legal limits to what can be said online is a bit of a slippery slope.

That's ok when it's a clearcut statement Helvetica but the cleverer and more dangerous types get their meaning across in a more subtle way.

'It's worrying how quickly a persons' real life identity can be discovered on the internet', is a statement that depends hugely on context. But could it possibly fall under any sort of legislation, or even site rules?

It would be lovely as Lenin says to have a consensus on what's acceptable, it's the best solution but not that likely tbh.

But how are the "you should be gang raped and this is your address" any different from those 2 men who were imprisoned for inciting riots on Facebook?

that's the bit that spills into RL, that's clearcut enough.
It won't do much for the more ambigious threats though.

its not different, Norma, but they also aren't threatening the government, just private folks. It's hard to get the State to do for the people what it does for itself.

I think whenever someone tells me that the trolls don't matter, that we should rise above it, that we're all paranoid, I'll post this thread.

And whenever someone calls anyone here a man-hater, I will post the stuff Cath Elliot gets from woman-haters and ask where any poster on the feminist board has ever used that sort of tone, when talking about men.

So many women have their heads in the sand about just how much so many men hate women. And the lengths that they're prepared to go to, to shut us up.

I think a thread about this in AIBU would be useful, with links to Laurie Penny's Twitter comments on this.

Thanks for that idea MildlyNarkyPuffin, I've just done it. I did wonder about putting it in there originally, well, either there or In The News, but thought this was the right place.

I have come here from the AIBU because I couldn't be arsed having to explain why rape threats are bad and not like being called ginger.

I think it's great that there is some discussion about this. I blog elsewhere and I've had some nasty abuse and the group blog I write for has been hacked a couple of times however, it is nothing compared to this.

I honestly had no idea it was was this bad. I do think that rape threats constitute hate speech and that once you start mentioning people's addresses and threatening to do them harm, the police should be involved.

I have to agree with your first line GothAnneGeddes. Some of the posts in my thread there are shocking. I do think it worthy of discussion though. Threats to rape are never acceptable.

It reminds me of racist abuse directed at footballers by fans in the 1980s. Opposition players would all be at risk of vile chants and stuff thrown from the crowd, but only the black players had bananas thrown at them and monkey noises made. Even after that had been stamped out, the word 'black' preceded the insults shouted at them.

Anyone blogging online is likely to attract a degree of abuse but the abuse directed at women who blog is abuse specific to them being women and very different to the abuse targeted at men.

Threats of sexual violence - often very graphic and specific threats - are not something that should be considered acceptable. Yes, targeting general abuse online is important, but to try to pretend that this is not a separate issue is obtuse.

There's a productive thread going on about this at Feministe too:
www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/11/04/threat-of-the-day/

Of course anonymity is the real enabler here. It's like children ringing doorbells and running away, only with adult-size vileness behind it. As Helvetica said, it does make you wonder how many of these people have normal respectable-looking lives (and wives, too) and let loose the demons when they think nobody knows who's doing it.

Thank you for the link TeiTetua , I shall have a look now.

Great article. Were the comments written by someone of the same species?

Jeez, I'm no fan of LP (just a meh from me) but where is the anger coming from on the AIBU thread? Posters telling another poster that they are being pervy by restating the threats...posters stropping off the thread after shouting and declaring anyone who doesn't agree with them as purposefully obtuse (well, ok, just me specifically! Am just trying to broaden it out so it doesn't feel so personal!). I am finding it really strange - bit like an alternate reality. Just registering my surprise and shock I suppose.

Marking my place to read this later.