Is social media normalising the stalking and harassment of women?

[DJLippy]

I read a wonderful thread this morning from intersex campaigner Mrkhtake2 which listed an incident of abuse she received yesterday on Twitter.
twitter.com/mrkhtake2/status/1037238956402851840

In this debate one of the most concerning aspects is the doxxing and harassment that many women have experienced. One thing I learned from Mrkhtake2's thread is the sexed nature of such behaviour. According to the ONS harassment is listed under sexual offenses and violent crime. In the past 12 years, 92% of crimes of this nature were perpetrated by men. You can check the stats here
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/natureofcrimetablesviolence
This is most definitively male pattern abuse.

Now NHS doctors are using their platforms to harrass women on Twitter - seemingly without any kind of retribution from the platform. There is a concerted effort to doxx and harass Mumsnet Twitter users - you can see the Tweets here. There are also those who suggest that UK political parties have been involved - either directly or by failure to condone such behavior.

I am concerned that when this type of behaviour goes unchallenged - and when it's encouraged by those in authority, it is normalised.

Is there anything that can be done? Does anybody know where the law stands? I know that this crime is something which the police struggle to prosecute. I was shocked to learn that Newsnight anchor Emily Maitlis has been stalked for many years and continues to live in fear. He privilege fails to protect her from such abuse.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42725776

How are normal women, with no financial or social resources supposed to defend themselves?

I don't think that the authorities take this crime seriously and I don't think that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter do either. We share so much online these days that the potential for someone with ill intent to stalk and harass is immense.

This should become a major feminist issue. Thoughts?

From the public service announcement thread: beware of posters with "Ronseal" names (i.e. "does exactly what it says on the tin").

Surely no-one could be so very, very silly as to think that women online bring their own harassment on themselves?

I don't think anyone would ever suggest that, its just that if you are being harassed online you have the power to ignore it and most social media sites have options to block and or only see things from people you like. And if that isn't the case with whatever media you are using then don't use it. Obviously it isn't nice for anyone to experience but it's well within the power of women to ignore.

No, sorry, just ignore it is not a valid argument. Firstly because it actually means overlooking abuse, libel and threats. Secondly because it leads to the silencing of women. If women are unable to fully participate in public discussion their voices and opinions are overlooked.

The response of the police seems to be - you put that information into the public domain so you can't complain now some crazy stalker is scouring through all your social media profiles to find any piece of personal information about you to make a file. Delete your social media and get off the internet. That's literally telling women - get back in the house if you don't want to be abused. No. It's not good enough.

I'm not saying get off of the internet or social media, just use it in a clever manor, there are ways of not allowing any personal info on your social media and if the social media you are using doesn't support that then don't complain when it's used against you. If you think this is something the police should be involved in then you clearly aren't aware of how thinly they are spread as it is.

Yeah - stop wasting police time women - they've got better things to do than protect you from sexual assault.

I guess that's what you will tell the women you love when some random bloke ruins their life with on-line harassment

I'm with DJLippy here. Social media and internet as a whole is indeed like the Wild West. Total free for all bunfight creator.

But if I am choosing to do something legal and relatively public, as a private citizen, then whatever my sex or anything else, I am entitled to expect, nay demand the protection of the law against aggressive and threatening behaviour, the same way I would expect it on the street or in a shopping centre.

The world has changed, as it was always going to, and a decent civilization knows that it's laws must keep pace with the rate of change. Anything else is like saying "Our police force only have access to truncheons, so if you're at all worried about or in danger from gun crime, you best stay indoors."

@Veryverysilly are you a man by any chance?

It doesn't make a difference whether women put personal information on online,simply being a woman is enough to make some people think it's okay to stalk and harass them. And the police do have a duty to get involved because that kind of behaviour is against the law.

If you're worried about the police being understaffed, instead of telling women not to expect police action, maybe you should be telling stalkers and harassers not to break the law. Or even better, lobby your MP for increases in police funding.

Well if women want to participate in public discourse they are going to be criticised and sometimes receive abuse/threats/libel however men receive the same treatment online in this regard, except men aren't demanding the police get involved because you don't like what some troll has said to you online.

It seems that women want to take zero responsibility for how they behave. You have to act according to reality, not an ideal world. The police in the UK will certainly never have the resources to jail every troll who says a mean thing to you. And in social media cases of libel/abuse/threats occur regularly everyday to both sexes by millions of people so please tell me who is going to police all that, and give me a good reason why anyone should. Absolute waste of taxpayers money to get police to serve people who takes words of strangers on the internet seriously. Pathetic.

And I'm not worried about police underfunding I'm worried about our current police force being spread even thinner by people who don't know how to conduct themselves properly on the internet and don't want to deal with the consequences of putting all of your personal details online. The internet is a tool, not your safe space for an echo chamber free from all people you don't like or disagree with you.

And the whole if the police only have truncheons so stay inside if you are afraid of gun crime thing, THAT IS EXACTLY CORRECT. You should act according to reality, if the police only had truncheons and everyone has guns you can't complain if you get shot and then moan that the police didn't intervene, but thank you for helping my argument.

Please tell me you dont work for the police.

And here we have a perfect example of women being bludgeoned and bullied and being told that any harassment they receive is a direct result of their own behaviour.

@DJLippy you stated the ONS figure that 92% of recorded harassment/stalking was perpetrated by men - was there a figure as to the sex of the targets?

Oh and as to "you can't complain if you get shot" words fail me.

Fear not, I don't think the aptly named veryverysilly works for anyone - surely that level of stupidity and holding down a paid job are not compatible.

Anyway, I suppose we should thank the troll for proving our point - that there are men out there who will resort to anything, even posting 4 posts one after another first thing on a Sunday morning, and effectively talking to themselves, in order to stop women talking online.

Attempting to monopolise a (predominantly) women's space on the internet and make it unusable by posting such a flow of shite that it makes following the actual conversation nigh on impossible is a form of trying to silence women's voices. Admittedly nowhere near as upsetting as the rape threats, threats of other sexual violence, threats of non-sexual violence, doxxing, swatting etc. that women have to put up with on a routine basis. But born of the same motivation - a sad, pathetic little man who, deep down, knows he's so sad and pathetic that the only way he can make himself feel better is by trying to shut the women up.

however men receive the same treatment online in this regard

They really don't.

No they really don't do they. Unless they are mtf and dont follow 'the line'.

What an absolute crock of shite, VeryVerySilly.

I have absolutely no interest in silencing women, I don't give a shit if anyone wants to post anything online, it's their business, if I don't like it I won't look at it simple as that and yes it is that easy. The thing I don't like is when people put themselves in a public setting with all their personal details on show for everyone to see and then have the audacity to complain that someone has taken advantage of it and expects tax payers money to go towards fixing their problem which was preventable in the first place. All I'm saying is you can't have it both ways. You can't have access to a forum where you aren't anonymous and also expect nobody to say anything mean to you or take advantage of the fact you were silly enough to have your personal details online for EVERYONE TO SEE. And I've had mean things said to me about these comments but guess what I haven't called the police about it because I'm not an actual baby still at their mothers teet.

Quite, Eresh. I have friends who work in a politically charged area of science. Some of their colleagues (male as well as female) have actually received death threats, which the police have taken very seriously indeed. But only the female ones are subjected to an almost constant litany of shite on twitter, BTL comments etc. on their appearance, and only the female ones are subjected to rape threats.

Ah very much so a man I see. Why do you come on here Veryverysilly? All you seem to do is stalk the feminism board and post your patronising Manly Views™️ basically telling women to pipe down, stop overreacting and being hysterical. You don’t seem to like women much - why is that? It seems you’re rather frustrated that we won’t take on your ‘wisdom’ - maybe worth taking your own advice and go elsewhere if you don’t like it here. It’s not like there’s the rest of the internet for you to spread your views misogyny

So, what you're saying is (apols to Cathy Newman) that if someone is not anonymous online, then they should accept that rape threats and other intimidation is all just part of the experience? Is there another sphere where rape threats would be acceptable as long as the threatener knew who you were? Are rape threats generally something you think should be ignored?
And are you so, so very silly that you were unaware that if someone is identifiable as simply female online, she is much, much more likely to receive certain kinds of abuse than a male? You can try it yourself by posting under different names - a CharlottesMum will be stratospherically more likely to get a sexually charged threat than a Gamer2010 will be.