Olympic Boxer names J K Rowling in lawsuit for cyberbullying

[Dominoodles]

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jk-rowling-elon-musk-imane-khelif-lawsuit-1236105185/

J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newl crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif.

Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures

Interesting. AI suggests that one of the following would need to be proved - defamation, insult, harassment or privacy violation.

I guess accusations of cheating could be viewed as defamation and insult, arguably he wasn't cheating as the organisers deemed his participation as being within their rules (he does have an F on his passport. However, within French law, I wonder if opinion about what is deemed as permissible opinion sharing (e.g. I think x constitutes cheating).

I don't think harassment is a goer as it's not as though Musk or Rowling posted a high volume of posts. I expect harassment was experienced as a result of their posting. There actions may have precipitated this, but again, I wonder what French law says about this.

I don't know that privacy violation stands as I don't think they were party to private information that they then shared. They repeated information that had already been shared/proposed. Again, French law might say something about this.

My hope is that should any case see the light of day that the requirement to determine sex will be part of it.

Horrible for JKR, but good for sunlight.

I think it would be helpful if Imane Khelif just released the evidence to show they are biologically female ie XX and then this entire debate would go away.

Are there any Mumsnet threads that say what JKR said in her tweets?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5139278-algerian-boxer-filing-legal-claim-over-online-harrassment

The discussion is here and pulling in all the articles as they are published.

Does anyone have chapter and verse for what precisely JKR posted? If it was based on facts there will be no case for her specifically to answer.

I don't doubt that Khelif recieved a huge amount of horrible hate mail/online abuse. This is normal for everyone in the public eye who isn't a straight white male-presenting man. I don't think JKR can be held responsible for it though, it will have come from a myriad of anonymous individuals. It might be arguable that Musk bears some responsibility as the owner of the platform primarily used by the abusive anonymous people.

Unfortunately, I think the case/claims being made have nothing to do with his sex and won't come in to it. I think it focusses on the volume of content directed at him and the impact this had on his wellbeing.

It's interesting in that neither Rowling or Musk engaged in publishing repeated content, but the content they published can be seen to have been a catalyst for harassment from others. I'm not sure how French prosecutors view that.

I think Khelif is going to find out what happens when you punch above your weight.

Musk and Rowling have called him male. Which he is.

This is typical eustress.

Eustress is the opposite of distress. You get away with so much that you become euphoric, then over confident that you can get away with more and more, and we have all seen it! Khalif won a gold medal, was paraded about on the shoulders of the trainers, has adulation and support from all around the world and is feted as not just an Olympic champion, but some kind of LGBTQ+++ hero and feminist icon, DESPITE everything, so probably thinks this will be easy.....

Also, I think Khalif is being hugely exploited, and might not actuality be the driving force behind this. Khalif is just a figure head, there are dozens of people interested in pushing this law suit and they are probably all experiencing heightened levels of eustress themselves.

Khalif might find it hard to back down, as the decision to plough ahead is someone else's.

I would like all these furores to stop being based on pictures or supposedly masculine/feminine behaviour of individuals (forlorn hope). It was noticeable too that Khelif got a lot more attention than the other boxer, which will have increased the harassment they got.

If the case is proved I hope future protests focus where they should- on institutions.

And surely, if there is anyone who has been harassed, threatened, defamed on twitter it's JK Rowling. She knows that suing anyone left right and centre is futile.

Be interesting to see how this pans out. Maybe they will come after me for my Facebook post.....

You know, straight white male presenting men get just as much abuse right? In fact so much ten of them - a day - top themselves in the UK alone?

"Just as much" - no way. I've seen the volume of death threats and rape threats that a female MP typically recieves. Male ones barely get 5% of the volume.

It's very sad that toxic masculinity contributes to suicide being such a problem but that's totally irrelevant to this topic - sexist conditioning leading to males being conditioned to ignore their mental health and to express themselves only with violence is not remotely linked to online abuse of public figures.

If the volume of content aimed at Imane was a problem then ceasing to use use social media would have stopped the problem immediately. I dont think France's relatively new internet law has been tested in court yet? This doesnt seem the most sensible test case.

Social media really does open up anyone to direct abuse from anyone with an Internet connection.

We could take away the Internet or teach people to be a bit more robust and learn coping strategies?

I would like all these furores to stop being based on pictures or supposedly masculine/feminine behaviour of individuals

But it's the pictures that raise people's suspicions. If all we'd ever had were text explanations that athlete Josephine Bloggs has a DSD which makes her look a bit masculine, then people would trust that was true.

In the Caster Semenya case, I think many people now feel duped, having sympathetically accepted the girl with DSD story and believed that's what a girl with masculine features looks like, overriding the uncertainty their own eyes were suggesting because they trusted the sports bodies to have scientific knowledge. Then it turned out the DSD is 5-ARD which only affects males.

Together with media reports of national sports bodies manipulating entry criteria for athletes in the Para Olympics to gain unfair advantage, the scales have fallen and now when we're presented with a female athlete who looks remarkably masculine with the explanation that she has a DSD, the response is "Oh yeah? Prove it.".

The Australian break dancer, I don't know how she is coping with the amount of ridicule she us getting on social media.

Many wouldnt have even clocked break dancing was in the Olympics without her performance and it feels disproportionate and wrong. She was let down by the Australian Olympic selectors. But, also there has been cruelty to her in social media and just by normal people, in a way that the high jumper who knocked down the pole with his dick hasn't received.

The boxing is different because it is a physical sport and not only have these boxers had an unfair advantage, but it feels and is violent. But they were allowed to compete, wrongly IMO. They have supporters in their home countries.

I am a massive fan of JK Rowling, both her writing and her politics.

But, I do think there are people at the heart of these stories. We need to name the selectors, the Olympic decision makers and pilot them front and centre. I think in a really waffly way, I have said what another poster said in a sentance, the focus should he on the institutions.

Is IK going to sue the other Olympic athletes too? People who are reasonably perceived to be cheats do get pushback and IK is no different except that there were a lot of high-profile people defending IK too.

As an aside, JKR isn't controversial in the slightest. The very few people who try to convince others that she is are just trying to deflect from their own extremist and incredibly controversial views in an attempt to convince us - and themselves - they are mainstream which they're not.

Presumably, the organisation replacing the "Russian" IBA will also have an "XX, no XY, in female boxing" rule so the Algerian's boxing days are.....numbered.

It was the IOC that came up with the daft "whatever it says on your passport is fine by us" rule and, rightly or wrongly, it meant that the boxer was eligible to bash biological females under the gaze of the world.

I can't remember JKR & Elon's tweets but presumably the case would collapse if those tweets are shown to be factually correct.

the focus should be on the institutions

That would only work if there's a widespread acknowledgement that there is a problem to address, ie males with a DSD are competing in the female category. And many people don't believe that.

I Googled JKR's involvement and most of the first results are articles of the opinion that Khelif is a woman. I don't know if they believe it because that's what the IOC say, or because JKR says it's not true and whatever she says is a hateful lie so must be incorrect.

If Khelif gets to sue JKR for abuse Khelif has received from randoms on the internet, does JKR get to countersue for the no doubt far greater volume abuse she received from Khelif's supporters?

Does Khelif in fact need to sue the TRA gang supposedly supporting Khelif? Because people wouldn't have had to patiently explain the possible DSDs thousands of times if they hadn't continued spouting twaddle about uteruses and "women with high testosterone".

Apparently IK is also going to name Trump in IK's lawsuit. Aim for the stars!

Totally delusional. But we kinda knew that already.

The sunlight this will bring will possibly be the nail in the coffin of all this nonsense though.

This a sub-forum for women's rights and one of a minuscule of places on the internet where women's issues can be discussed without abuse and threats. We centre women here.

Please respect that and discuss your concerns on one of the 10 billion alternative platforms that centre men 100% of the time.