The same could be said for their male counterparts though. You only have to look at the abuse given to Ronnie Pickering, the unfortunate fella that experienced a spot of road rage. The Internet has made mincemeat of him in a matter of days. Anyone, and I do mean anyone who puts themselves forward, even inadvertently on the web gets stick and I don't think gender really has much to do with it.
I must admit to have not followed the case with Ronnie Pickering, I saw the video and the mention on HIGNFY, and I can't say he demonstrated any redeeming features. I'm not sure he deserves anything abuse wise other than a visit from her Majesties constabulary. The question is, does he get death threats? Rape threats? One of the tweets sent to Jack Monroe that really stood out was
this one(Warning: contains content that some will find offensive).
Yes, having an opinion online tends to mark one out for abuse, perhaps it's exposure bias, but it certainly feels like that which is aimed at the women I mentioned is worse than many get.
I can't speak for all you've mentioned, but I had the pleasure of debating with Laurie Penny before she started to write commercially. She is impossible to debate with as everything said was twisted around. Apparently I was misogynistic and juvenile for disagreeing with her on the most basic of points, and this continued throughout the debate with many others. Whilst I don't claim to know her in real life, she misrepresented some very fair-minded individuals simply because they were male. Not cricket at all and PennyRed as she was known then was quickly ostracised from the community because she couldn't hold a conversation without claiming that anyone who disagreed with her was an outright sexist and misogynist.
Laurie is an interesting one. I agree with an awful lot of what she says, but not all, and yes, it does appear that you were misfortunate enough to be in a position of debating with her whilst being male, which tends to put one on the back foot before you start. Not sure that her views justify the abuse she gets tho...
From what I can gather Jack Monroe was a victim of her own success, much in the way of Justin Beiber. She had a very marmite personality and viewpoint, and very quickly suffered the 'Attack of the Trolls'. Think about the way people talk about Beiber, how quick they are to abuse him (I do it myself) and compare it to what happened to Jack. Success, especially success from someone who could have been your next door neighbour breeds contempt and for some reason hatred.
Something doesn't feel right in comparing Jack to Justin here. I can't pin down what it is tho. Do you agree that neither of them should be subject to abuse just for being in possession of an opinion?
I do like to judge Jack by the quality of her enemies...
In a previous life (not literally) I put myself up for scrutiny by expressing some heartfelt views, I shared the same platform as Laurie and I can tell you that the abuse I received, the personal threats and the character assassination (especially about my physical appearance) was vicious. I dared to express a view, a view that is held by many people but wasn't quite to the liking of several thousand people who took to the web to tear me apart. I took the abuse, I carried on writing and only stopped when I realised that the trolls were outweighing the genuine readers, so I decided not to continue. What tipped me over the edge? They chose not to just attack me, my appearance, my so-called status, but instead to target my children and my wife.
I once stood at a podium at a Student conference, wearing an Anti-Nazi League tshirt, and spoke out against the NUS no platforming the BNP. I managed to simultaneously get a standing ovation from half the 1400 strong audience, and boo'd by the other half. Fortunately this was in the days before social media, I dread to think the abuse I would have got if I did that now.
I'm afraid that when the old BBS network crumbled and the Internet arrived, the world became a much crueler place for those who have an opinion on the world. For every good the web has had on our society, for all the benefits of social media and the amazing advances in technology, what we've really done is unleash a dark side of what would normally be good people. A cruelty and a wickedness that only anonymity allows.
I hope I haven't offended with this, wasn't my intention... but what has happened to Rachel happens to millions everyday on the social network of YouTube. It isn't right, it isn't how the majority would act, but its people like me who wished and willed the Internet to be born, to expand and spread without realising the cradle of knowledge could turn into a monster just as easily.
Nope, I've been on the internet for over 20 years, you'd have to try a lot harder to offend me
Seeing it change, seeing it evolve, the internet is a force for good, you only need to look at how twitter and the net helped the Arab Spring to see that. But the same freedom can work against you, anyone can sit at a keyboard and hurt someone thousands of miles away with relatively little recourse to the law. What's more the internet sees censorship as damage, and routes round it. It's a risk we all take every time we log on.
Over the years, and this is a very civilised forum, with very simple straightforward guidelines, I have had a handful of posts that sickened me, less than a double handful of actual attacking emails, pms or posts in threads. I have been called a Nazi mod, 'the' Nazi mod, and had a doctored sm image sent to me showing me just how the individual thought of me. I have been called bigoted, biased, self serving, and had one cretin follow me to another site to berate me there when denied the 'right' to do so here.
On the whole though, and this is utter truth, those negative posts are less than one hundred thousandth of all the others. That's an overwhelming decency that runs right through the site.
Totally agreed on the decency. Sure there are people on here I've had long and heated discussions with, but the mods have always kept them on the rails, kept things clean.
I know, without a shred of a doubt, that my Modding will never receive approval from everyone. That's just life. I also know that if the cretin who sent me hate male was named and shamed there'd be a witch hunt on him. I have made an awful lot of friends here too
We don't do that though, we just quietly remove the evidence of his attack, remove his influence, and quietly get on with things.
The NATO doctrine, an attack on one is an attack on all. To a certain extent I wonder if that exists on this forum, one person going off at another is likely to result in a few others wading in to say "I say old chap, that's not on."
Surely Youtube can manage some kind of modding though ? censorship isn't simply self serving, it's denying trolls the platform for their hatred. I know it needs some discernment, some discretion, but the Mods here discuss yea or nay on actions we take, and that kind of keeps up all on the path, a kind of check and balance in effect.
It's not rocket science, it's just t'internet
It's a question of scale, with a side helping of you get what you pay for. Youtube has many many thousands of users for every 1 user of BCUK, and as such you would need to have an army of thousands of Mod's plus the over sight necessary to allow appeals and the like... Google aren't going to fund that...
P.S. Sorry Rachel, we have taken your thread totally Off Topic
I can tidy it up if you want, and put the OT posts into another thread, but to be honest, it's become conversation, and that's no bad thing.
I don't know about anyone else, but in my threads I don't mind if things go OT and develop into a conversation, there have been a couple of threads which have been locked just when I was starting to enjoy them, but I know not everyone agrees with me.
YouTube again is a victim of its own success. Every hour over 3 days of video is uploaded and millions of comments are made every hour. Moderation was never part of the YouTube business plan... self-moderation was going to be the 'New World' as far as the web was concerned. It hasn't worked too well as you can see in the comments of almost any video on the web.
It's not a unique problem to Youtube, ever read the comments on any daily mail article?
When you remove the human facial expression from any conversation and restrict it to text, it gives the writer and the reader an incredible amount of power. You can read it, ignore it, shout at it, swear at it and even, if you feel like it, punch you monitor to show your distaste, your approval or even your indifference. In the early days nobody thought about it because the old crew, the people who were the 'nerds' back then for the most part got along unless there was a debate about whether the Enterprise D could have survived a wormhole by ejecting the warp core (and yes, that is an argument I once had).
Vi vs emacs anyone?
As I say, anonymity allows the true nature to come out. Some are funny, some angry, some indifferent, the whole range of human emotions are expressed through words on the web. What is missing is the result. If I call someone an idiot in the local pub, I'm likely to be punched. If I tell a girl on the street she is a little overweight, she might cry. And if I swear at the top of my voice in the council offices, I'll probably spend some time talking to the police. The web has no such boundaries and despite the recent 'Twitter' arrests, everyone is free to say what they wish without consequence.
I'm not so sure it's quite so pessimistic, certainly those who have made no attempts to hide themselves when sending abuse on twitter have had visits from the police, if not also charges and convictions. Caroline CriadoPerez successfully brought charges against her abuses on twitter, and I believe Jack has a couple who are going through the system currently.
Other than here, or places like it that is. And that is down to people like you Mary who take the tough decision on when enough is enough, when someone has overstepped the mark or, and this is the kicker, when one of your mates that you know because you've camped with them, shared a brew and had a laugh tells everyone to go forth. Do you close the thread, pretend you haven't seen it or agree with them? Its a tough job which I don't envy one little bit, but I appreciate you being there... and in full knowledge that Mods will have looked at my posts at some point and thought "he's going a bit far here..."
I've had two pm's from the mod's, one when I mentioned selling something outside of the forsale section, and the other when I made a crued reference in a thread that didn't go down well. In both instances the mod's were polite, and fair. The sort of bollocking where you say thank you at the end of it...
Trolls are trolls, people are people... and the web is what we make it. But there will always be the person that "just wants to watch the world burn"!
This forum is largely populated with pyromaniacs... we prefer the burning to be more controlled and structured...
No that's fine Mary
I love a good derailing when it's a happy chat.
Yay! that's what we like to hear.
At risk of going back on topic, watching your video took me to another video which took me to your blog (link to mine in my sig if you fancy a giggle). I hadn't quite clocked earlier that you plan to do the PCT. Impressive stuff! Have you read
I promise not to suffer? It's an interesting and slightly unusual account of walking the PCT.
J
