Hiding Behind a Screen: Sexual Harassment taking the Digital Age by Storm
Scrolling through her Instagram page, a young woman prepares herself as she gets ready to open the comments on her last post. 150 likes! Wow. Her moment of joy is short-lived as she clicks ‘see more’ to view all comments. Her friends and family ask her “Which restaurant did you go to?” or tell her that they “love that restaurant! What did you get?”. She sends out quick replies to these comments, excited to be sharing her experience.
Immediately her smile drops as she continues to scroll through the comment section; “Wow😍”, “So hot”, “Hey baby. Dm me ;)”. She can only sigh. “Well, at least they aren’t that ba-”. She cannot even finish her thought before she sees the awful things people are commenting on.
“Fat”. “She’s such a slut”. “She only posts because she is desperate for attention”. She cannot read any more before she shuts her phone off and throws it across the room. “Why is this happening to me,” is all she can think as she sighs. After all, she just wanted to post a photo of her going out to dinner.
As with everything else in life, sexual harassment has adapted and evolved to work in the digital age. Online sexual harassment has shown to be an easy way to torment people in the digital age. While this is something anyone can experience, it is more common for women to be on the receiving end of it. Out of 51 countries, 38% of women will experience online sexual harassment. These comments can range from hateful speech to sexualizing the victim.
Due to such comments, 9 out of 10 women choose to reduce their online activity. Limiting online activity has proven to be the most effective solution to preventing online sexual harassment. While that may be effective, it is not a real solution. Reporting these hateful comments does not always stop the problem. More often than not, those who make these comments will use fake accounts and VPNs to prevent themselves from being linked to the comments. Studies have shown that women are also more likely to report being the victim of online sexual harassment (16%). That leaves 84% of women, who are also victims of such heinous comments, chosing against reporting the comments they received. Very little is being done to combat these types of comments received. Pressing the block button only goes so far, as more accounts will just pop up and continue where the last account left off.
One area of the digital world where these comments are prevalent is the Twitch streaming community. In the gaming community, 77% of women are on the receiving end of gender-specified discrimination, including body shaming and sexualization.
In Twitch chats, a lot of the time, these comments are made for shock value. KelseyMariePlays, 26, received these comments in her chat while she was streaming. The comments she receives “are usually done by people who come in solely to say such things and see a reaction”.
PalmtopCorie_ is a female in the streaming community. She has been streaming for about one year. In streams, she has encountered online sexual harassment on several different platforms, including her Twitch chat and her personal Snapchat. These comments range anywhere from sexualizing and objectifying her to making harmful comments about her body and appearance.
“I’ve received comments on Snapchat due to my streaming, as well as while I’m streaming. I have also received hateful comments about my body while streaming,” PalmtopCorie_ states. She is not the only one to receive these comments, as “[she] has witnessed other streamers, big and small, receive inappropriate comments.
For several women, these comments have made them very hesitant to post photos on their personal social media accounts and continue to post Twitch streams. These comments make them uncomfortable and prevent them from continuing streaming, something they started because they loved it.
“These comments have made me hesitant to post or go live. I love streaming but I am constantly worried about the comments I will receive. A lot of times, it will transfer over to my personal life and cause a lot of doubt in myself day to day,” a Twitch streamer who chose to remain anonymous, 22, shared.
Often times this type of social media objectification leads to more perverted things such as Deep Fake Pornography.
Deep Fake Pornography is when sexual images or videos are edited to look like specific people are performing the acts. Many female streamers find themselves to be the victim of starring in pornographic videos that they never consented to. Twitch themselves have gone as far as addressing the issue in their community guidelines and safety by stating,
Deepfake porn isn’t a problem on Twitch, but it’s a terrible issue that some streamers (almost exclusively women) may face on the internet at large.
We’re updating our Adult Sexual Violence and Exploitation policy to make it more clear that intentionally promoting, creating, or sharing synthetic NCEI can result in an indefinite suspension on the first offense. (Twitch Saftey Guidelines)
These were put into place after a male Twitch streamer was caught paying for deep fake pornography of female twitch streamers that he was friends with. The male streamer has since apologized and has been working to help combat deep fake pornography being spread on the internet.
“What people fail to remember is that just because a person puts themselves on a public platform, does not mean they consent to being sexualized and degraded by strangers on the internet. I don’t want to have to worry about my safety, just because I want to play games with my friends online,” -anonymous, 22
Campaigns like My Image, My Choice have formed to bring awareness to this issue and advocate for changes to laws to include consequences against those who create and share deep fake pornography. Their mission statment goes on to say
My Image My Choice is a coalition of intimate image abuse survivors and advocates from across the globe. We aim to amplify survivor voices, and ensure that law and policy solutions are grounded in lived-experience. Our collective includes a range of perspectives, converging around our calls for survivor support and dedicated intimate image abuse sites to be shut down. (My Image, My Choice)
Currently, My Image, My Choice is running a petition to shut down websites that make creating this type of content as well as having internet providers block these websites. Currently, there are only four states (California, Georgia, New York, and Virginia) that have laws that have been adapted to include clauses against producing and sharing this form of explicit content.
The internet can be a very dangerous place. These dangers are not specified to those who have a following on a public platform or those with public accounts. They can include anyone, even those with private accounts. How did having hobbies become so dangerous?
What can society do to making the gaming community more inclusive? Should more states make laws that focus on internet safety. How can social media platforms themselves provide support to stop these comments? Ultimately, can these comments be stopped?
Find more from the streamers mentioned this this article:
@palmtopcorie:
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/palmtopcorie_
Twitter: https://twitter.com/coriecoriee?s=20
@KelseyMariePlays:
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/kelseymarieplays
