Time’s Up for Online Harassment
Let’s make the internet safe and inclusive to all voices
The hatred of women in public spaces online is reaching epidemic levels and it’s time to end the pretence that it’s either acceptable or inevitable.
(Laurie Penny)
Online harassment is ubiquitous:
It happens on Twitter.
It happens on Wikipedia.
It happens on Facebook.
It happens in Gaming.
It happens on Instagram.
It happens on Twitch.
It happens on TikTok.
It happens on Dating Apps.
It happens on Reddit.
It’s 2020 and online harassment still happens pretty much anywhere people congregate on the internet.
And while women have been raising the issue for years, — by now it would even be factually correct to say decades — precious little progress has been made to combat it. Why? Commercial interests and the fact that incendiary content generates more clicks and engagement are part of it. But so are societies and cultures that have normalised sexism, sexual harassment, and toxic masculinity.
Facts & Figures
- A study conducted by the PEW research center in the United States found that 66% of internet users have witnessed online harassment of others and 41% of internet users have experienced some form of online harassment themselves.
- Amnesty International conducted a study across eight countries (UK, US, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark) and found that 23% of women had experienced online abuse or harassment.
- A study conducted by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative found that 9% of women have been victims of non-consensual pornography at some point in their lives and an additional 6.6% have been threatened with non-consensual pornography.
- Young women are at particularly high risk of online harassment: 25% of women ages 18–24 have been stalked online, 25% have experienced online sexual harassment, 18% have been subject to sustained harassment, and 53% have received unsolicited explicit images.
- And perhaps most staggeringly, the UN estimates the proportion of women around the world who have been exposed to or experienced online abuse at 73%.
Online Harassment Has Many Faces
Online misogyny comes in many forms. Tactics used by harassers include name-calling, public shaming, insults and slurs, alongside more severe forms of harassment like cyberstalking, doxing, the non-consensual sharing of images, identity theft, deep fakes, the use of spyware and many others.
Even seemingly “milder” forms of harassment like name-calling or insults can have very harmful consequences when sustained over a longer period of time, or when hate mobs are mobilised to hurl large quantities of targeted harassment at someone. A good place to learn more about the different forms of online harassment out there is the Online Abuse 101 over at the WMC Speech Project.
While online harassment can and does happen to anyone, some groups are disproportionately affected. Women are one such group—to the extent that it often makes sense to speak of online misogyny in addition to online harassment.
And online harassment is intersectional. In harassment campaigns against black women, like the one against British member of parliament Diane Abbot, or against American comedian Leslie Jones, it is often impossible to disentangle where the misogyny begins or the racism ends.
The Chilling Effects of Online Harassment
The effects of online harassment and misogyny are not confined to online spaces — words are never just words. Online harassment has far-reaching effects that can be psychological as well as material.
The psychological effects of online harassment range from powerlessness, emotional stress, lower self esteem to anxiety and panic attacks.
Severe forms of online harassment like cyberstalking have even been shown to lead to PTSD symptoms.
In addition to its effects on mental health and well-being, online harassment can affect personal relationships with family, friends and partners, cause problems at work or school, and put the physical safety of those targeted at risk. It can also have financial consequences, for example when it becomes necessary to miss work or involve lawyers, or in the case of cyberstalking or doxing to move house to restore safety.
Last but not least, online harassment has a silencing effect. “Free speech” advocates often argue against any and all conceivable measures against harmful content based on the common misconception that online abuse enjoys protection as freedom of expression. It does not.
On the contrary, online harassment has a silencing or censoring effect and actively endangers any freedom to express ourselves we may enjoy in privatised publics like social media platforms. As many as 76% of women who have experienced online harassment make changes to their use of social media platforms as a result. A study conducted by Data & Society finds that
- 41% of women age 15–29 have self-censored to avoid online harassment
- 26% of those who have experienced online harassment have disconnected from online services
- 21% stopped using social media
- 20% shut down an online account or profile
- 13% stopped going online
- 4% stopped using their mobile phone
Not only the personal experience of online harassment leaves an impact — 27% of internet users have decided not to post something online after witnessing the harassment of others. And 13% have stopped using an online service after witnessing other users engage in harassing behaviours.
That’s a lot of folks who are excluded from expressing themselves freely or have to carefully weigh every word they post to safeguard against online abuse.
Time’s Up for Online Harassment
Movements like #metoo and #timesup show that women are fed up with the status quo. They also show that change is possible. After all, Harvey Weinstein has been convicted of rape, and the verdict is expected to encourage more survivors to come forward with complaints against other abusers.
While the struggle to combat online harassment may lack a catalyst of comparable proportions, the momentum is real. Our online and offline lives are more entangled than ever and online harassment affects all other parts of our lives too.
Let’s work on making the internet safe and inclusive to all voices!
