Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online • Hacker News Board

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#31

Post by benten10 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

As some others have noted, this will keep on increasing as more people use the internet. As internet proliferation amongst less 'inclusive' societies (yes, even less than HN!)increases, online threat, intimidation and violence against women and minorities will increase.

The 'social media'/internet presumes a certain 'accepting', inherently socially liberal order amongst its users. As more and more people who don't fit that use the internet, there will be greater hate and rudeness and intimidation in the internet, and the happy-go-lucky we-are-all-one destroy-the-borders liberal dream will end. The internet will start reflecting the extremes of our behavior, and it will be ever the scarier for women and minorities.

It'll be interesting to see the evolution, and how it's handled.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#32

Post by ashark » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

dbg31415 wrote: post #22

phkahler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Perhaps people facing consistent harassment like this should try something similar? Or work under a pseudonym? Perhaps we need to get rid of pseudonyms. A lot of this behavior would stop if people had to be identifiable. Although that doesn't seem to stop them all - you see some real names and email addresses in there.

No. Look, anonymity is a wonderful thing. Candide, The Silence Dogood Letters, even The Mill on the Floss wouldn't have been written had the authors had to use their real names. Way too many examples to count. Hard to imagine the Revolutionary war getting as much support state-side as quickly as it did without Common Sense, which was published anonymously. So you can probably say, "Without anonymity you wouldn't be i…

I kind of miss the days when there was general agreement that only idiots would do anything online under their real name.

I think what changed is that it got really, really lucrative to market oneself online—see also: using github and social accounts in the hiring process—even at the low end of reward for Internet activity, the pressure is real. There's now a clash between how the Internet works, which has not changed, and economic incentives, which have.

Disclaimer that is for some reason necessary on any comment like this: no, of course I don't think harassment is OK.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#33

Post by leppr » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #30

leppr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, before my comment gets downvoted to oblivion: the apparently too subtle point was that for the foreseeable future machines will be unable to detect this kind of passive-aggressive comments, and that trolls aren't dumb, they will just (deep) learn to be more subtle in their trolling (and so more damaging).

So it was a meta-joke about being passive-aggressive?

That was at the same time an opinion about your idea being bad and the argument as to why.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#34

Post by devit » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

This looks like a publicity stunt.

If you selectively present anything you could possibly present in a negative light and do so without context, you can make anything look bad.

If one were to look at the ratio of such messages to praise and neutral messages, that would probably paint a very different picture.

Just numerically one can see that 1000 messages over 10 years is only 3 negative messages per day, and someone famous might get hundreds, meaning the negative ones are a few percent...

It's a bit like collecting all the [dead] comments on HN, presenting them all at once and then claiming that HN is a terrible community.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#35

Post by 6stringmerc » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #27

6stringmerc wrote: post #7

What a terrible experience, yet I'm not surprised to know such things happen. I hope it's theraputic for her to get these out, and if she can turn the intimidation into some financial gains then so be it. Is there a way to discourage the behavior? It's a tough problem. As an anecdote, I just had a discussion with a female community college professor, PhD, one who had plenty of bench science experience before teaching…

Great comment, not sure why it was down voted. Cultures outside the US are often surprising.

Thanks, I think the biggest surprise is, well, people in the US assuming other cultures are willing to change (or mentally prepared to change) upon arriving in the US. It's not that simple. Out of sight, out of mind is one thing, but when one-on-one, it's something that takes strength and confidence to address. Not all people are comfortable in the face of intimidation or just flat-out disrespect.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#36

Post by k__ » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

leppr wrote: post #33

k__ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it was a meta-joke about being passive-aggressive?

That was at the same time an opinion about your idea being bad and the argument as to why.

Okay, then I just don't get it.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#37

Post by dbg31415 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

ashark wrote: post #32

dbg31415 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Look, anonymity is a wonderful thing. Candide, The Silence Dogood Letters, even The Mill on the Floss wouldn't have been written had the authors had to use their real names. Way too many examples to count. Hard to imagine the Revolutionary war getting as much support state-side as quickly as it did without Common Sense, which was published anonymously. So you can probably say, "Without anonymity you wouldn't be i…

I kind of miss the days when there was general agreement that only idiots would do anything online under their real name. I think what changed is that it got really, really lucrative to market oneself online—see also: using github and social accounts in the hiring process—even at the low end of reward for Internet activity, the pressure is real. There's now a clash between how the Internet works , which has not chang…

I agree there's a push to have a public persona online.

My perspective... you have a "work" account (LinkedIn, GitHub, Dribbble), and you have your personal accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and you draw a clear line.

If you want to Tweet with the public, set up a public Twitter that is only for professional photos, and comments. And block out everyone except your friends from the private account.

Is it more work to have public and personal profiles? Sure. But so is putting on a condom. And by the same logic, if you can't be bothered to take the extra time, maybe you should rethink the activity.

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#38

Post by dbg31415 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

szukai wrote: post #9

Glanced over quickly, some are more crude attempts to "flirt" than to creepy, but I guess that just goes with the status quo given the complaints girls get on dating sites like Okcupid. Kinda cool to see it all at once I guess?

Let me throw this out there too...

I had a conversation with a friend after finding pictures of his girlfriend on OK Cupid. I was like, "Hey either your girlfriend is trying to cheat on you, or someone is stealing her identity." He laughed, and said (paraphrased), "No, she kept complaining about how she didn't feel attractive, so we posted an account there for her to get some more attention. We read the comments together and she gets a confidence boost knowing people find her attractive."

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#39

Post by thehoff » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

devit wrote: post #34

This looks like a publicity stunt. If you selectively present anything you could possibly present in a negative light and do so without context, you can make anything look bad. If one were to look at the ratio of such messages to praise and neutral messages, that would probably paint a very different picture. Just numerically one can see that 1000 messages over 10 years is only 3 negative messages per day, and someon…

Have you read any of the messages she got? Hard to see how many of those were taken out of context.

I guess getting 3 of those messages a day that she got (over 10 years) is acceptable? What's the cutoff for being acceptable here so I know when I should take her seriously.

What about the ones that seem like threats? What about the ones from the person that was arrested for stalking another woman? When do those count?

Re: Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online

#40

Post by commentzorro » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

devit wrote: post #34

This looks like a publicity stunt. If you selectively present anything you could possibly present in a negative light and do so without context, you can make anything look bad. If one were to look at the ratio of such messages to praise and neutral messages, that would probably paint a very different picture. Just numerically one can see that 1000 messages over 10 years is only 3 negative messages per day, and someon…

What ... what? How many messages per day from some random person saying they want to fuck you until it becomes unacceptable?