I'd like to know what percentage of online abuse was directed at women. My hunch would have been 50/50 for dealing it out, but I am not so sure the split is even for taking it.
Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
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Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#12This is self-published research by a think-tank, not a peer reviewed scholarly publication; also, the actual paper for this finding doesn't yet seem to be available, just summaries by news organizations. This article does link to some older papers by them, which go into very little detail on methodology.
As such, it's really hard to say what kind of abuse they are talking about; slut shaming and rape threats, while both awful, can be quite different. Also, I am curious about how they accurately determine gender of Twitter users; there are many fake accounts on Twitter, and I don't believe Twitter even reports gender identity of users.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#13And most likely if you parsed specifically tweets containing the n word, you'd find most of said tweets are authored by black people.
Not sure what the point of this article is.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#14It makes sense. A 'whore/slut' women in a society has the most destructive effect on other women's sexual prospect. So I am surprised that there is a taboo against that - the only thing that surprised me is when men think its a bad thing - since it doesn't hurt them having many sexually adventurous women around.
It's probably about control of their partner.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#15Just like in real life, all kinds of people can be equally reprehensible to each other. It just varys in the ways. Men are typically assaultive, with in-your-face accusations and threats. Women often use exclusivity and shame as a weapon in equal parts. Because men are typically louder and more violent in their abuse, we tend to register it more often.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#16Honestly though, equating "online abuse" to some name calling on Twitter is totally disingenuous. What about harassment and rape threats and doxing and swatting?
don't worry, females are probably responsible for half of that other stuff too.
I don't see it that way at all. I think the sort of casually calling other women slags and hoes or whatever (ie normalised internalised misogyny) is a very different ball game to the gamergate style evil shit that happens.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#17Honestly though, equating "online abuse" to some name calling on Twitter is totally disingenuous. What about harassment and rape threats and doxing and swatting?
I agree that we need to be careful when talking about online abuse to distinguish between name calling, vicious name calling, and then threats of sexual violence or other violence. And I agree that at the severe end the perpetrators are probably mostly male.
But for one example of a woman making these extreme threats of sexual violence: one of the famous cases in the UK is the Caroline Criado Perez trolling. Two people went to jail because their tweets were so threatening and one of those people was a woman.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-trolls-is...
She got a longer sentence, because her tweets were more extreme, than the other (male) perpetrator.
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#18Honestly though, equating "online abuse" to some name calling on Twitter is totally disingenuous. What about harassment and rape threats and doxing and swatting?
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Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#19Make sense. Women are very prone to backstabbing and degrading others as a way to boost their own power and self-image. Look at any middle or high school female clique.
I'd bet a shockingly high percentage of however they're defining 'online abuse' - is specifically middle to high school age girls targeting other middle to high school age girls
Re: Study finds women are responsible for half of some online abuse on Twitter in UK
#20A month from now there will be a debate/argument in HN comments about women being harassed online, someone will claim something along the lines of most online insults toward women are posted by men and someone will link this article. Tune in to next month's broadcast to see who gets down voted into oblivion, the person making the unsubstantiated claim or the person rebutting it.