Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacks
Twitter is a cesspool, you can find disgusting comments about pretty much anyone with a public persona.
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On the one hand, this is obviously true - in fact, statistically, men get more online abuse than women.
On the other hand, men aren't getting targeted for their maleness. The way online abuse is directed at women is specifically framed to attack them basically for
being women. It's not comparing apples to apples.
On the other other hand, block the trolls, or hell, turn off your damned phone. No one's forcing you to read stuff you don't like. If we prevent people from saying anything that might cause someone to have a negative emotional reaction, no one could say anything at all.
On the other other other hand, these people are trying to do their jobs: they cannot just turn their phones off, and because of what they do and its public nature, they can't avoid this stuff.
On the other other other other hand, isn't there a sense that if you do a job that involves having a public persona, it brings with it inevitable attention, including negative attention? Kanye and Kim can't reasonably complain about being on the cover of tabloids in the checkout aisle at Safeway.
... The topic is very challenging. It'd be nice if you could just say "this is obviously horrible, people need to stop being a-holes", because it is and they should. Unfortunately, first, there is no chance that's going to happen: hello, welcome to the internet. Second, concept creep means that the concept of unacceptable speech (or online harassment) will continually expand to include legitimate criticism or mockery in order to stop people from saying things that upset someone; in fact, Twitter's harassment policy already has stepped well over this line, as has Facebook's.