Slashdot Mirror
How To End Online Harassment
Presto Vivace sends this excerpt from an article at the Kernel, titled 'With Gamergate, it's not enough to ignore the trolls.'
Gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters (whether they openly acknowledge it or not), and subsequently a demographic that comprises half of the total human population has to worry about receiving rape threats, death threats, and the harassment of angry mobs simply for expressing their opinions. This needs to stop, and while it's impossible to prevent all forms of harassment from occurring online, we can start by creating a culture that shames individuals who cross the bounds of decency.
We can start by stating the obvious: It is never appropriate to use slurs, metaphors, graphic negative imagery, or any other kind of language that plays on someone's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. Not only is such language inappropriate regardless of one's passion on a given subject, but any valid arguments that existed independently of such rhetoric should have been initially presented without it. Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions. While most people would probably agree with this in theory, far too many are willing to access and distribute this humiliating (and often illegal) content. Instead of simply viewing stories of doxing, slut-shaming, and other forms of online intimidation as an unfortunate by-product of the digital age, we should boycott all sites that publish these materials.
We can start by stating the obvious: It is never appropriate to use slurs, metaphors, graphic negative imagery, or any other kind of language that plays on someone's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. Not only is such language inappropriate regardless of one's passion on a given subject, but any valid arguments that existed independently of such rhetoric should have been initially presented without it. Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions. While most people would probably agree with this in theory, far too many are willing to access and distribute this humiliating (and often illegal) content. Instead of simply viewing stories of doxing, slut-shaming, and other forms of online intimidation as an unfortunate by-product of the digital age, we should boycott all sites that publish these materials.
Everyone stop making fun of her!
Religion is a choice. I see no reason to effectively exclude it from discussion. I agree that it is a sensitive topic, but it has no place in a list of properties that a person does not have a choice in.
What irks me about GG is that the shitty things a few gamers said is *evil* beyond imagining and must end, while the shitty things professional journalists said is defended across the board.
‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of video games.
Why is it socially acceptable to demonize an entire demographic (gamers)? Because they're the "out group" for feminists. It's always acceptable to attack gamers in the media. Likewise you can always safely attack men, rich people, and white people. These so-called journalists and pundits seem to think gamers are male, middle class, ignorant, socially crippled, and white. That's a stereotype from the mid 90s. Games went mass market with the PS/2. Games went female with social media. Games went international and cross-cultural 15 years ago.
It shouldn't be safe to attack gamers, because they're no longer male, ignorant, socially crippled, and white. Even if they were, it shouldn't be acceptable to attack people because of their sex, social status, and race.
This isn't equality, this is oppression and it's far worse than a few anonymous death threats.
Oh. My. God. Abusing Twitter's anti-abuse button ?! That's totally worse than sending credible rape threats to someone's home address!! Won't somebody think of the ethics in game journalism!?!?
GamerGate is not about harassment or women. Here is a statistical analysis of #GamerGate tweets. Here is a case of GamerGate tracking down a harasser, and Sarkeesian refusing to report him. Here is a timeline of the many grievances #GamerGate supporters have against gaming journalists. Here is the transparent, open place we track our emails to advertisers on corrupt sites. Here is a blog about the corruption. Here is a discussion of one of the scum at Gawker. Here is my earlier Slashdot comment on media bias surrounding GamerGate.
Despite the many, many articles putting the word GamerGate next to the words "misogyny", "wu", harassment" and the like there is no evidence -- No Evidence -- actually associating GamerGate with any of those things, save a very tenuous link related to how the hashtag was coined and some third party trolls who it turns out harass GamerGate supporters more than GamerGate opposers.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Any particular reason religion is in that list of protected attributes? The others are innate characteristics while religion, regardless of how deeply held or deathly serious the consequences of deviating, is an opinion.
If we do that, there will be very, very little left of the internet, or any other medium.
I don't think so. People who have something worthwhile to say are usually intelligent and experienced enough to know that being abusive is counterproductive; so, if we got rid of all the abusers and the sites that thrive on them, what is left is actually the 1% or so that is worht spending time and money on - the part that was the actual, original purpose of the internet.
This goes way beyond offending people, though. This is abuse and harassment, which is not the not the same thing at all. Since you obviously can't tell the difference, you are directly part of the problem. There is no right to make rape threats. There is a right to make jokes about rape. Saying you are going to rape somebody is a threat and not a joke. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you should sit in a corner and think quietly before joining the rest of the online community again.
People who have something worthwhile to say are usually intelligent and experienced enough to know that being abusive is counterproductive; so, if we got rid of all the abusers and the sites that thrive on them, what is left is actually the 1% or so that is worht spending time and money on - the part that was the actual, original purpose of the internet.
And I suppose everything you say goes inside that 1%, right?
Coincidence?
(Some people would consider that the first step would be to get rid of those who apparently never learned to use semicolons, or those who can't spell, or those who talk about "the original purpose of the internet")
Gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters
Is it? Is it really?
Are you sure it's not only considered as such by a tiny but vocal and offensive minority?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Death Threats are unacceptable. I'm glad we're seeing journalists express their outrage exactly the same way they did when Jack Thompson received death threats and when Death Threats were made against the family of the Penny Arcade writers...
Oh wait, there was no outrage over these, if anything there was an atmosphere of "well, they deserved it". Of course, to condemn these would require news websites to accept some culpability for the drumming up the anger that lead to the abuse they received.
The hypocrisy and self serving nature of the journalists is probably best summed up by the "gamers are dead" articles. The basic argument presented by a disturbingly large number of them is basically "How dare you be sexist and comment on someone's sexual history you virgin man-children!" and the writers are completely unable to see the irony in doing that.
Lastly, a call for diversity is fine but you've need to accept that diversity is more than just LGBT and women. It's the rich and poor, old and young, the conservative and liberal, the religious and the atheist, The North American and the European (or any combination of continents). Gaming sites have readers from all these backgrounds. Maybe, just maybe there are lots of people don't like being lectured to by relatively well off 20-30 year old ultra liberal Americans? Maybe, when people disagree with political opinions presented on the website, the best response isn't name calling, shaming and banning. You belittle, censor, insult and claim superiority then wonder why there's a build up of hatred on the other side.
I am sick of hearing the same old fallacies over and over. Ditto with the passive aggressive shaming language, crocodile tears, and deliberate misrepresentation of troll 'threats' in order to keep the controversy going. Why is it that slashdot never really covered the opposing side to all of this? The only stories that get through are anti-gamergate/pro feminist, just like with the mainstream media (no surprise there).
Just because a few women (sarkeesian/quinn/dina/wu etc) got called out for fallaciously and hypocritically generalizing/stereotyping one of the largest internet communities doesn't mean that the majority of that community hates women. The community just has a problem with what a few specific women (and men) said. It also has a problem with the so-called 'journalists' (and their pals at DIGRA, silverstring, gawker) covering the community's activities. When journalists editorialize or propagandize, they are no longer journalists. They should have the integrity to leave the editorializing to the op-ed sections of their publications, or, ideally, abstain from it altogether.
Why do these 'justice' warriors hate objectivity and meritocracy so much? When gaming met the internet, it was the ultimate equalizer. All that mattered was the game and how well you played relative to other players, not your race, your sex, or any other irrelevant characteristic. Trashtalk was trashtalk, and only lamers took it seriously. I remember a time when this was looked at as a positive thing. Now it's all about wearing shit on our shoulders and baiting each other into passive aggressive offense. I guess SJW politics had to turn up the intensity in order to keep certain politicians and ideologies relevant. The bottom line is, if someone criticizes you, it does not mean he hates your race, sex, religion, or anything else. Instead of routing all negatives to /dev/oppressed, have the fortitude to listen to the criticism and see where it might apply. If there's truth to it, modify your perspective. If not, discard it. Quit playing the victim. It's a loser's game.
I lost count at 30 people doxxed by those that claim to stand for "feminism" and against gamergate, starting with the black developer who lost his job to racists harassing his boss and going downhill from there to people's bank accounts getting hacked, their utilities turned off, their income held up by fraud, a couple attempts at SWATting, and even syringes, knives, and dead animals in the mail.
At this point the "mere" verbal abuse from so called "feminists" screaming racial slurs and making threats at anyone in gamergate is practically background noise compared to the sheer number of people getting doxed and sent fucking knives and dead animals in the mail. And disturbingly all of this has not only been explicitly encouraged at times even participated in by major public figures, it's also been subject to a near complete media blackout. You would think people who care so much about women and minorities would be writing a whole lot about black men losing their jobs because of racists doxing them, or women having their income held up by fraudulent reports, or any of the other thirty plus attacks against primarily women and minorities by mostly rich white men. Unless of course they don't actually give a damn and it's just political opportunism.
>Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.... we should boycott all sites that publish these materials....
At this point the hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is so staggering I'm almost starting to believe this is all some kind of kafkaesque modern art performance.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The right to offend is more important than the right not to be offended.
True. But that is not the point here, nor is it the point of legislation against stirring up hatred against religious groups. Criticising or making jokes about others is orders of magnitude away from inciting hatred or bullying a vulnerable person. The difference is in the consequences and the intentions: if you joke about religion, it is well-intended, but if you incite hatred, you are actively trying to harm somebody. It's like sex vs rape; one is good, the other is bad, and most people accept that there is a fundamental difference.
"Freedom of speech" once meant simply that everybody had the right to express their political or religious opinions without fear of being persecuted by the authorities. Nowadays it appears to be used as an excuse for why you can't be held to account for anything you say at all, no matter what the consequences. Call me old-fashioned, but I disagree with that notion - to my mind, you always have to face up to the consequences of what you do, freedom or not. If you drive like an idiot and kill somebody, you're guilty of man-slaughter; if you bully a vulnerable person online and they commit suicide, you're guilty of the same; if you incite hatred and your followers lynch somebody, the same applies. The last example is no different from the concept of corporate man-slaughter, which most people find very reasonable.
So because someone is a straight white male, it's perfectly acceptable to harass them with death threats and dox them? I'm pretty damn sure that more men are victims of online harassment than women, if only because they tend to be more prevalent on internet forums.
Did you miss the point?
I think you did.
Its not about what its OK to be offended about: its that THREATS of EXTREME VIOLENCE are not okay.
It is quite possible to define a set of rules that do not include committing violence, particularly here, sexual violence, against someone. If you can't get behind that, you're part of the problem.
This isn't about made up offense and political correctness and differing cultural norms. We're talking about threats of rape and extreme violence here. Its not okay to threaten to rape someone. Its not okay to threaten to murder someone. The topic is not a joke. You're the problem if you think otherwise.
As soon as I saw a few troll harass women, I knew it would become the number 1 issue by journalist outfit rather than the real reason of the anger. And make no mistake troll almost certainly did not care about gamer or game, but got a rise out of harassing the women, there are study of trolling and troll out there showing they do not care about their victim or the cause they "seemingly" endorse. the reality is that troll are mostly sadist personality which gets a thrill from the rise they get out of people.
But on the journalist side, it is the same as with dorritosgate. Rather than admit and try to change , or explain why some things are not corruption, they immediately JUMPED on the trolling and made it the SOLE issue. I am not into conspiracy normally, but this was a so widespread reaction, that it felts like a defense mechanism : try to move the issue to something else as to avoid discussing the main issue most people in gamersgate sees as an increasingly disturbing problem. I don't even recall know how it started this time (for me it already started with the "dorritosgate") but the fact is that there are far too many publication having a disturbing behavior incestuous with publisher or developper, and endorsement are not clearly marked often with the relationship.
I see the same behavior with the sarkeesian story : She made a statement on damsel in distress openning the discussion, then rather than ignore the troll and concentrate on the counter statement indicating where she made errors or is not going the correct way for a study, journalist and folk are concentrating SOLELY on the troll.
It is starting to be the hack of any discussion : move the thema to troll harassing women, and poof the whole discussion is dead.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be “in bounds” by Internet commenters (whether they openly acknowledge it or not), and subsequently a demographic that comprises half of the total human population has to worry about receiving rape threats, death threats, and the harassment of angry mobs simply for expressing their opinions.
The language is a bit convoluted, but the author implies that these threats are the result of online misogyny ("gendered bigotry", really?), or at least that ending online misogyny would put an end to death threads as well. This sounds like one of those cases where harassment automatically is blamed on bigotry, instead of accepting the fact that people often simply dislike you for your actions and opinions and not for your gender or ethnicity. It's easy to make that mistake (especially as an outside observer) because once those threats and insults materialize, they often do contain sexual or racial slurs.
Before asserting that death and rape threats are the result of online bigotry, at the very least one should examine who exactly is getting these threats. Hint: it's not just women and minorities; it happens to plenty of white males. The language in those threats might be less racial or sexual, but they are threats just the same.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
No, it is never okay to harass, threaten of dox anyone. However, women are most definitely harassed for being women more than men are harassed for being men.
The fact that men are more prevalent on some internet forums is at least partially the result of women being made very unwelcome in those places.
This is the biggest pile of bollocks I've ever read at slashdot and as you can imagine it's up against some pretty stiff competition. (Am I allowed to use the word "stiff", or is that a gendered slur that reinforces the patriarchy?).
This, for example: "gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters". It is? No, it isn't.
The only gendered bigotry I come across on the internet these days, especially Twitter, involves pejorative uses of the phrase "straight white male".
Men-hating feminazis is not some random term
No, but anyone using it is helpfully signposting the fact that they're a pathetic fucking idiot.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As always, there are a large number of people on slashdot and elsewhere who seem to think there is something magically different about an act if it is done via the internet, rather than face to face.
Your "free speech" has consequences, only children would believe otherwise.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There is effectively no censorship on the internet now so whatever you say can result in criticism and attacks of any kind whoever you are. Obviously trolls will pick on the form of attack that generates the most outrage, that's what trolls do. If you can't take a mature attitude to it then don't get involved. Trying to censor the internet is:
a) impossible
b) damaging to everybody's interests
Grow up, get a life, stop whining and nagging.
The people behind this want to effectively wield power comparable to the DMCA, including the ability to take down content (and authors) at will, with a widespread chilling effect and no consequence for false positives. We've already seen how easily terrorism and child porn^W^W^W^W misogyny and harassment became the root passwords to the Constitution^W^W journalistic ethics.
Well that's all totally spiffing then, no one's oppressed at all, and anyone who says otherwise is just a whiny bitch, yes?
Nope. Just because you aren't oppressed doesn't mean you don't have problems that need to be addressed.
Using words like 'oppression' to describe how women are treated in modern western countries is just a cheap political tactic - it defines the situation in terms of 'us vs them' (if someone is oppressed, someone must be oppressing), while exaggerating the issues women face and downplaying the issues that men face. That broken model is why you think that people who disagree with you must think than men are oppressed - you assume that other people are using the same framework, but are merely on the 'other team'.
There's no pigeonhole in that mindset for people who just want the world to be nicer for everyone.
The people that are triggering this debate are being incredibly abusive and awful to women, simply because they dared to express an opinion online that doesn't align with the troll's opinion. If that doesn't meet the criteria for being a misogynist, what does?
Nope, that doesn't meet the definition of being a misogynist in the slightest. If they were being incredible abusive and awful to women simply because they were women, then that would meet the definition of being a misogynist. If they are being awful to people for having an opinion, then they are jerks.
The real problem with this entire issue is the people who try to frame it as misogynistic men against oppressed women and not antisocial idiots against sensible people.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Men-hating feminazis is not some random term
No, but anyone using it is helpfully signposting the fact that they're a pathetic fucking idiot.
This in sharp contrast to people using "pathetic fucking idiot" to describe people they don't like.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
4000? You realise their main subreddit alone has nearly four times that in subscribers right? Even the various automated blocking systems used on twitter have double that or more. On top of that you need only look up "gamergate harassment patrol" to see that they're dealing with even outside actors like the GNAA and various goons so fast that the accounts get suspended before anti-gamergate users can even retweet them for publicity. They even tracked down the source of much of Anita Sarkeesian's harassment to brazil and have furnished all the necessary information to the FBI and brazilian law enforcement... of course Anita has so far refused to actually press charges or do anything about that person. Meanwhile Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Bob Chipman, Devin Faraci, and many other leading voices on that side of the fence continue to publicly encourage openly racist abuse and even participate in outright doxing.
Also the idea that toxic voices get addressed by other feminists in any meaningful way is demonstrably laughably false. Where's the mainstream voices "addressing" West, Valenti, and Marcotte? Where are they "addressing" the fact alleged "feminists" against gamergate are openly racist and transphobic, have rallied around a domestic abuser, and have encouraged somewhere upwards of 30 outright criminal attacks against primarily women and minorities?
Or to give you what is perhaps one of the most egregious examples: right now in the US one of the most powerful and influential researchers working on the largest and most definitive study of sexual and intimate partner violence is a feminist who has explicitly stated she does not believe men are ever raped by women, but rather that they "choose to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse". Every year the NISVS classifies male rape victims as "other sexual assault".
You would think the deliberate and total erasure of almost 2 million rape victims from one of the most important studies in the US would be the sort of thing that needs to be "addressed".
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." — H. L. Mencken, US editor (1880 – 1956)
Really, that's it in a nutshell.
TFS says: "It is never appropriate to use slurs, metaphors, graphic negative imagery, or any other kind of language that plays on someone's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion"
I will actually agree with that: it is inappropriate, as in, uncivilized, trollish behavior. And it absolutely must be tolerated, because freedom of expression is such a critical, fundamental right. Calls for silencing such boorish behavior are entirely misplaced.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Who are you who have insight into the ultimate motivations of harassers?
I have as a basic assumption that men are no better than women, and vice versa. If there's some way of being evil that's dominated by one sex, then you can assume that is not for lack of evil in the other sex, but rather that they have some other way of living out their malice.
It's a doctrine of faith in some circles, that you should not only believe the victim, but not question the victim's interpretation of events. If she says the motive of her harassers is that she's a woman, then you're a monster for questioning that (even if the "harassers" deny that it was harassment, and assert other motivations for it.) This is obviously and blatantly abused in "social justice" circles on the internet.
Let's NOT take gamergate as an example. Let's take the Requires Hate drama instead - there you have identity feminists on both sides, both sides claiming to represent the true, unsubjugated, authentic feminism, defender of all minorities. There's this hate blogger, Requires Only that you Hate, who has a long history of "criticizing" fantasy authors, stalking them for years, saying they deserve to be raped by dogs and have acid thrown in their faces etc. She used to get away with it for a long time. Why? Because she always claimed to "kick upwards". If you're a man, you're obviously fair game. If you're a white lesbian feminist, you're fair game too. If you're an asian, you're still fair game if you are "diaspora". You're mixed race? well fuck you, appropriating scum! Don't you dare write about your minority parent's culture!
Now, she was "doxxed". Her identity (or rather, her literary pseudonym, as opposed to the blogging one) was exposed by a friend of hers - she is a well-known Thai writer - and people started assembling the pieces. It looks like she has systematically targeted competitors. Especially competitors in the niche of "writing for the oppressed". More and more people come forward with stories of whisper campaigns she's waged, open hostility, stalking for years, online community after online community that has went down in flames from her warfare. And she has been at this for almost 15 years.
How? By saying the right things, with unshakeable conviction. By using the social justice people's own rule about "tone policing" - that you're not allowed to protest against the ways an "oppressed person" lashes out at her "oppressors". For over a decade she's played them like a fiddle, for personal gain and personal satisfaction. The social justice people's beliefs have a hole in them wide enough that a psychopath can drive right through it with a truck and set up shop. The "cheap moral glow" of siding with someone righteously proclaiming their oppression, was a tool she used to build an army that could make a talk radio host green with envy, to sic on people who fell afoul of her or competed with her.
I've said "her" throughout. But technically, we don't even know that. So even for the purpose of protecting/advancing minority women, the SJ crowd's own principles fail disastrously. There's no reason to think Requires Hate even believed in the rhetoric she was spouting.
Now, I said let's not use Gamergate as an example. But let's, now. Most of anti-gamergate missed one rather important thing: the initial post was a callout of a similar nature.
The ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn had story to tell about infidelity, emotional abuse and cynical career promotion - he told it because he had come to the same conclusion that the social justice folks in SF/Fantasy now believe about Requires Hate - she may not even believe those things, she certainly uses them with extreme cynicism for selfish ends.
And is he right about that? Judge for yourself
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Okay, in many ways, much of the framework of what you're talking about ALREADY EXISTS.
But trolls continue to exist anyhow. Why is that?
Because the trolls don't give a damn for the polite bounds of society.
As to "shaming individuals who cross bounds".
First, they have to be able to feel shame. Second, this is an entirely arbitrary watermark. Third, it's just BEGGING for abuse. It's basically institutionalization of PC-speak. Never mind that there truly ARE legitimate usages of harsh speech. Fourth, in a way, isn't this part of the problem? Weren't some of these people attempting to shame someone who transgressed some notion of "decency"?
At this point, what would be the difference between you and someone who's doxxing or throwing off threats?
As for "losing all credibility". So, the second someone CLAIMS these people have transgressed, their arguments have exactly zero meaning? Even legitimate arguments? Sorry, but people can be assholes and still have a valid point. Not liking them is not a valid counter to legitimate arguments.
Sorry, but this has not been thought through, even a little. This is a very shallow thought experiment where none of the ramifications have even been considered.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You would think that a group that defines itself by being hyperaware of power dynamics would see the irony in using phrases like "widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters (whether they openly acknowledge it or not),", but apparently not, so I will spell it out. By putting things like this, in one fell swoop you both demonize your opponent as well as remove their ability to respond. No matter what they say, you can just go "oh, you're just not acknowledging what I know you to truly believe." No matter who they are, you can just say "well, you're an internet commenter, and internet commenters believe certain things whether they openly acknowledge them or not."
It ends all discussion, and effectively removes any possibility of debate or even reply by describing an entire group as having property X and then removing the ability of that group to dispute that claim. It's like saying "I am right, and anyone who disagrees is a he man woman hater misogynist asshole."
Whether they acknowledge it or not.
You're why the article is relevant.
Thanks for playing.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You think rape and death threats are about hurt feelings. You obviously have never been a victim of such threats.
If you don't want to read about the social aspects of technology, you have a perfectly reasonable alternative to whining about it: scroll past it. Some of us actually take it seriously when proposals are made to reduce or eliminate the most egregious forms of online harassment, and want to have a real discussion. Go play with your toys, or whatever.
I was a severely bullied youth. So severely that I have been diagnosed with PTSD as a result, as some of the events were life-threatening. In once instance, I was an early victim of what would now be termed cyber-bullying. It also was illegal under Maryland's two-party consent for voice recordings law, but was none of it was ever prosecuted. Anyway... I was recorded against my consent in day-to-day conversation. The content was then edited to make me sound either like I was intellectually disabled or a homosexual, depending on their mood. Nothing wrong with being either of those things, I'm neither, and obviously this was being done to harm. The audio files were posted on Geocities/Xoom/or one of the other free internet hosting providers at that time in RealPlayer format. This was around 1998-1999, for perspective. Due to Maryland's two-party consent laws, my 14-15yo self was able to get the audio taken down, repeatedly, by the hosting provider. Unfortunately, it took several violations before the provider finally convinced the students in question that their account would be deleted if they stopped. Each time, of course, their account was suspended until they complied. This made them very unhappy, leading to much worse taunting, and even shockingly well-targeted and convincing arguments that I should kill myself. Eventually, the audio was taken down permanently because they got tired of it. The point of my story being, this is not an easy thing to fight. Online harassment is difficult to fight even when you know the names of the offenders and they've clearly broken a law...that is nothing new.
You have it wrong, this is not about legitimizing harassment of women. It's about a propaganda war which attempts to perpetuate and inflate stereotypes of the oppressed women and abusive man. A similar propaganda war has been going on attempting to propagate racial tensions, and another war for Religious tensions. I won't distract further than the mention of the latter two, but if you are truly interested there is plenty of information to find on those as well. For now, lets stick with the misogyny.
First, there is real discrimination and real pricks that truly believe they are better than women. Those people are an extreme minority, but they do exist. In order to increase tensions, those extremes are portrayed as the normal. Small examples are inflated and portrayed like "everyone does it", and fake issues get repeated until people start to believe them. You hint at one of the latter, but completely miss the mark for "why?" the fake issue is not corrected.
As an example, we are told by media that women can't get IT jobs because "misogyny". The reality is that there are countless reasons other than misogyny that women don't want to work in many IT jobs. Journalists won't talk about those other reasons, and people over time start to believe that the only reason for a lack of women in IT is discrimination. Instead of the obvious, such as demand for insanely long work hours and tedious work for little reward. Lack of career progression, since the management side of IT is a completely different degree and skill set (some people get promoted up without, but we are talking "normals" not exceptions here). Work/Personal life balance is always shifted to "work" if you want to progress in IT. And lets not forget that if you want to start a family the woman must sacrifice work life, the man has no womb so can't do that work (which is another item often portrayed as misogyny even though there is an obvious physical requirement involved).
In reality, there are trolls. They do so for various reasons, but one of the known is a desire for attention. Given that known, it should be obvious to anyone looking that all kinds of people get trolled. They are a minority, and are best dealt with by simply ignoring them when they show up. Free speech is too important to pass laws requiring identity all the time. The trade off is not worth it, and the majority would suffer. You think trolls have targets today, imagine when they can see that QQ4322 is "Rebecca Smith", because that's what identity requirements will do.
Another interesting fact is that many Trolls are bought and paid for by various people claiming to be on your side. Snowden's leaks showed that the US and UK have numerous departments using paid people who's job is FUD at all costs. It has also been leaked that certain corporations pay for trolling. Funny that of all the reports of evil trolling I have not yet seen anyone demand the identity of the paid trolls from companies and governments that are known to use them. Cui bono from that little fact is fun, especially considering that most media has the same few masters.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.