How Do Americans Define Online Harassment? (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: According to a new Pew Research Center survey, defining online harassment is just as complicated for the average American user as it is for huge social media companies -- and the line gets even more fuzzy when gender or race come into the picture. The survey polled 4,151 respondents on various scenarios and asked them whether each one crossed the threshold for online harassment. In one hypothetical, a private disagreement between a man and his friend David is forwarded to a third party and posted online, which escalates to David receiving "unkind" messages, "vulgar" messages, and eventually being doxxed and threatened. When asked whether or not David was harassed, 89 percent of respondents agreed that he was. However, opinions on exactly when the harassment began varied widely: 5 percent considered it harassment when David offends his friend; 48 percent said it's when the friend forwards the conversation; 54 percent said it's when the conversation is shared publicly. Others agreed it crossed the line when David received the unkind messages (72 percent), the vulgar messages (82 percent), is doxxed (85 percent), and threatened (85 percent). There was little difference in responses by gender.

Questions regarding sexual harassment, perhaps unsurprisingly, are more divisive -- especially between men and women. In a second example, a woman named Julie receives "vulgar messages" about her looks and sexual behavior after posting on social media about a controversial issue. Women were about three times more likely than men (24 percent vs. 9 percent) to label it online harassment when Julie's post is shared by a popular blogger with thousands of followers. Fifty percent of women vs. 35 percent of men consider it harassment when Julie starts getting unkind messages. When it comes to vulgar messages, threats, or Julie's photo being edited to include sexual imagery, 8 out of 10 men consider it harassment, as opposed to 9 out of 10 women.

There's also a curious division between acknowledging something as harassment and believing that action should be taken by social media platforms. In the case of sexual harassment, for example, 43 percent of respondents considered the unkind messages harassment -- yet only 20 percent thought the social media platform should intervene. In a scenario where a woman's picture is edited to include sexual imagery, 84 percent called it harassment, but only 71 percent thought platforms should step in. The same can be said of an example involving racial harassment. Although 82 percent of respondents called messages with racial slurs and insults harassment, only 57 percent thought the platform should step in; the same goes for the person having their picture edited to include racially insensitive images (80 percent vs. 57 percent) and threats (82 percent vs. 67 percent). In both cases, respondents' gender is not provided.

Comments

There is harassed and HARASSED

[rtb61]

That difference in expression is clear, there is harassed and HARASSED. So a fly buzzing around your head harasses you, you would not call the police to shoot that fly off your head, especially absolutely not American Law Enforcers who would empty a whole magazine at your head to shoot that fly. Lots of stuff is harassing behaviour, but only some stuff is actually criminal. First question to be asked, is can you simply avoid that harassment, walk away, block someone on the internet, simply avoid the place where harassment occurs. If you can not avoid it and it comes to you, then that ads a capital, like Harassment. Next up is how harmful is the actual harassment, what does it actual entail, harassing someone by walking up to them and beating them versus just shouting at them, obviously add in direct physical contact and that is actual HARASSMENT.

Then there are question of one versus many. One person acts and you ignore it but tens of thousands act and that is harassing but individually still not harassment, that tends to be the flip side of gaining the public eye. Seek to or accidentally gain the public eye and you could become exposed to group harassment, which is still only minor from their perspective, still individual and subdued but from yours, major, because yeah, that public eye thing is a nasty place, you can lose just as readily as you can win. So avoid the public eye, you you want to avoid public harassment, which upon an individual basis is not actually harassment.

The onus is always on the individual to avoid harassment because there are places where it 'WILL' occur in real life or on the internet, whether it be flies or people. A measure of sensible response is required, especially for digital harassment where people reach for it, pull it down, get it from the internet and download it into their lives. Simply stop that and the harassment becomes non-existent. Actively seek the harassment, pursue and inflame it, makes you the perpetrator not the victim. Target a group, harassing a group so they harass you back, means you are not the victim you are the perpetrator.

It must be in your face, inescapable and have a physical nature either in threat or action. Keep in mind criminals feel harassed by the criminal justice system, the police actually do actively harass them, the courts set out to and functionally do harass them and correctional services harass them to reform them. The most harassing entity on the planet is the various third arm of government, the judiciary. So always beware, which harassment is the greater and is the action balanced.

Re:Escalation of Terms to Justify Censorship

[RedK]

Ever watch the UN video ? "It's the daily grind of you suck, you're a liar". The liar bit is criticism that comes up often, since she in facts lies a lot in her videos. Keep living in your bubble though and ignoring and warping facts. You're no better than anyone else who slandered gamers. The facts are the facts. Sarkeesian, Quinn, Wu often used the harassement card to try to stifle any criticism of their very awful actions and to try to peddle their snake oil. And with their shrieks, it made it hard to discuss any actual ethics conflicts in the gaming press, like the GamejournosPro list. Yes it was about ethics. You don't promote the game of someone you're sleeping with without disclosing said conflict of interest. Leave it to journalists to lie about people trying to reform journalism though. If you're smart, you know the actual truth, not this narrative you keep peddling.