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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.
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.
This response if fairly typical of anything that isn't a clear black and white issue.
1) Man opens stranger's purse and takes $50 = theft.
2) Same, but is his 15 year old daughter's purse without permission, is it theft?
3) Same but daughter had broken a $50 bottle of wine, is it theft?
4) Man opens wife's purse (no permission) and takes $50 to buy food and does not tell her after the fact - is it theft?
5) Same but does tell her after the fact, is it theft?.
6) Same thing but he puts in a check for $50 and takes her $50 in cash is it theft?
Obviously, everyone says 1 is theft, and not many people are going to call #6 theft, but the stuff in between is not black and white. Some will call it theft, others will not.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
..as long as the 'victim' gets to decide what it is.
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.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So, let's pretend you are writing the definition for harassment for a social media site - or any context of your choosing. What is the definition?
Let's just use a basic "dictionary" definition. Harassment is contacting another person after being asked to stop. One caveat is that politicians cannot ask people to stop contacting them regarding political issues. Another is that people can't ask the general public not to contact them regarding their conduct or speech made in public. To be clear, one has to ask for the particular contact to cease, and then have the contact continue for it to be harassment. Also, harassment can only exist on a person-to-person basis. That is, asking person A and person B to stop contacting you about X does not obligate person C. You cannot blanket tell people to leave you alone about certain topics. You must ask each individual person to stop. Also, the content with which they are contacted is not material.
When I do it, it's playing around. When you do it it's OMFG PRISON 4 LIFE!
Specifically, the "reasonable person" standard. If someone makes threats of harm that a reasonable person would consider credible, then punishment is appropriate.
As for who should decide whether a threat rises to that level, that's what juries are for.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This response if fairly typical of anything that isn't a clear black and white issue.
Even then, it's a mistake to assume good faith. Sites like Twitter and Facebook, and the media who one-sidedly covers "harassment," are attempting to outright redefine terms, and it's not out of confusion.
Disagreement is now harrassment.
Mockery is now hate speech.
Offense is now trauma.
Criticism is now abuse.
Compelling criticism is now violence.
Anyone who talks about subjects the MSM wants to suppress is now a troll.
Anyone at random is a racist/sexist/white supremacist/nazi/etc if they say so.
The use of this alarmist (and usually, simply wrong) language is ubiquitous and deliberate. It's all a pretense to justify a disproportionate censorial "response," especially when they know no response is warranted at all.
One man's scrutiny and accountability is another man's harassment. Someone getting publicly called out for something they did can be called harassment.
It doesn't help that there are two unequal definitions of 'harassment': 1) Someone doing the harassing, multiple times to one person.
2) Someone being harassed, once, by many people.
The end result might be the same, as a person ends up being harassed multiple times. However, in the case of #2, no individual could be necessarily said to be committing harassment on their own. Therefore, the question of "is it harassment" could be evaluated from either end. Ones more likely to be harassed (minorities) are more likely to consider from the 'receiving' point of view, whereas ones frequently cited as harassers are more likely to consider from the 'sending' point of view.
I imagine the 'should social media providers deal with harassment' belief tracks closely to personal beliefs about how to deal with bullying. I predict that those who believe you should sock 'em in the jaw are less likely to believe the websites should step in, whereas those who advocate going to an authority to resolve the situation are more likely to.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
1. Talking like the President.
Table-ized A.I.
Being so impossibly sensitive to even the most minor slights is a sign of extreme lack of power. A confident, happy, generally enabled individual simply does not feel harassed by minor slights. He will shrug it off without feeling threatened, because he is above that.
All those "harassed" people you see on the news are incredibly weak, fragile, meaningless, child-like individuals who have figured out a way to amplify their almost non-existent voices to the point where they can drown out everybody else. They have found a kind of power in showing how incredibly hurt they are, and how unfair they are being treated. And since they don't have any kind of perspective, they believe the world should somehow care about that. They are adults with the minds of toddlers, screaming for their immediate need, but without a parent to put an end to their tantrums.
As more and more people get fed up with hearing about imagined slights and how bad they hurt, a backlash will inevitably come. At that point, a bit of belated growing up will be in order for all those sad, harassed individuals, as they will finally be taught a few fundamental lessons: the world is not about them, their lives are their own responsibility, being insulted is a choice, and a paper-thin skin is neither a good survival trait, nor a good step towards living a happy, productive life.
But that example of yours is pretty black and white.
no offensive to the brown, pale, yellow or blue issues. /joke
I can go from 1) to 6) as quick as I could and the judgement would be the same, it depends on what the owner thinks ( the person who's getting $50 taken away). If the owner thinks it's theft, then it's theft. The only except is 2) where it's not theft if the purse is still indirectly owned by the father. Even though her purse is in her control, it can still be owned by the father, just like when you give an iPhone to the kids.
Unfortunately applying the same concept for the online harassment, then it becomes a mess (not black and white issue) because this is emotional harassment. With it's none physical nature, the victim can say anything online is harassment, anywhere from mistype to flat out call someone a b**** can end up being a form of harassment.
So for this topic, I'll draw the line at when online harassment becomes physical, then it's harassment if the victim say so. Until then, it's not a harassment I would put it 'legally'. That's not saying the social media shouldn't do something about it to reduce emotional harassment like banning assholes and remove sensitive words based on the user base. After all, it's their platform on their server. They have the complete right to keep a healthy user base.
how do they spell it?
I feel harassed by this article. The Slashdot editors are constantly microaggressing me. Their pattern of abuse has created a toxic work environment, because I often read slashdot while working.
Where do I sign up to join the lawsuit?
How do "Americans" see Online harassment?... that is controversial. We are of many minds on this so I'll just say how I see it.
I'm entirely happy to go after people that actually cause material harm to other people... especially if unprovoked.
If there is no evident material damage to someone, then I immediately take the situation less seriously.
If two people get into a fight.. both absent some investigation have some presumptive fault. If people cry foul I'm going to want an explanation as to why a given party is at fault rather than the opposing party. Oft as not, I find the person complaining to be no less at fault than the supposed aggressor.
We're talking about ONLINE harassment. This means almost always literally facebook and twitter... basically nothing else of consequence. We read these stories in the newspaper and it is always some child or childlike adult that gets into a flame war with people that don't like them. Then rather than breaking off contact, they instead demand that X or Y be removed from a very public space as if a disagreement gives someone the right to make someone else go away. People enter these spaces and generally connect with people that they don't know. Some of those people will not like you. When this is expressed, this is often misrepresented as harassment. Disagreement is also often misrepresented as harassment. I also notice that people cry wolf on harassment to get a dog pile on someone they don't like. Its stuff that everyone has lots of experience with from kindergarten to old age. People do this sort of thing. Its nothing new or mysterious.
This harassment talk has the potential and sometimes the intent to justify censorship. It is also sometimes used to empower bullies and harassers that use group opinion manipulation to create witch trials etc.
I want a hard standard for this... and the standards are simple:
Did you provoke a negative reaction?
Are you interacting with open groups where anyone on planet earth can talk to you?
Is it hard to demonstrate any material damage to yourself or anyone else?
Can you end the "harassment" simply by backing out of a community or ignoring a given person?
I want to encourage healthy communities with rational reasonable people... but that's an idealistic aspiration that probably won't happen. At the end of the day, all I need is for people not take themselves more seriously than is reasonable and not draw the collective action of the community to deal with stuff that is a waste of our time.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Harassment is the unwanted continuation of contact after being asked to stop. Some special cases apply for certain groups of people in certain professions (like politicians that have to deal with constituents that ask inconvenient questions or celebrities that have to deal with reporters doing the same) or certain circumstances (people having to deal with collection agencies that want their money), but that's pretty much the base line.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's non-white trans male, you racist, misogynist cis-scum!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Put it on the pile behind me, I'll ignore later.
I think there's still some room for some new labels I could get between "commie bastard" and "alt-right nazi".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Search for pliers, I dare you!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How about 'feeling triggered'?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Anyone voicing any opinion they don't agree with ;)
I'm being harassed!
#DeleteFacebook
Sure.
The difference between harassment and feeling triggered is easy.
Did the alleged harasser know of the triggers for the victim and use that to effect said triggering? Then it's harassment.
Did the alleged harasser not know of the triggers for the victim and purely accidently hit them? Then it's unfortunate and maybe deserves a polite social apology, but it is *not* harassment.
I have a couple PTSD/GAD triggers, and they *suck*. One of them is being called into a 1:1 or 2:1 meeting with no agenda or indication of what the meeting is about, and where the other person(s) are direct management. Does that mean my boss is harassing me when she says "let's go talk"? I mean my heart starts to race and I feel the adrenal response hit, but seriously? It's business. Sucks for me.
If she knew that I had been assaulted previously at a prior job by a south african former apartheid cop and lit into in a 2:1 meeting that started with "you little fuck" and didn't stop for a half hour*, all while my direct manager did virtually nothing and then called meetings in such a way as to intentionally put me back there every day? Yeah that would be harassment.
* yup, I was young and stupid at the time, so I sat there and took it.
This was all because I was asked to do something by my direct manager that this other manager didn't like. The bad: I trigger super bad at meetings with two managers present. The good: If anyone ever tries that again I'll pull out my phone and video them, then sue for hostile work environment; possibly with a detour for a police report for assault.
The really good: Karma got this asshole. Last I heard he was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and severe gout.
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When shall we crucify the god of public opinion?
Of course karma gets them.
Karma always (read: mostly) works.
I've seen a few telling but undisclosable examples of that myself...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.