Report details threat of online violence toward women
NDI and Meedan suggest 26 ways of helping deal with a dangerous situation like the one with Nancy Pelosi
With the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, many feminists are wondering what will be done to address the online violence that manifests itself in real-world situations where people can get physically hurt.
Earlier this week, the Meedan and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) released a new report entitled “Interventions to End Online Violence Against Women in Politics.” The document details a list of 26 interventions that technology platforms, governments, civil society organizations and the media can take to make meaningful progress toward ending online violence against women in politics. Kat Lo, a program and content manager for Meedan, contributed to shaping the report.
“It was basically somebody who was posting a lot of hateful content then went to attack Nancy Pelosi at her home with a hammer,” Lo said. “So I think it also kind of draws a line between online expressions of hate and offline violence where this person was very clearly being very significantly radicalized with the narratives of QAnon Gamergate, pizza gate and all those types of things.”
QAnon is a far-right political conspiracy movement that follows the guidance of a mysterious leader called Q. According to the theory, there is a bunch of pedophilic cabal of people who seek to undermine democracy and overturned the election of President Donald Trump.
Gamergate was a group of men who played video games and conducted a harassment campaign on women who also enjoyed playing on consuls and online. Pizza Gate deals with a conspiracy theory that connected high-ranking Democratic officials like Hillary Clinton with a supposed human trafficking ring conducted out of a pizza parlor in Washington D.C.
These theories seem absurd to most rational people, but for those who don’t critically evaluate information sources or aren’t willing to pay for reliable forms of it, it can be incredibly intoxicating and appealing. And more often than not what happens is the consumers of those sources become violent toward women or other marginalized communities.
The Meedan and NDI report makes several suggestions for how to combat the trend toward online violence and real-world manifestations of it. It encouraged people to recognize various forms of hate speech, which can often be coded or seem harmless.
Commenters can say things like “6 million,” which refers to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. That figure alone can be used in passive-aggressive manners to show the person’s implicit approval and as a means to taunt those who would be upset by the Holocaust. Nothing else would be said beyond that number, which each person in the interaction would understand was a subtle reference. Still, it qualifies as anti-semitic harassment within the context it was used.
Most of us have seen this form of baiting in the real world, but as the digital sphere continues to evolve, the appeal of such behavior grows and becomes more widespread. There is also less chance of retribution against them for engaging in this intolerance online. So there are few if any consequences and little deterrence.
“How will the moderator know that especially as so much of the online lexicon very rapidly change?” Lo said.
Some of the women who go through these experiences can report Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It’s hard to get treated because there aren’t many professional organizations dedicated to helping cope with online violence.
“I think we have been seeing a bit of a change there in terms of legitimacy and recognition of experiencing trauma from online violence,” Lo said. “But I think there is no set period of time for recovery.”