The site threatening Watson was greeted with glee on 4chan and Reddit, where
commenters explicitly stated their hope that the threats would force her to
abandon her feminist campaigning.
I agree with the rest of her article -- the US and world are often quite hostile to women, and it's still true that a woman who sleeps around is a slut but a guy who sleeps around is a stud. Hopefully the Emma site is just some dickhead with $7 for godaddy and too much time on his hands who figured out a way to troll a ton of people.
I wish I knew the correct response to the people who deluge outspoken women with rape threats. Perhaps part of the answer is George Tierney of South Carolina [1].
[1] http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/05/20/internet-man-does-no...
We can say 'no, this is unacceptable behavior' and not allow violent threats against women to be tolerated on the platforms that we love.
You should know there's also racism on the web, vulgar pictures of Mohammed, massive amounts of patent law violations, criticism of govts, violent threats against every race class and walk of life on a microsecond basis.
Yet somehow offended rich first world women is finally the 'intolerable' situation big enough to "not allow on the platforms that we love."
Please.
Trolls are the canary on the coal mine signaling a free uncensored internet. You should be grateful for them.
And yes you do have to suck it up and deal with it just like everybody else.
Which apparently isn't a problem for Jennifer Lawrence.
Of course this is true.
Hes a stud because it's a challenge for a guy to get a girl. That's why the colloquialism is "Getting lucky".
A girl can walk into any bar any night of the week and within 30 seconds have a guy going home with her 100% of the time.
I don't see why we can't work toward making it a "safer space" without censorship. I think we should call out misogynistic, ablist, transphobic, etc. statements wherever we see them. Even if it doesn't convince the poster, at least it lets other readers know that these are not attitudes that we, as a society, think are acceptable.
Btw "free speech" as an American ideal is rooted in the government not interfering. It still allows private citizens to support/ignore/not publish anything they don't care to.
Also her speech was really good. Usually 'personalities' don't express themselves nearly that well.
We, as a community of innovators, need to stop these online communities of 'hackers against women' from existing because their threats, like the nude leaking of emma watson photos, prevent women from being public figures, starting companies and sadly participating in a huge chunk of the internet. Read below an excerpt from the article:
"Those three problems — women being threatened, women being pressured to change their own behavior to avoid sexual assault, and women being told that they don't deserve protection unless they stay pure and ladylike — are all individually terrible. But together, they add up to something even worse: a vicious cycle that pressures women out of public life. When we tell women that the threats and attacks they experience are their own fault, for failing to be sufficiently chaste or failing to take "responsible" precautions, we are telling them that they are on their own: that they cannot rely on society's protection against those crimes. How many women hear that message and decide that they have no choice but to give up that activist campaign or to turn down that higher-profile job or to hold off on writing that article? How hard will it be for UN Women to recruit its next Goodwill Ambassador?"
The online anonymous forums are annoying and intrusive, yes, but ultimately they're a bunch of idiots throwing peanuts at each other. If you stop paying them any attention then magically they stop existing.
Yes, call out bad behaviour when we see it. Yes, push prosecutions for hacking phones. And yes, let women know that we support them and provide a counter-voice to the burbling shite from the trolls.
But every single time we get all enraged and call for 4chan to be banned, we make the trolls happy. It's impossible to stop them from talking to each other, because internet. So "banning" them will not achieve anything except give them outlaw status that they'll enjoy and that will attract more idiots.
If you need a positive way to look at it, then think of it as a sign of how far we've come. We've actually made people uncomfortable with how much we've managed to change society, so they're now trying to push back. The best thing to do is ignore them and keep going :)