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[Lime]

This is a long and good piece by Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly on the Atlantic. It touches on the terrorism and harassment that particularly women face online and how social media like Twitter, Youtube, Google, Facebook, etc. have been historically lacking in their efforts, while some are becoming better at it. I encourage all to read the full article, and below I've put up some different quotes (please tell me if they're too much and I'll shorten the OP).

Here are the article's different testimonies to the terrorism that people face - beware of strong explicit content:

A report, “Misogyny on Twitter,” released by the research and policy organization Demos this June, found more than 6 million instances of the word “slut” or “whore” used in English on Twitter between December 26, 2013, and February 9, 2014. (The words “bitch” and “cunt” were not measured.) An estimated 20 percent of the misogyny study Tweets appeared, to researchers, to be threatening. An example: "@XXX @XXX You stupid ugly fucking slut I’ll go to your flat and cut your fucking head off you inbred whore."

A second Demos study showed that while male celebrities, female journalists, and male politicians face the highest likelihood of online hostility, women are significantly more likely to be targeted specifically because of their gender, and men are overwhelmingly those doing the harassing. For women of color, or members of the LGBT community, the harassment is amplified. “In my five years on Twitter, I’ve been called ‘nigger’ so many times that it barely registers as an insult anymore,” explains attorney and legal analyst Imani Gandy. “Let’s just say that my ‘nigger cunt’ cup runneth over.”

Looking at 1,606 cases of “revenge porn,” where explicit photographs are distributed without consent, Citron found that 90 percent of targets were women. Another study she cited found that 70 percent of female gamers chose to play as male characters rather than contend with sexual harassment.

For some, the costs are higher. In 2010, 12-year-old Amanda Todd bared her chest while chatting online with a person who’d assured her that he was a boy, but was in fact a grown man with a history of pedophilia. For the next two years, Amanda and her mother, Carol Todd, were unable to stop anonymous users from posting that image on sexually explicit pages. A Facebook page, labeled “Controversial Humor,” used Amanda’s name and image—and the names and images of other girls—without consent. In October 2012, Amanda committed suicide, posting a YouTube video that explained her harassment and her decision. In April 2014, Dutch officials announced that they had arrested a 35-year-old man suspected to have used the Internet to extort dozens of girls, including Amanda, in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspect now faces charges of child pornography, extortion, criminal harassment, and Internet luring.

While she appreciates the many online tributes honoring her daughter, Carol Todd is haunted by “suicide humor” and pornographic content now forever linked to her daughter’s image. There are web pages dedicated to what is now called “Todding.” One of them features a photograph of a young woman hanging.

Around the same time, another Icelandic woman, Hildur Lilliendahl Viggósdóttir, decided to draw attention to similar problems by creating a page called “Men who hate women,” where she reposted examples of misogyny she found elsewhere on Facebook. Her page was suspended four times—not because of its offensive content, but because she was reposting images without written permission. Meanwhile, the original postings—graphically depicting rape and glorifying the physical abuse of women—remained on Facebook. As activists had been noting for years, pages like these were allowed by Facebook to remain under the category of “humor.” Other humorous pages live at the time had names like “I kill bitches like you,” “Domestic Violence: Don’t Make Me Tell You Twice,” “I Love the Rape Van,” and “Raping Babies Because You’re Fucking Fearless.”

None of this was of much help to Caroline Criado-Perez, a British journalist and feminist who helped get a picture of Jane Austen on the £10 banknote. The day Bank of England made the announcement, Criado-Perez began receiving more than 50 violent threats per hour on Twitter. “The immediate impact was that I couldn’t eat or sleep,” she told The Guardian in 2013. She asked Twitter to find some way to stop the threats, but at the time the company offered no mechanism for reporting abuse. Since then, the company has released a reporting button, but its usefulness is extremely limited: It requires that every tweet be reported separately, a cumbersome process that gives the user no way of explaining that she is a target of ongoing harassment. (The system currently provides no field for comments.)

When it comes to copyright and intellectual property interests, companies are highly responsive, as Hildur’s “Men who hate women” experience highlighted. But, says Jan Moolman, who coordinates the Association of Progressive Communications’s women’s rights division, “‘garden variety’ violence against women—clearly human rights violations—frequently get a lukewarm response until it becomes an issue of bad press.”

In December 2012, Hendren and several collaborators created a Facebook page called RapeBook where users could flag and report offensive content that the company had refused to take down. By April 2013, people were using RapeBook to post pictures of women and pre-pubescent girls being raped or beaten. Some days, Hendren received more than 500 anonymous, explicitly violent comments—“I will skull-fuck your children,” for instance. Facebook users tracked down and posted her address, her children’s names, and her phone number and started to call her.

Eventually, Hendren told us, she and Facebook became locked in disagreement over what constituted “safety” and “hate” on the site. Facebook’s people, she said, told her they didn’t consider the threats to her and her family credible or legitimate. Hendren, however, was concerned enough to contact the police and the FBI. The FBI started an investigation; meanwhile Hendren, physically and emotionally spent, suspended her Facebook account. “I was the sickest I have ever been,” she said. “It was really disgusting work. We just began to think, ‘Why are we devoting all our efforts on a volunteer basis to do work that Facebook—with billions of dollars—should be taking care of?’”

Here are some of the measures Facebook among others have been doing, along with some explanation of the root causes of how social media at times fail to implement measures to protect exposed individuals.

For all its shortcomings, Facebook is doing more than most companies to address online aggression against women. Cindy Southworth, vice president of development and innovation at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, has served on Facebook’s Safety Advisory Board since 2010. “[My organization] gets calls from Google, Twitter, Microsoft—but Facebook and Airbnb are the only ones who’ve put us on an advisory board,” she told us.

This is huge progress, she says. By inviting experts who understand the roots of violence against women and children and are familiar with emerging strategies to prevent it, tech is more likely to innovate improvements. The once profusely applied “Controversial Humor” label in Facebook is no longer in use. The company now officially recognizes gender-based hate as a legitimate concern, and its representatives continue to work closely with advocates like Southworth and the coalition that formed during the #FBRape campaign. There are ongoing efforts to improve user safety and identify content that is threatening, harassing, hateful, or discriminatory.

Researchers and industry experts are beginning to consider the effects of that context. Ninety percent of tech employees are men. At the most senior levels, that number goes up to 96 percent. Eight-nine percent of startup leadership teams are all male. Google recently announced that it is implementing programs to, in the words of a New York Times report, “fight deep-set cultural biases and an insidious frat-house attitude that pervades the tech business.” A computer simulation used by the company illustrated how an industry-wide 1-percent bias against women in performance evaluations might have led to the significant absence of women in senior positions.

Many Silicon Valley leaders—such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who recently acknowledged a “leadership crisis” among women in tech—have been investing in programs they hope will encourage girls to enter, and remain, in STEM fields. However, the fact that companies better understand the need to encourage girls and women doesn’t necessarily mean they’re welcomed. Despite the presence of visible, active and prominent women in the industry, according to one recent study, 56 percent of the women who do enter tech leave the industry, frequently stating that they were pushed out by sexism. This attrition rate is twice that of their male peers. As Vivek Wadha, author Innovating Women, recently pointed out, only 2.7 percent of 6,517 companies that received venture funding from 2011 to 2013 had female chief executives.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...turned-against-women/381261/?single_page=true

 

[Allez Phill]

Twitter and Facebook will of course show those statistics. I'm not really surprised.

Also, a no brainer, there is 0 diversity in the tech companies running today. Its mainly white males that are in to.

 

[wildfire]

Twitter and Facebook will of course show those statistics. I'm not really surprised.

Also, a no brainer, there is 0 diversity in the tech companies running today. Its mainly white males that are in to.

While this is true, anecdotal college gender ratios indicate there are cultural barriers for post grads entering the work force.

 

[Lime]

While this is true, anecdotal college gender ratios indicate there are cultural barriers for post grads entering the work force.

While getting women into tech is a noble ideal, there are other factors at work, as written in the article:

" However, the fact that companies better understand the need to encourage girls and women doesn’t necessarily mean they’re welcomed. Despite the presence of visible, active and prominent women in the industry, according to one recent study, 56 percent of the women who do enter tech leave the industry, frequently stating that they were pushed out by sexism. This attrition rate is twice that of their male peers. As Vivek Wadha, author Innovating Women, recently pointed out, only 2.7 percent of 6,517 companies that received venture funding from 2011 to 2013 had female chief executives."

 

[Anton Sugar]

Great article, and this is a perfect rebuttal for anyone who ever tries to pull the "but EVERYONE on the internet gets harassed!" BS card.

A second Demos study showed that while male celebrities, female journalists, and male politicians face the highest likelihood of online hostility, women are significantly more likely to be targeted specifically because of their gender, and men are overwhelmingly those doing the harassing. For women of color, or members of the LGBT community, the harassment is amplified. “In my five years on Twitter, I’ve been called ‘nigger’ so many times that it barely registers as an insult anymore,” explains attorney and legal analyst Imani Gandy. “Let’s just say that my ‘nigger cunt’ cup runneth over.”

 

[The Technomancer]

But men get harassed too guys

 

[Allez Phill]

Great article, and this is a perfect rebuttal for anyone who ever tries to pull the "but EVERYONE on the internet gets harassed!" BS card.

In many ways this is true. A person using a tool that allows for anonymous interaction is going to encounter a form of harassment at some point.

I don't think that we should take away the fact that everyone gets harassed, we should try and understand why the specific gender gets harassed a-lot more, even though it's quite obvious.

 

[Anton Sugar]

In many ways this is true. A person using a tool that allows for anonymous interaction is going to encounter a form of harassment at some point.

I don't think that we should take away the fact that everyone gets harassed, we should try and understand why the specific gender gets harassed a-lot more, even though it's quite obvious.

I never said it wasn't true, but it's brought up often in threads where a minority is targeted and treated like shit via social media. Someone always says "But yeah, this happens to EVERYBODY", as if it is happening to everyone with uniform frequency and vulgarity.

But men get harassed too guys

 

[SillyEskimo]

But men get harassed too guys

I already know this.

 

[The Technomancer]

Seriously though, this data is both unsurprising and depressing. There are a lot of people out there who just seem filled with hate. There's a dark hilarity though to how these comments come out against anyone who speaks up in a progressive way with regards to sexism and women's issues.

"Shut up about sexism you stupid cunt!"

 

[Valhelm]

While getting women into tech is a noble ideal, there are other factors at work, as written in the article:

Christ, that's awful. I wonder if it's deliberate bias or unconscious creeping?

 

[The Technomancer]

Christ, that's awful. I wonder if it's deliberate bias or unconscious creeping?

Its definitely a combination of both. I mean, the majority of sexism isn't actively thinking "man women just suck, huh"

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Great article, and this is a perfect rebuttal for anyone who ever tries to pull the "but EVERYONE on the internet gets harassed!" BS card.

I don't think it is a rebuttal. I looked at the Demos breakdowns, and as a white male celebrity you are more likely to receive abuse than any other demographic; it's just that the vitriol you receive is not predicated on your gender or race - to paraphrase George Carlin, being called a cracker dick never cut that deep. I think a more accurate response is "yes, everyone gets harassed, but some forms of harassment are much more hurtful and upsetting than others", because racial and misogynistic slurs are among the most unpleasant out there.

 

[kirblar]

Great article, and this is a perfect rebuttal for anyone who ever tries to pull the "but EVERYONE on the internet gets harassed!" BS card.

One of the weird ironies of this issue is that this is an issue where the anecdotes coming from famous/well-known people sort of don't tell the real story because all famous people get harassed and it gets difficult to see where the "celebrity" margin stops and the "female" margin begins. But for your average woman on the internet- they're going to get only the latter type of harassment, and so those are the actual anecdotes you need/want in order to make people understand what's going on - but you have to work to get/compile them together like this article does.

 

[Lime]

I don't think it is a rebuttal. I looked at the Demos breakdowns, and as a white male celebrity you are more likely to receive abuse than any other demographic

Source please. If you're talking about that Piers Morgan study, then many people have pointed out the flaws of its methodology.

 

[MrGerbils]

In many ways this is true. A person using a tool that allows for anonymous interaction is going to encounter a form of harassment at some point.

I don't think that we should take away the fact that everyone gets harassed, we should try and understand why the specific gender gets harassed a-lot more, even though it's quite obvious.

No one is saying that. No one has ever said that. Bringing up the topic of men's harassment online in a topic about how much violence women face in social media is a bit like saying "yeah well men can't fly next to unaccompanied children on some airplanes" in a post about domestic abuse.

 

[SliceSabre]

I don't think Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like will ever approach it from just a harassment against females directions. Why? Because the same rules are going to apply to harrassment against men too. By the very nature of their platforms they can't focus on harassment against women specfically.

Yes I know the subject is harassment against women in social media. But it really comes down to how those companies react to harassment in general.

I get why why have some issues with it. They never want to be seen as a place that restricts speech because that is what has also helped them get popular. I mean come on they allow terrorist organizations to spew their BS and hate against everyone not them on their platforms.

 

[studyguy]

Seriously though, this data is both unsurprising and depressing. There are a lot of people out there who just seem filled with hate. There's a dark hilarity though to how these comments come out against anyone who speaks up in a progressive way with regards to sexism and women's issues.

"Shut up about sexism you stupid cunt!"

Just sort of goes back to the internet still being this crazy wild west despite how locked down most people see it. The fact is you can still log on to twitter, throw out some outlandish shit and random people you'll never see then log off with no repercussions in a second.

The no repercussions still plays the biggest part of the vitriol that flows around the internet. Never mind your gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. Generally if you log into social media and don't insulate yourself against it, the hate is everywhere. I have no doubt women get it worst of all, but even that is still a small piece of a larger systemic problem on the net.

 

[The Librarian]

Good article. Thanks for sharing.

 

[SkeptiMism]

I already know this.

Could you please elaborate?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Source please. If you're talking about that Piers Morgan study, then many people have pointed out the flaws of its methodology.

I'm talking about the Demos survey that's mentioned in the article in the OP?

EDIT: It's here: http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/demosmalecelebritiesreceivemoreabuseontwitterthanwomen

Men in general were more likely to receive abuse than women - as a man, 2.54% of tweets aimed at you are offensive, and as a woman, 0.59%. The demographics of those abusing you show that men are the bulk of abusers, but women are relatively more likely to insult women - as a man, 73.97% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 24.43% by women, and as a woman, 61.94% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 29.32% by a woman (I'm assuming the missing percentages are twitter accounts which did not reveal their gender).

 

[kirblar]

In December 2012, Hendren and several collaborators created a Facebook page called RapeBook where users could flag and report offensive content that the company had refused to take down. By April 2013, people were using RapeBook to post pictures of women and pre-pubescent girls being raped or beaten. Some days, Hendren received more than 500 anonymous, explicitly violent comments—“I will skull-fuck your children,” for instance. Facebook users tracked down and posted her address, her children’s names, and her phone number and started to call her.

Eventually, Hendren told us, she and Facebook became locked in disagreement over what constituted “safety” and “hate” on the site. Facebook’s people, she said, told her they didn’t consider the threats to her and her family credible or legitimate. Hendren, however, was concerned enough to contact the police and the FBI. The FBI started an investigation; meanwhile Hendren, physically and emotionally spent, suspended her Facebook account. “I was the sickest I have ever been,” she said. “It was really disgusting work. We just began to think, ‘Why are we devoting all our efforts on a volunteer basis to do work that Facebook—with billions of dollars—should be taking care of?’”

I think this raises a good question of - what can they do? Given the ability to sign up anonymously with a Facebook/Twitter profile at will, anything these companies do in response is entirely reactionary and doesn't solve the "no repercussions" issue. It's understandable that she feels scared/threatened by these threats. But it's also understandable that Facebook looks at this and sees generic internet crappiness. These social media companies don't want to gatekeep access to their sites- it reduces foot traffic/revenue/etc, and as we've seen with RealID and Facebook's recent real-name crackdown attempt, there are many people who legitimately don't want those sorts of barriers in place.

 

[Laekon]

I'd really like to see the actual numbers for the people doing the harassment. Women under 25 seem to love to call each other sluts at the drop of a hat. I can't find the link but there was a study done following college girls from freshmen year to graduation which should "slut shamming" happened more between women then with men.

 

[The Librarian]

I'm talking about the Demos survey that's mentioned in the article in the OP?

EDIT: It's here: http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/demosmalecelebritiesreceivemoreabuseontwitterthanwomen

Men in general were more likely to receive abuse than women - as a man, 2.54% of tweets aimed at you are offensive, and as a woman, 0.59%. The demographics of those abusing you show that men are the bulk of abusers, but women are relatively more likely to insult women - as a man, 73.97% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 24.43% by women, and as a woman, 61.94% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 29.32% by a woman (I'm assuming the missing percentages are twitter accounts which did not reveal their gender).

That's only for celebrities if I read the whole thing. Doesn't really bear out when you get down to your average Joe and Jane.

 

[dLMN8R]

Thank you for this article.

I'm so sick of some people bringing up asinine false equivalences to try to make this topic be about men. "But what about men??" is one of the most obvious signs of insecurity out there. People who say that are so fucking insecure about any conversation that happens to not be about men that they present this fake air of "fairness" to insert men into a conversation that's not about them.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

That's only for celebrities if I read the whole thing. Doesn't really bear out when you get down to your average Joe and Jane.

No, the figures I have quoted are for the average person. For celebrities, the stats are 5.19% of tweets are offensive for male celebrities, and 1.37% for female celebrities.

EDIT: Disregard this. The figures aren't for the average person, they're for "prominent people" who are not celebrities - presumably people like CEOs, etc. My bad.

EDIT:

I'd really like to see the actual numbers for the people doing the harassment. Women under 25 seem to love to call each other sluts at the drop of a hat. I can't find the link but there was a study done following college girls from freshmen year to graduation which should "slut shamming" happened more between women then with men.

No, if you actually look at the sources listed, they indeed have a break-down by gender. There is no single demographic where women are the largest source of insults for that demographic. The closest is female journalists, who have an approximately 60:40 abuse ratio.

 

[BeatResetsTheWorld]

Pretty good article. The whole "Everyone experiences it" defense was always pretty weak.

However, their methodology of simply finding instances of certain words, with no context is pretty weak. For instance, just do a quick google search for "whore" vs "man whore". Still, even if we take only a fraction of those results as being actual contemptuous insults directed at women, it's still a fairly large amount

 

[Mumei]

From another thread about another great article:

A woman doesn’t even need to occupy a professional writing perch at a prominent platform to become a target. According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female. Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.

Crab, I'm not seeing where those numbers are said to be about ordinary people. It still looks like Demos was talking about public figures - "prominent women"; "male public figures"; "most likely celebrities to receive abuse," etc.

I'm not also sure that celebrities are the best measure to decide who receives more abuse, and without a qualitative analysis of the kinds of abuse that men and women receive I'm not sure it's useful to compare raw numbers. It's not quite the same to be told you need to get raped versus having getting a tweet with your address and someone saying they want to hatefuck your corpse, and counting them both as "one" would be accurate in but also highly misleading. It's the same problem CTS has in measuring rates of domestic violence for men versus women.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

From another thread about another great article:



Crab, I'm not seeing where those numbers are said to be about ordinary people. It still looks like Demos was talking about public figures - "prominent women"; "male public figures"; "most likely celebrities to receive abuse," etc.

The data set is at the link provided, break-down is at the top. The first category is ordinary people, second is celebrities, third is journalists, fourth is politicians, and so on.

I'm not also sure that celebrities are the best measure to decide who receives more abuse, and without a qualitative analysis of the kinds of abuse that men and women receive I'm not sure it's useful to compare raw numbers. It's not quite the same to be told you need to get raped versus having getting a tweet with your address and someone saying they want to hatefuck your corpse, and counting them both as "one" would be accurate in but also highly misleading. It's the same problem CTS has in measuring rates of domestic violence for men versus women.

I actually already said this earlier:

I don't think it is a rebuttal. I looked at the Demos breakdowns, and as a white male celebrity you are more likely to receive abuse than any other demographic; it's just that the vitriol you receive is not predicated on your gender or race - to paraphrase George Carlin, being called a cracker dick never cut that deep. I think a more accurate response is "yes, everyone gets harassed, but some forms of harassment are much more hurtful and upsetting than others", because racial and misogynistic slurs are among the most unpleasant out there.

So I completely agree with you on that front. My whole point is that this is the best response to "everyone experiences it", because the data seems to show that everyone is abused and in quantitative terms men are receive more abuse, but the abuse directed at women is much more hurtful and cutting.

 

[The Librarian]

I'm talking about the Demos survey that's mentioned in the article in the OP?

EDIT: It's here: http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/demosmalecelebritiesreceivemoreabuseontwitterthanwomen

Men in general were more likely to receive abuse than women - as a man, 2.54% of tweets aimed at you are offensive, and as a woman, 0.59%. The demographics of those abusing you show that men are the bulk of abusers, but women are relatively more likely to insult women - as a man, 73.97% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 24.43% by women, and as a woman, 61.94% of offensive tweets you received were sent by men and 29.32% by a woman (I'm assuming the missing percentages are twitter accounts which did not reveal their gender).

It's for celebrities, I think. It says here:

The think-tank analysed 2,006,616 tweets over a two-week period that were sent to a selection of the most prominent and widely-followed public figures on Twitter.

It's not talking about your average Joe and Jane. If it were, it'd contradict others studies I've seen. For example, there was this one – can't find it now – where a female bot received more harassment than male bots.

Edit: Plus the one Mumei linked.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

It's for celebrities, I think. It says here:



It's not talking about your average Joe and Jane. If it were, it'd contradict others studies I've seen. For example, there was this one – can't find it now – where a female bot received more harassment than male bots.

Edit: Plus the one Mumei linked.

Ah, I see. I guess that makes the first sample listed in the data just prominent people who didn't fit into the immediately following categories?

EDIT: Actually, looking closer, the Demos survey is fairly pants anyway. The sample size of prominent people is under 60, which means it has basically no real evaluative significance.

 

[Allez Phill]

Uh, looking at these statistics makes me wonder how someone can be so angry on the internet. Another thing I'm wondering is if they actually mean it.

 

[Slayven]

Uh, looking at these statistics makes me wonder how someone can be so angry on the internet. Another thing I'm wondering is if they actually mean it.

People think just because it is 140 characters that it doesn't carry any weight. Notice the crazy shit folks say under their real names.

 

[Lime]

Verge had a similar article on online harassment last year and it uses the example of Weev near the end to talk about how Western tech culture failed victims by glorifying him.

Twitter and Facebook aren’t much help either, say women’s advocates. Valerie Aurora, the co-founder of the Ada Initiative, a group that tries to make the internet and tech sectors more welcoming to women, said Twitter makes it difficult for harassment victims to get help. "Twitter makes it near impossible to deal with an attack from a lot of trolls [similar to what happened to Sierra and Criado-Perez]," Aurora said. "The only person who can report the abuse is the target. Sometimes Twitter takes months to respond. It’s a total joke."

That could change. The social networks are under more pressure to combat harassment. In the wake of the Criado-Perez threats, Yvette Cooper, a high-ranking member of Britain’s Parliament, called Twitter’s response to the attacks "disgraceful, appalling, and unacceptable

Criado-Perez [...] said last week in a speech before the Women’s Aid conference that she doesn’t think police and Twitter have done all they can do. For instance, she asked why harassers can continue to stalk a victim’s timeline even after they’ve been reported. She did concede, however, that the causes of the problem are deeply rooted in society. "Ultimately, all these actions would be treating the symptoms and not the cause," Criado-Perez told the audience. "Social media doesn’t cause misogyny; the police can’t cure it. What we really need to do is sit down as a society and take a long hard look at ourselves, in order to answer the question: "Why are we producing so many people who just seem to hate women?"

Aurora and other women’s advocates aren’t expecting much change in the current tech environment. They note most websites are operated by men and since few men experience harassment, there isn’t much empathy for this issue. There is also the likelihood that some in tech sympathize more with the abusers. A few victims of online harassment argue that a large section of the tech industry showed where its priorities were by embracing the Free Weev movement.

Considering the fact that a year has gone by since the article's publication, it is terrible to think that Twitter hasn't enacted any real effective changes.