
We Need to Talk about Online Harassment - aaronbrethorst
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/online-harassment-lauren-duca-thigh-high-politics
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damm
Additionally this stems really back to bullying; something that wasn't dealt
with in my time in school. I was always told to just let it go and someone
else will straighten them out.

The truth is; no the teachers enabled the bullies to bully me. When these
bullies grew up they knew they could take advantage of people to get ahead.

If we can't talk about bullying and deal with it in a real way (saying kids
are kids; isn't an answer. Kids can be cruel as hell and if you let them be
cruel why would they act differently?) we sure as hell can't deal with the
misogyny in this world. In the end it stems from the same place; we raise some
children to be ones to be stepped on; and others to do the stepping on.

~~~
pasbesoin
What I tell people: Absent an effective countervailing strategy, _bullying
works._

At its simplest level, if "the bully is only hurting themself" and similar
ineffective (I'd argue, actively counter-productive) messaging were actually
true, then why is bullying such a pervasive, ingrained, and _persistent_
characteristic of our social interactions and societies?

It works! Unless you actually stop it.

Until we teach our kids this and train them in how to deal with the situation
effectively, and unless as older kids and adults we actively engage ourselves
in the social milieus where this is taking place, the strategy is going to
have unhindered success and continue.

Bullying is never going to go away or be eradicated. (Look at its presence in
many other species aside from our own.) But we can be honest about it and
about this, teach our kids and where necessary contemporaries how to deal with
it, lend support in dealing with it, and keep base-level aggression from
warping lives and quelling the valuable contributions others have to offer.

Is society a "zero sum game"? Or does fostering a more positive environment
grow the pie for all of us?

This is actually a topic that economics appears to be beginning to grapple
with (e.g. the newish "Evonomics"). Are unfettered capitalism and unbridled
inequality the route to the greatest growth, or does a greater, flatter
sharing of resources produce the better overall outcome? Economists are
starting to see and acknowledge evidence of the latter.

P.S. On a personal note, I experienced some pretty bad and persistent
bullying, particularly in middle school. At least one of the most senior
teachers observed it directly and did nothing about it. In fact, no one ever
taught me anything about how to deal with it. I still carry those scars.

Bullying works. Unless you act to prevent this.

------
damm
It's not like this is really new. The problem is generally the online social
services we use and how they allow others to be harassed online. I doubt they
really care if the violence goes out onto the streets; as long as it's not on
their lawn right?

This is the general problem; and over-reaction from social networks from
either not doing enough or doing too much.

If you want to avoid online harassment avoid those sites that don't do
anything to protect you.

Good moderators can go bad; so regardless if it's facebook or some small dinky
online forum... they can be aggressive at moderating and also silence people
for no good reason

~~~
christofosho
In reporting a website for using my intellectual property, Cloudflare
forwarded all of my personal information (which was necessary to give) to the
abuser in question. Funny enough, I had explicitly mentioned that these
individuals had been harassing me in more ways than just by stealing my
property without proper attribution. And yet they still gave my information to
the abusive party. What followed was a series of even worse harassment,
including (but not limited to) prank calls, deliveries, and a SWATing.

Unfortunately, avoiding bad things isn't always the case, nor the solution.
You would figure a site such as the one mentioned would be a bit more
protective.

~~~
damm
CloudFlare has acknowledged this problem I believe. That's very unfortunate
and it makes one not want to report harassment in the future.

Behavior like that makes me think you have a case against CloudFlare because
their behavior harmed you. Worse than the original crime if you ask me.

It's a good deterrent however to make sure people don't report abuse in the
future. Makes their graphs look pretty and empty and they don't think they
have anything bad going on.

In fact no one wants to report anything because they learned the lesson; the
bully's win when you have no privacy and stopping said abusive (violent)
behavior is often difficult or impossible? I don't think I experienced it that
bad personally.

I have had the people creating craigslist postings with your information
telling people to come over to your house and rape you.

Quite paralyzing

