
Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds - acabrahams
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/07/20/men-who-harass-women-online-are-quite-literally-losers-new-study-finds/?tid=sm_fb
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littletimmy
This is shitty journalism at its worst. The study presented a very
conservative finding, which is that men who lose in online games are more
likely to be hostile, particularly towards those they don't think are in the
in-group. That is understandable.

The journalist in question extrapolated it to Reddit, Twitter, 4chan, and god
knows what else. All the while making huge conjectures about how this means
all harassers are low-status losers (a word used pejoratively, not
descriptively).

Pathetic.

~~~
wpietri
I don't think you're clear on how journalism works.

News pieces report relatively factual material. That's the first part of what
you identify. But then there are _other_ kinds of writing that also appear in
newspapers. [1] This in particular is from their blog The Intersect [2], which
is cultural commentary focused on the Internet. It is written by their
"digital culture critic". [3]

So cultural commentary is exactly this person's job. And I don't think it's a
giant stretch extrapolating research about men harassing women online to...
men harassing women online. Of course, you could be right: some online
harassers may also be high-status winners sending out semi-literate email
screeds from their mansions and yachts and whatnot.

So no, this isn't shitty journalism. It would be a shitty news piece if it
were a news piece. But since it's not, I'd call it a decent commentary piece.

[1] Hopefully this isn't too big a surprise; this is literally what they tell
fifth graders about journalism. E.g.:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewr...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewriting/commissionsrev2.shtml)
or [http://www.dispatchnie.com/content/pages/types-of-
articles/t...](http://www.dispatchnie.com/content/pages/types-of-
articles/types-of-articles.html)

[2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/)

[3] I learned all this by a) clicking on the big title at the topic of the
column, and b) clicking on the writer info at the bottom. Next time if you're
wondering what sort of article you're reading, those are good places to start.

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wpietri
Seems totally plausible to me. And it goes well with this paragraph from a
recent Jon Ronson interview[1]:

"I once interviewed a prison psychiatrist, James Gilligan, who told me that
every murderer he treated was harbouring a central secret – which was that
they felt humiliated. 'I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was
not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed or humiliated, disrespected
and ridiculed,' he said. His conclusion: 'All violence is an attempt to
replace shame with self-esteem.'"

It's things like this that make it really obvious that we're primates,
hardwired for status. Not that we can't overcome it, of course. But it takes
work.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/katie-
hopkins-j...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/katie-hopkins-jon-
ronson-interview)

~~~
golemotron
That should give pause to people who attempt to shame others to enact social
change.

~~~
wpietri
No, no it shouldn't. The reason we have patriarchy at all is millennia of male
violence. Your notion that people should avoid pushing for social change
because guys may hurt or kill them is a) abhorrent, and b) exactly why we need
the social change.

~~~
golemotron
Where did I say that people should avoid pushing for social change? I pointed
out the effect of a tool: shaming. It's bad for people and as the article says
it can lead to violence.

Social change is good. Shaming is a bad tool.

~~~
wpietri
Please describe three social changes you are making happen and your shame-free
techniques.

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clickok
This is an interesting study, but would likely benefit from some additional
research[0][1].

From a journalistic perspective, though, the article on the study is terrible.
Not merely because of the way it jumps to conclusions from a single study (the
discourse on Reddit/Twitter is likely to be somewhat different than in Halo
3), but because the article itself was about _online harassment_ , and yet the
only figure they deigned to include was about the number of _positive_
comments.

If you look at the graphs for _negative_ statements[2], you find that although
female voices provoke slightly more negative comments for low amounts of
deaths, male voices get significantly more negative comments when the death
count is higher. This is not as easily to interpret.

0\. The actual study:
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131613)

1\. For example, does this trend persist in games that are not "boys games"?
We assume that the majority of Halo 3 players are men, but is there any
difference between how men and women comment to perceived men and women? Why
did they not include the control (playing without voice chat) as a baseline?

2\.
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=l...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0131613.g003)

------
nness
> “As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status,”
> Kasumovic writes, “the increase in hostility towards a woman by lower-status
> males may be an attempt to disregard a female’s performance and suppress her
> disturbance on the hierarchy to retain their social rank.”

I would agree with that opinion — I think we've all experienced men behaving
stupidly when they overly value and then perceive a threat to their
masculinity. Gaming is certainly an activity where we see that to more of an
extreme.

I wonder though the breadth of the data though. Other metrics like age, or
even play time, and the like may equally as telling.

~~~
jennybrennan
On your first point, yes - this is also seen in other studies. It's known a
the masculine overcompensation thesis. Willer 2011 discusses four studies:
[https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/o...](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ob_04_11_willer.pdf)

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spcoll
Of course they are. My own findings corroborate this.

My personal theory is that the reason the tech industry is so hostile towards
women is that it is mostly comprised of "nerds" and "geeks" who, being lower-
status in society while usually being part of the dominant group (white men),
are much more likely to be aggressive towards people not part of that group,
women and people of color.

~~~
dudul
It's been quite a while that nerds and geeks are not lower status in our
society.

Everyone claims to be a geek just for the hype. Superheroes movies are the
most profitable, the video game industry is enormous.

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iamleppert
People who waste their time and energy on obvious, pointless studies and cite
arbitrary Halo data in their research are losers.

~~~
Zikes
Halo 3 on XBox Live is absolutely representative of every person on the
internet. I don't see how you could even question that.

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Zikes
People who harass people online are losers, sure, but doing your study on XBox
Live is a bit like going to the Dead Sea to test oceanic salinity levels.

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Shad0w59
Seems a bit of a stretch to make this statement on a study based on Halo 3.

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rectangletangle
_____ who harass _____ online are quite literally losers

Did we really need a study for this?

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BrandoElFollito
I did not read the study, but the one chart in the article (which, I assume is
supposed to reinforce the message) is over - interpreted. What I see is that
mm relationship status the same and mf gets better with skill. I interpret it
as better men looking for women to mate with. The not so good ones do not even
try. Now, if the chart was about negative behaviour then it would make sense
for the article.

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bootload
_“As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status,”_

Stand out line. Men who deny this are mostly guilty of being unaware of their
own bias, ie: guilty of being human. This can be corrected.

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smegel
Next they will be saying Internet Trolls are just sad, lonely people. That
will set off the intertubes into a real frenzy.

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kazagistar
That graph looks questionable.

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SpaceManNabs
And men who harass women in person are winners? I don't really see what this
study is trying to imply.

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brandons
Let's not lose sight of the main point here: that men who harass women online
are losers.

~~~
SCAQTony
...And let's not lose sight of the fact that people who speak in blanket
statements who are suppose to be objective are generally positing a very
separatist idea.

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xname
Women who harass men online are winners?

