Many women and gender non-conforming people experience harassment online. This may range from nearly-innocuous comments to actual death threats.
Contents
Well-known incidents
- Debian and LinuxChix harassment
- Kathy Sierra incident
- Wiscon troll incident
- Debian and LinuxChix harassment
- MikeeUSA harrassment during 2009 women in FLOSS discussions
- AutoAdmit harassment
Other incidents
| TRIGGER WARNING This article or section, or pages it links to, contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors. |
- SLUG committee 2009 nomination dispute
- Anonymous attacks against feminist bloggers (2008)
- OpenBSD user harassed for asking for language change on website
- Photos of Telsa Gwynne were mocked on sites denigrating women's appearances
- I get discussed in forums (Shakesville, 2009)
In June 2009, Yahoo Buzz user "Science Rocks" posted the following in her online journal. Access to the post is limited to certain trusted users, but the following is reposted with permission:
- As I've mentioned here before, there's another site (i.e. Yahoo Buzz) where I have a semi-social presence, recommending news articles (usually science-related) and commenting on these articles in the forums there. Until last week, my user persona was presented as male and hinted at being homosexual. Eight days ago, I switched to a new user persona, presented as "female and married" in my profile.
- In the one year and four months I had the first persona, I had ONE Personal Message from someone who had an ongoing banter-ish conversation with me, saying that "if you ever want to switch teams, I'm your girl." That was the extent of the romantic or sexual advances I received on that user ID.
- In the past eight days in my new persona, I have received four offers, from different user IDs, to the effect of of "hey, where do you live? Wanna to go on a date? You seem cute and smart." I have received two offers to give the commenter a blow job (an utter non sequitur to the conversation at hand, of course). I've been called a "ball-buster" for linking to science articles and been asked if I like pussy, because I'm "not gonna get a man if you don't stop being scary with all the smart talk." And I just now got a personal message offering "the best fuck of your life, baby" and the offer to provide the plane ticket from my location to his, for said purpose.
- I feel sick.
Reports of broader harrassment
- Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages
- How the web became a sexists' paradise (Guardian)
- "Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers" (Washington Post, April 2007)
- The five types of haters female bloggers encounter
- Fat, Ugly, or Slutty? is a blog that documents harassment and threats toward women during online gaming. (Warning: explicit and sexually violent language.)
Resources
- [1]Social and technical means for fighting online harassment
- Mitigating Internet trollstorms
Miscellaneous discussion/commentary
See also
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