How useful, how apropos, how…right. An online article at the New Yorker on the wrongness of the idea that harassment is part of our glorious heritage of free speech.
It starts with Amanda Todd.
Todd’s suicide is easily analogized to Tyler Clementi’s, mostly because the public has diagnosed both cases as the result of “cyber-bullying.” Yet, as a descriptive term, “cyber-bullying” feels deliberately vague. Somewhere in the midst of the “mob” there is usually at least one person whose cruelty exceeds the tossing off of a stray insult. In Clementi’s case, the magazine’s Ian Parker chalked the harasser’s motives up to “shiftiness and bad faith,” the kinds of things that criminal statutes can’t easily be invoked to cover. But with Todd’s harasser, the malice is unquestionable.
As is the malice of our harassers. That’s why we dislike them so much. It’s because their malice is so wildly out of proportion to any real evil – or malice – of ours. It’s because there’s a difference between an online argument or quarrel that lasts a few hours or days and then ends, with either reconciliation or going separate ways, and a sustained daily campaign of vicious defamatory harassment.
And now Michelle Dean really gets into it. It’s as if she’d been reading over our shoulders.
It is a cultural myth—one particular to the Internet—that the methods of a harasser are fundamentally “legal,” and that the state is helpless to intervene in all cases like this. The systematic way the harasser allegedly followed Todd to new schools, repeatedly posting the images and threatening to do it again, makes it textbook harassment regardless of the medium. Indeed, in Todd’s native Canada, cyber-harassment is prosecuted under the general harassment provision of the Canadian criminal code. And in the United States, most states have added specific laws against cyber-harassment and bullying to their general legislation of harassment. At the federal level, there is the Federal Interstate Stalking Punishment and Prevention Act, which covers harassment that crosses state and national lines. While all of these laws are subject to the limitations of the First Amendment, the First Amendment generally doesn’t protect threats and harassment. If people are not being prosecuted for these acts, the fault lies in the social alchemy of law enforcement, the way the human prejudices of judges, juries, and prosecutors inflect the black letter. Put otherwise, the power is there—the cultural mores are what is preventing the laws from being successfully invoked.
There are, after all, consequences to the widespread belief that these acts of harassment are regrettable but not ultimately punishable. Specifically, it obscures truths about the practice—first, that this kind of thing is not merely the province of children who know not what they do. While the police have yet to confirm the identity of Todd’s harasser, the “hacktivist” group Anonymous has identified an adult man who lived nearby as the culprit. (He denies the harassment, though he told a Canadian television news crew that he did indeed know Todd.) It remains to be seen whether they’ve pointed the finger at the right person. But the theory—that an adult would have targeted a teen-ager for such abuse, that he would have tricked her and been indifferent to the price she paid—is not merely plausible. It is a thing that happens every day on the Internet.
For many people it seems to be what the Internet is for – targeting people, especially women, for endless pauseless abuse.
She goes on to Michael Brutsch.
What you could call the Brutschean world view—which takes anonymity as the only meaningful form of privacy, and a key element of free speech—is nearly an article of faith in these lower levels of the Internet. But it has tentacles that extend to higher, more powerful places. Scholars often approvingly quote EFF.org founder John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which, among other utopian visions, holds that “our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion.” The founding myth of the Internet was its offer of a way to escape physical reality; the freedom to shape yourself, to say anything, became a sort of sacred object.
But, as the scholar Mary Anne Franks has observed, women haven’t actually achieved this “bodiless” freedom online. They are embodied in distributed pictures and in sexual comments, whether they like it or not. The power to get away from yourself, like everything else, is unevenly distributed. Women have become, as Franks put it, “unwilling avatars,” unable to control their own images online, and then told to put up with it for the sake of “freedom,” for the good of the community. And then they are incorrectly told, even if the public is behind them, that they have no remedies in the law. They are shouted down by people with a view of freedom of speech more literal than that held by any judge.
Yes, and yes, and yes.
I did have “bodiless” freedom for several years, or if I didn’t I was unaware of the fact. But then after a few years I didn’t any more. I got away with it for awhile and then I no longer did. I’m an unwilling avatar. That’s freedom of speech, bitch!
THIS. THIS, THIS, a thousand times THIS.
So what if the non-consensual images of those women and girls didn’t have their names attached? That was still a meaningful invasion of privacy!
A very good article.
I’m fumbling toward some long-form expression of this idea lately, that what all of this has been is really a skirmish in a protracted war for the future of the Web. What we’re up against is not just malice, but a large admittedly diffuse group who is resisting with all their might the notion that the online world is a part of the real world, that actions there are not isolated from consequences here, there and everywhere.
Not just sexual comments. Comments on age, gender conformity, weight, general attractiveness. They work very hard to put our bodies on the line.
I’ve seen versions of this in the higher levels of the Internet, too, not just the lower levels. I wouldn’t call it an article of faith, though. It’s more of a core principle for them. It aggravates me how some people who hold that principle have been able to turn social justice, taking a stand against these online harassers, into the act of witch hunting for the sole reason that anonymity isn’t off limits as they think it should be in all cases.
” . . .the online world is a part of the real world . . .”
Yes, I agree. It certainly is. But it’s hard to demarcate definitively b/w publishing (or micro-publishing) and personal content uploaded to the Web. Not saying we shouldn’t try to do so, just that it’s hard.
The creepshots disgustingness, however, is imo a clear example of the personal being made public inappropriately, and as such constitutes violation.
“It aggravates me how some people who hold that principle have been able to turn social justice, taking a stand against these online harassers, into the act of witch hunting . . .”
I guess the difference is that witches don’t exist, but bullying does.
Wow. Michelle Dean is brilliant.
This poor young girl had no one to turn to. There must be more freely-available help for women who are attacked online. Is there a famous website, similar to ‘Childline’?
I am also baffled at why more sexually assaulted women don’t go to the police, complain to the Police Complaints Commission, sue. Victims don’t have to do this by themselves. We also need drop-in law centres for women victims, run by women and good men.
The laws are already there. Free speech has never been an absolute.
@xmaseveeve
It’s no one’s place to tell victims what they should or shouldn’t do, but we definitely need structure in place and a change in culture to make them feel safe enough to go to the authorities.
There are a lot of times when it is not safe or effective to do so.
I am also baffled at why more sexually assaulted women don’t go to the police, complain to the Police Complaints Commission, sue.
It’s very hard to get law enforcement to, um, enforce the law. I know a lady who went to the FBI several times regarding a cyberstalking ex-lover, and each time she basically got blown off and the stalker upped the stakes in response. It’s complicated. 🙁
I am also baffled at why more sexually assaulted women don’t go to the police, complain to the Police Complaints Commission, sue.
I wish I was baffled, too.
I am fine with a bodiless conception of net users provided that it’s equal access. If you take photos of people you aren’t respecting the rights of others to be bodiless and anonymous, are you?
xmaseveeve – You really wonder that? Really?
I’m stunned. You’re a fellow Brit, aren’t you? I just… I can’t imagine a British woman not knowing why we don’t go to the police.
Answer – because of the police.
Here’s just one example: http://stavvers.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/this-is-how-seriously-the-police-take-rape/
A police officer in a town near me picked women up for years, raped them, threatened them, and terrorised them. He was found not guilty. They were only sex workers, not real women apparently.
Another recently went to a shop to arrest a woman for shoplifting. He took her to the station for questioning, and then sexually assaulted her.
Rape is virtually impossible to get a conviction on here in the UK. Of the tiny minority of reported cases that the police even bother to get to trial, about 6% result in a conviction.
It’s as if every good idea gets targeted by parasites that attach themselves to it and disguise themselves as parts of it in order to exploit its (well deserved) legitimacy for their own nefarious ends. For example:
Good idea: Opposing intolerance of people regardless of gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Parasitic idea: Immunizing ideas/practices from criticism, even at the expense of actual, living people.
Good idea: Respecting a person’s right to hold an opinion.
Parasitic idea: Automatically respecting the opinion itself.
Good idea: Applying critical thinking to arrive at justified beliefs.
Parasitic idea: Using the language of skepticism and critical thinking to dismiss any claim that challenges your ideological preconceptions whether it is justified or not.
Using “free speech” as a universal “get out of jail” card seems to me of exactly the same nature. There are excellent reasons to have a very high tolerance for offensive speech as far as the law is concerned (e.g. laws are often abused, and dissidents who say unpopular things are sometimes right), but this does not (as in “not at all“) mean…
…that anybody is obliged to listen.
…that anybody is obliged to offer you a megaphone.
…that your views have a right to stand unchallenged.
…that something is worth saying just because you won’t go to jail for doing so.
…that everything that’s compatible with the law is also compatible with being a decent human being.
…that you are automatically exempt from ever having to take any kind of responsibility for your utterances.
…that you are the new Galileo or [insert name of historical figure who was persecuted for telling the truth].
…that any piece of “information” that hardly expresses any “claim” or “point of view” at all is also protected.
As I see it the whole point of free speech is to make sure people are not denied information that may be relevant to help them make informed decisions. It’s quite a stretch to say that child pornography or “creep shots” fit this criterion in any meaningful way. I guess it may be of some interest to know who among our fellow carbon-based life forms are [EXPLETIVE DELETED] to be avoided like toxic waste, but surely there are ways of letting us know that without bullying a 15 year old girl to death. I suggest:
Why don’t victims of rape and abuse go to the police?
1. The police are not always helpful and sometimes make things worse.
2. Friends and family may be unsupportive; in some cultures/religions, admitting to being raped makes you a pariah regardless of the situation; in some families, an evidence of abuse can be suppressed within the the family not just by the perpetrator but by other family members as well.
3. Even if the victim gets support from the family or police, the process of securing a conviction is usually a painful process and many choose not to proceed.
4. Regardless of all the above, victims of rape and abuse can have their self-worth so badly damaged that they partly blame themselves or just lack the emotional strength to stand up.
5. While I don’t feel comfortable calling ours a “rape culture”, there’s no question that there are plenty of people who will very publicly make excuses for the perpetrator, pin blame on the victim, excuse varying levels of assault as trivial, and make multiple police/court movies/TV shows about rape cases where the big twist is that the victim made it all up for some reason. Some of these shows are excusable (e.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, or the very occasional Law and Order: SVU episode where the complaint is false, or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia where it’s meant to be understood that the all characters are sociopathic), but overall the ratio of false accusations is massively over-represented in entertainment.
It may be bigger than that. The first amendment doesn’t deal well with “straw that breaks the camel’s back” problems. I think we’ve made some positive progress in that definitions of harassment recognize that ‘repeated’ is very often a major component of it. However, IMO there still seems to be general social or legal acceptance that if saying X is legal, saying X every minute of every day to the same person for years on end is legal. If outing someone is legal, then following them around from place to place outing them to every person they meet must also be legal.
Prior to the internet, this was probably not a major legal or social issue because it took a lot more work to harass someone endlessly. You had to do it in person, or by writing pen-and-ink letters, or you had to pay to get stuff in newspapers. So there was a lot less of it – and probably even a lot less per capita. Husbands and wives could abuse each other like this, so yes it did occurr, but it was (for the most part) practically impossible to follow some mere acquaintance from town to town, shouting their personal details to the rooftops.
But the internet makes it trivially easy to multiply your comments endlessly. Problems associated with amount of speech rather than just pure content – problems that rarely or never came up before – are now surfacing. I’m not sure we really know how to deal with the fact that enough quantity of speech may, in some cases, give it a different quality.
Although this discussion is mostly about stalking/harrassment, it does touch on privacy so, in case anyone fears that this juvenilia:
“… anonymity as the only meaningful form of privacy …”
is the best idea there is, I would recommend checking out Helen Nissenbaum’s very grown up ideas on privacy, what she calls Contextual Integrity (http://crypto.stanford.edu/portia/papers/RevnissenbaumDTP31.pdf).
Anonymity is something else entirely. It’s invaluable in certain circumstances – e.g. voting – and one of the great potential benefits of the Internet is that it allows people to say things in safety in a way which was previously inconceivable. But that means the creeps will come out and speak their minds too. Personally, I’d rather know what people really think than have them silenced by social convention.
But if ever the anonymity fails, then your in trouble, whether it’s from individual or state harassers.
You pays your money and you takes your choice, but I would go for a more formalised or regulated means of providing anonymity, although I’m not sure quite how it could be done yet.
re: not reporting
When it comes to kids, it gets even more complicated.
1) Even tween girls have already absorbed the slut shaming, victim blaming attitudes of rape culture, but they also have fewer tools for analyzing and rejecting it. So they are even more likely to think that they deserved the abuse and don’t deserve help.
2) They are also less likely to know where to begin to get help – who are they supposed to tell? At what point do they get help vs it being tattling, etc? – bc the rare times we talk about sexual abuse and harassment with kids we talk about strangers. Or things that A Big Deal. But that’s not most kids first experience with it. And so by the time something big does happen, they already have a habit of not telling.
3) Kids often want to take care of things themselves – even when it’s dangerous to not do so, they often don’t want to drag parents or teachers into it. We don’t do enough to provide kids with information and resources on where they can turn for help from trustworthy adults that are not their parents.
4) Adults, in the mainstream, seem to have a hard time talking about the sexualization of children without blaming children for their choices, rather than adults. Even worse, far too many adults seem to be confused on the difference between blaming children for what they do and blaming children for developing mature bodies earlier than the adults in question are comfortable with. This doesn’t really help with 1 through 3.
There seems to be a popular misunderstanding that freedom of speech is supposed to be that great thing that will bring every one happiness and joy. It never was the point, the real point is security, or indirect security i should say. When we allow free speech, we take the risks that someone might say something we don’t agree with, something that disturbs us, that disgusts us or scares us, but the idea behind it was to make sure that we wouldn’t get shut down if we, at some point, had to say something that went against the general idea. Sure, this concept might not sound really down to earth, but its an extremely complicated issue. No one here knows what freedom is, and how to define freedom, it’s practically impossible to do so. So, in the end, with the little understanding we have, we must ask ourselves if we believe in freedom of speech, as an idea and not necessarily as a right, and if we want to make decisions that will support this idea, even if they might not be pleasant to make.