The campaign to pretend that the BBC libeled some of the people on oolon’s block bot continues. People are working each other into a frenzy on Twitter and Facebook, pretending that they were named on Newsnight and then called abusers. Not what happened. No one was named.
Gavin Esler and Paul Mason discuss it.
Police are investigating bomb threats made on social networking site Twitter against several female journalists.
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Time magazine’s Catherine Mayer all said they had been threatened.
Anonymous account-holders tweeted that bombs had been placed outside their homes, primed to explode at 22:47 BST.
Not a joke. Not amusing. Not “trash talk.” Not trolling. Not best dealt with by ignoring. [Read more…]
Amanda Marcotte comments on the BBC Newsnight – Paul Mason – Twitter harassment campaign story to point out that misogynist harassers have an agenda.
But as awful as trolls are, they do serve a major purpose, if people are willing to accept that these are actual people expressing actual opinions, instead of imagining them, as too many people do, as almost a force of nature that the internet willed into existence and not people at all. That purpose is revealing that misogyny exists and it is widespread. [Read more…]
Via the Global Secular Humanist Movement page on Facebook –
Lindy West, like many observers, points out that a report abuse button on Twitter could be used for just more of the same abuse.
The thought of having my Twitter account potentially suspended by abusers in retaliation for fighting back against my own abuse is profoundly enraging. On the other hand, though, this week someone created a parody account of my dead father to harass me because of my stance on rape jokes (still going on, because COOOMEDYYYYY). And you better fucking believe I wanted a “report abuse” button for that. I can see both sides—though mostly what I see right now is how hard the entire system is rigged to fuck women over. [Read more…]
Pakistan now has its own caped crusader, but under the cape is a burqa. Hmm.
Pakistan’s first caped crusader is a burka-clad superhero who fights school-hating baddies by night and moonlights as a gentle, compassionate schoolteacher by day.
Burka Avenger has yet to launch on TV, but she is creating quite an impression in a country where female literacy is estimated at a grim 12% and the Taliban are continuing a campaign which has seen hundreds of girls’ schools blown up in the north-west. [Read more…]
Texas is racing at top speed toward the edge of a cliff again.
At least six creationists/”intelligent design” proponents succeeded in getting invited to review high school biology textbooks that publishers have submitted for adoption in Texas this year. The State Board of Education (SBOE) will decide in November which textbooks to approve. Those textbooks could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.
Deep sigh.
It’s biology. It’s not church. Biology textbooks should not be reviewed according to churchy criteria. Ever. [Read more…]
Marcela Kunova on online harassment at the Huffington Post UK:
Virtually every woman who publicly contributes to a political debate is subjected to virulent and largely anonymous online invective, or “trolling”. But it is far more than simply readers’ feedback. Trolling is intended to make women shut up – and to remind them their primary purpose is to be there for male sexual pleasure. Or not to be in public life at all.
It now seems to be an established fact: women who speak publicly get threatened with rape, physical violence, harming their relatives and murder. It is not just a bit of fun. Many are stalked and get their home addresses published. And it doesn’t really matter whether those threats will subsequently come true – they are already an act of violence. [Read more…]