h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It seems the "in" thing this week for people with media profiles to get threatened with sexual violence on Twitter.

Obviously, there's been a HUGE difference in attitude depending on whether the targets of these threats have been men or women.

Where the targets have been women, they've reported it to the police, written newspaper columns about it, and there's been much chin-stroking and brow-furrowing about what's wrong with society and how misogyny is rife, blah blah blah. Overall, despite the apparent absence of anything more serious than some text on a microblogging site (i.e. no actual physical attacks, or even apparently no actual physical presence of anyone who had threatened such anywhere near any of the targets), the response has been to take these things very, very seriously indeed.

Where the targets have been men, it's all be treated as a massive laugh. Ho ho, they've been threatened with being anally raped with a chainsaw, what a chuckle. Tee hee, someone said they were going to come round to their house and gut them. The men in question - the editorial staff at GQ magazine - have joined in the guffaws by publishing the threatening tweets in order to point and laugh at them. There's been absolutely no suggestion, anywhere, that this is in any way comparable to the nigh-on indistinguishable quality of threats levelled at women in the media.

Which of these responses strikes you as the more appropriate? Which strikes you as the more grown-up and proportionate?

And most importantly, a question:

Is anyone aware of even a single case of murder, physical attack, or even merely harrassment, against a person in the public eye, the perpetrator of which had previously announced their intentions on Twitter or similar?

Or, put the other way - has ANY such threat EVER been followed up by action, even once?

I'm just trying to calibrate how seriously we should take this stuff, and whether the massive amount of column inches dedicated to it in the newspapers over the last few days has in fact been the usual sanctimonious bullshit.

Obviously we need more government controls on t'internet in all it's guises.

That and fainting couches liberally distributed around the country, gentle souls for the use of.

who is laughing at threats against men? I'm not - I take them as seriously as threats against women.

However, the threats against the women are specifically targetted at *women* to shut them down. Because they are *women*. That is the real big story here, because it happens all the time, offline as well as on.

I really don't buy this "oh if it's a woman she goes to the police and men laugh it off" story. If men are laughing it off on their own behalf, that's up to them. I think it's a serious issue - mostly because it seems to be that the people behind the threats don't really take the people at the other end to be real people.

From a legal standpoint, it's fairly straightforward. Making threats is a breach of the law in and of itself. Even if you don't carry out the threat, it is, even with no further action, an offence.

Who's laughing? The Guardian, for one. "Lost in Showbiz" was where they reported threats of castration, anal rape with a chainsaw etc.


http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2013/aug/01/one-direction-fans-gq-abusive-tweets

"Making threats is a breach of the law "

True. Mainly because historically threats were usually made in person and were then, quite often enough to be a problem, followed up sooner or later by actual actions. Thus it made sense to criminalise the threat.

I'm just noting that the connection between threat and action online is far, far more removed. Has ANY violent action anyone has ever heard of been preceded by a public online threat?

(Anyone remember Death Threat Della, btw?)

well, Lost in Showbiz is wrong.

Even if the threats aren't literal, they nonetheless constitute serious harassment, and the more so when you know that the danger is, in general, real.

See also, for more information, a feminist arguing that a "report abuse" button on Twitter would cause more harm than good: http://www.anamardoll.com/2013/08/feminism-why-i-dont-support-twitter.html.

(I still don't see the point of Twitter.)

TRiG.

I think that the test is as follows.

How would you respond to threats of rape made againt your daughter / wife / mother however they were made?

Anybody care to try to imagine how it might feel to be assaulted in this way?

So a threat of rape made by letter, phone, e-mail or twitter is bound to put the idea in the mind of the threatened person.

Unaceptible.

And here we are. This may be why threats against men are taken less seriously. Anybody attempting to assault me is likely to get seriously hurt in the process. Anybody attempting to assault my partner is likely to walk away unharmed.

PP.

oh I don't know. Anyone trying to hurt me, should not be around, will likely not walk away unaided.

I don't know about Twitter, but there's a case of Facebook threats that were followed by actual physical violence:

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22525705/utica-schools-parents-confront-threats-made-on-facebook

Excellent, finally an example.

I can't provide a link, but there was the German chap who announced he was going to murder a couple because of something on World of Warcraft (I think) and then did.

How many of the various death threats Salman Rushdie has received were made in person? He still takes them very seriously. I also remember reading about Della or her son making a death threat to Hoo and blickybadger, which iirc they both took very seriously. Hoo, would you like to explain why you took the threat seriously?

I think it would be very difficult to ignore a threat, no matter how laughable. I doubt I'd be prepared to overlook the chance I was wrong.

I think that we also have to consider why the threats were made and to whom. It's a big part of the huge reaction to the tweets to the women.

There's a recent case in which a woman who was urging the British government to put the image of Jane Austen on paper currency. She received Twittered threats. The sender[s?] of the threats was/were taken into custody by police.

I'm no expert on criminal psychology, but I do know that courses are offered in it. The higher-ups who design police procedures probably know quite a bit on the subject. Perhaps the mindset of people who send threats is such [in general] that ignoring their threats leads them to take it to a higher step that includes physical violence? If I am wrong, perhaps someone who ahs studied criminal psychology would be kind enough to correct me.

The problem is, that although nearly all those threats will be empty, every now and then one of the people behind them will be sufficiently deranged to carry them out.

The police advised the Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman to spend the night away from home when she got a bomb threat, so it can't have been totally without substance...

sprout

Twitter threats should be taken seriously

It is irrelevant how many of them become actual physical events

Threatening behaviour and harassment are criminal offences in their own right.

Just because it happens online it is still as unacceptable than if happening offline

Not Twitter, but a 14 year old girl has reportedly taken her own life after bullying/threats on the ask.fm site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23584769

Why should that be treated any differently than if the troglodytes who bullied her were abusing you in the street?

There's no "online/real life" divider any more. If you're a bullying/unpleasant/misogynistic piece of work online, then it's fair to say that you're a bullying/unpleasant/misogynistic piece of work.

that one made my blood run cold, The Gruesome Twosome use that site. #1 just told me that people try to be mean but she blocks them. But she is fairly confident about most stuff. If she were a shy, retiring violet I'd have to stalk her on there myself to check up.