User:OrangesRyellow/Internet harassment of women

Internet harassment of women is a serious issue. It can take many forms, and has come under increasing focus in recent years. Its common forms include stalking, revenge porn, doxing, sexualized ridicule, impersonation, rape and murder threats, posts fantasizing about raping the target, posting of false, defamatory allegations compromising employment prospects and social life, besides causing emotional distress and withdrawal. These and other forms of harassment get quickly and widely circulated on multiple websites with a diverse geographical and jurisdictional distribution, compounding the difficulties of tackling internet harassment. Young women and women of color face the highest rates of stalking on the internet. A recent academic study found that although legal remedies are available in the US, they are difficult to pursue due to various factors..

Any long term behavior, or set of behaviors, which causes emotional distress to the target is usually described as "Internet harassment".

Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is usually defined as behavior, or set of behaviors, which causes fear in the target. It is a common way of harassing women. Preliminary studies indicate that the majority of cyberstalking victims are women, with young women, and women of color being at highest risk.

Defamation
Harassment victims usually face defamatory tactics like circulation of nude images, morphed images, revenge porn, impersonations of the target offering sexual services or seeking sexual partners and false claims of the target being infected with sexually transmitted diseases. In many cases, spurned ex-lovers have upload revenge porn on the internet. While men have been targeted in some cases, most of the targets of revenge porn are women, and the impact of revenge porn is greater for women.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/10/22/pew_online_harassment_study_men_are_called_names_women_are_stalked_and_sexually.html

Social media
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are usually not required to remove offensive posts under US laws, but may remove them according their own terms of use, or other reasons. Facebook has been criticized for being loath to take down misogynist pages. On one occasion, at least a hundred activist groups objected to misogynist content, and started a campaign to force Facebook to remove the content. Facebook initially refused to remove the pages by claiming that the content was compliant with its terms of use, but removed the content after fifteen advertisers withdrew their ads from Facebook in response activist petitions.

While twitter has also been criticized for its lukewarm response to harassment, it has vowed to combat online harassment, and has started collaborating with independent women's groups like Women, Action & the Media and others to identify and improve its response.

http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/reports/news/a31899/internet-inventor-online-violence-women/

http://thewebindex.org/report/#4._the_web_and_gender_inequality

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/05/twitter-ceo-we-suck-dealing-with-trolls-abuse

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/40509-wit2015/

Internet structure
The internet design and structures were mostly created by men, and it has been suggested many of the problems that women face on the internet crop up because these structures were not designed keeping female participation in mind. Although internet is usually expected to be neutral, this neutrality has been described as a "myth" for females and gender minorities.

Effects
Internet harassment can entail serious consequences for women. Harassment and stalking can compromise employment and educational opportunities, cause emotional distress, fear, and force them to withdraw from internet and social life. It can also cause severe health problems and result in women having to incur expenses to ensure security, and to take down offensive content from the internet. Withdrawal from internet can compromise their freedom of expression and restricts women's voices from having a proportionate participation on the internet.

http://www.popline.org/node/530156

Feminist writers are so besieged by online abuse that some have begun to retire