One thing that’s not evident enough on social media is how every visible underrepresented person you see with a platform (whether they chose to have one or not) has been targeted for abuse ranging somewhere from upsetting to truly ruinous. The vast majority is nearly invisible.
Part of it is, decent people don’t usually go to the places where shitty, aggressive groups congregate to coordinate harassment campaigns. And they don’t see the flood of off-platform attacks that can be amongst the most disturbing and invasive.
Like, I’m as privileged and fortunate as it gets, and have both good tools and good experience in heading off potential harassment. But something like the creepy guy who just phoned me at home, mad about one of my tweets, would faze most people.
It’s routine for people to go after where you work, or organizations you’re associated with; for most people those could be career-ending or at the very least incredibly traumatic because of how they potentially destabilize one’s income or livelihood.
Even the awkwardness of explaining to one’s boss that they’re going to get lots of emails/calls/etc. can be terrifying for anyone who’s worried about their job or their role at work. And all of this stuff happens *every day*.
I am inured to it, but that’s largely just a function of my privilege & my fatigue after 20 years of people trying to get me fired because of social media. Every other person you see who’s visible & vulnerable has it worse; it’s worth having their backs and checking in with them.
There are also structural reasons that abuse & harassment persist: because it is typically motivated by racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate, it less frequently targets people in decision-making positions about tech/media platforms. They don’t see it.
Because they don’t see it, they offer facile, irrelevant or irresponsible suggestions like “just log off” or “ignore it”. Meanwhile, lives or livelihoods or mental health get destroyed. And harassers know how to game the rules, or move abuse off-platform, to keep attacking.
From 2016, the immortal myths about online abuse. medium.com/humane-tech/th…
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