Bjarte has a new cartoon.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Nahla Mahmoud is being threatened, and the police won’t do anything about it.

From the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain:

Following an interview on Channel 4 on Sharia law, Islamists have threatened Sudanese secular campaigner and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Spokesperson Nahla Mahmoud with death, calling her a ‘Kafira’ and ‘Murtada’ who has offended Islam and brought “fitnah”. The threats have been reported to the police who have closed the case and advised that nothing could be done.

We the undersigned are extremely concerned about the safety of Nahla and that of her family in Sudan. We ask the authorities to investigate the threats made particularly by Mr Salah Al Bandar.

Nahla writes: “I am most concerned with the harassment by Mr. Salah Al Bandar. Not only is he endangering my health and sense of safety and security in the UK, but he is also organising against me back in Sudan in ways that are potentially very dangerous for both myself and my family. As a consequence, my younger brother has been physically attacked in Sudan, my mother has been seriously threatened and I continue to get threats and have had to endure a number of cyber stalking episodes by Mr Al Bandar or his associates.”

Mr Al Bandar claims to be a “democratic, liberal Muslim” who has been politically active and until recently a councillor with the Lib-Dem Party in Cambridgeshire; he is a director at the Sudan Civic Foundation in the UK. He has attempted to silence Nahla with his threats which include the following:

On 22^nd January, Mr Al Bander posted an article in Arabic on the Sudanese Online Website (one of the most widely read websites in Sudan and throughout the Sudanese diaspora) entitled “A Sudanese woman announces that she is a ‘Kafira” on British TV”.  In some parts of this article he says:

“I will not forgive anyone who wants to start a battle against Islam and the beliefs of the people…”, “Be aware of this ‘fitna’ and I know who is behind it and I will never have any mercy on her here…”, “I will have no tolerance for anyone here who talks about freedom of belief or freedom of thought or any of the other clichés…”

On the 25^th of January 2013 he posted a new piece saying: “infidel Mohamed Mahmoud Kassalawi is the one who organised this scandal from A to Z.  He is looking for someone like Nahla to pass his scandalous agenda. ….I am against those who use her to offend people’s sanctities….”  [Dr. Mohamed Mahmoud is an academic and director of the Critical Centre for Religious Studies in the UK.]

On 29^th January 2013, Mr Al Bander added an article featuring Nahla with Maryam Namazie and Mohamed Mahmoud ‘photoshopped’ together with a background of a Facebook page he made up and named ‘Sudanese Atheists’ Page’.  He also discussed the relationship of the three in a post on 8 February. The article is full of fabrications, including that Maryam Namazie “trained” Nahla in “public activities against Islam” and that Mohamed Mahmoud “created this idol Nahla and presented her as a champion of freedom of expression”. Also, he posted a screen shot of Nahla’s article published in ‘Left Foot Forward’ about ‘Sharia implementations in the UK and elsewhere’ after adding a main headline into the article to read  “Freedom of practicing ‘Luat’ and promoting it” (“ Luat” is a derogatory term for homosexuality).

On the 10^th of February he posted “I forbid anyone from trying to change Nahla’s scandal to a case worthy of support… It will all get back to them… Be cautioned! Be cautioned!… No excuses for those who have been warned! ”

On the 22^nd of February he added a new post entitled “She sold her faith for a legal status… The second episode of Nahla Elgaali’s series” where he said:  “January 2013 is an unusual month for the Sudanese diaspora in the UK. For the first time a Sudanese young woman goes public provoking the feelings of those in and outside the country. Not publicising her own beliefs, but joining a group which promotes atheism among the Sudanese diaspora”. He continues:  “the topic is now being discussed outside this website. It has spread to include in-country platforms. A ‘Khartoum newspaper has done an interview with Mrs. Huda Mohamed el-Khair, Nahla’s mother, exploring the background of Nahla’s complicated journey.”

His posts against Nahla and his labelling her ‘Kafira’, ‘Murtadda’ and ‘Zindiga’ has resulted in governmental and official bodies such as the ‘General Administration of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ , Blue Nile Channel , and the official Sudanese governmental newspaper,  ‘Elentibaha’  speaking against “the infidel woman in Britain who offends Islam and promotes nudity”. These include: al ‘Khartoum’, ‘el- Sudani’, ‘el-Ayam‘ ,  and ‘el-Ray el Aam’, ‘el watan’ , ‘Hurriyat’  and a number of other local newspapers. A number of online platforms also considered it their headline news over a few weeks, including Sudan Motion, Sudan.Net, ‘el-Nilain’, Sudanile, Sudanforall, ‘el-Rakoba’, Sudaress, Mugren Net  and others. A few Middle Eastern websites also reported the incident such as ‘el-hiwar el-mutamdn’, ‘Kitabk’ and Alhurra TV.

We the undersigned call on the authorities to investigate Salah Albandar’s bullying, harassment and threats against Nahla Mahmoud, prosecute him and guarantee Nahla’s safety and security.

Anne Marie Waters, Spokesperson, One Law for All
Christopher Roche, President, Bath Atheists, Humanists and Secularists
Clive Aruede, Lola Efuntade-Tinubu and David Walters, Organising Committee, London Black Atheists
Deeyah, Music Producer and Filmmaker
Gita Sahgal, Executive Director, Centre for Secular Space
Hala Ahmed, Sudanese Non-Religious Out Loud Campaign
Ibn Warraq, Writer
Imad Iddine Habib, Founder of Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco
Lloyd Newson, OBE, Artistic Director, DV8 Physical Theatre
Marcin Lysuniec, Chairman, Polish Atheist Association
Marieme Helie Lucas, Founder, Secularism is a Woman’s Issue
Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation
Mina Ahadi, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Germany
Mohamed A. Mahmoud, Director, Centre for Critical Studies of Religion
Nadia El-Fani, Tunisian Filmmaker
Nina Sankari, European Feminist Initiative in Poland
Salah Sid Ahmed, Sudanese Humanists Group
Stephen Khan-Evans, Founder, Council of Ex-Muslims of New Zealand
Tarek Fatah, Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress
Terry Sanderson, President, National Secular Society
Waleed Al-Husseini, Founder, Council of Ex-Muslims of France

You can sign it by commenting to say so below the article.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Tauriq Moosa alerted me to an example of “there is no depth too low.” What is it? Harassing a child who has leukemia? Torturing a kitten in front of the kitten’s weeping human? Firebombing a picnic just for the lolz?

No, it’s harassing Amanda Berry for going outside and having fun – Amanda Berry, who spent ten years not being able to go outside and have fun because she was imprisoned in a house by a filthy human being who kept her locked up there.

On CNN over the weekend, Nelly told Erin Burnett, “What stuck with me most was that she had a smile on her face. That’s one of the most impressive things to me, considering everything she had been through … I thought, wow, that was special.” But Burnett was too busy being amazed that “She looked totally normal.”

Burnett’s concerned astonishment was charitable compared to what the lowest form of opinion generators – Internet commenters – had to say about Berry’s newly reignited social life. “It’s just odd given the years of abuse she suffered. Normally she would not have that kind of trust or comfort. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t make sense,” wrote one concerned ABC News commenter, while another more bluntly decided, “It seems to me she was enjoying it and is gonna use her ordeal to cash in.” Many were concerned that she appeared with a man who stood behind her and warmly put his arm around her and kissed her neck while she was onstage. Or, as some of the ABC commenters decided, he was a “dirt bag hanging all over her,” who “groped” and “pawed” her. A CBS News commenter more generously decided she looked “pretty hot.” And 645 comments later on NBC, Berry had plenty of well-wishers but also comments about her eyebrow piercing, and how she doesn’t look like “a real victim….lol.” And of course, if you want to plumb the absolute bottom of the barrel, there’s YouTube, where Berry is being  accused of “milking everything she’s getting.”

Uh huh. She did it for the blog hits.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Alex Gabriel has a list of 100 Irish and British atheists who don’t fit the stereotyped image of what an atheist is. It’s a great list. I know a few of them, know of many of them, am pleased to learn of the ones I don’t know of.

25. Jane Donnelly is Atheist Ireland’s Education Policy Officer, and has spoken widely on the need for secular education. Recently, at Empowering Women Through Secularism, she also gave a presentation on secularism and human rights. You can find her writing and updates on AI’s dedicated Teach Don’t Preach site. [Email her] [Tweet her]

44. Yemisi Ilesnami - proudly feminist, proudly bisexual, proudly atheist – can be found at FreethoughtBlogs since joining them this May. She’s also Nigerian, now resident in the UK. Beyond her blog Yemmynisting and her book Freedom to Love for All: Homosexuality is Not Un-African, she has a law degree, works occasionally as a plus-size model and has worked in the past for the Nigerian Labour Party and the International Trade Union Congress. Recently she spoke on the ‘Atheism is not enough’ panel at FTBcon, and her YouTube vlog focuses on atheist identity and LGB issues. [Message her] [Tweet her]

49. Sinéad Kennedy spoke at Empowering Women Through Secularism on politics and acampaigner; she teaches English and Media Studies at NUI Maynooth, and campaigns for access to abortion with Action on X and Ireland’s Abortion Rights Campaign. She drew some people’s ire bycrediting her secularism and feminism to her Marxism, but personally, I’m glad she did. [Email her] [Tweet her]

A list to keep.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I haven’t been doing this lately, but just this once.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Josh has a great post at More Than Men about bystanders.

There’s a special place in my imaginary hell for tepid bystanders who turn a blind eye to the suffering and targeting of someone more vulnerable. I hate them, and I hate them more than I hate the tormentors. Because they fly a false flag. They present themselves as friends but turn out to be collaborators at the most dire moments. Because they know better and they choose to do nothing. To do nothing in a way that magnifies the stage, and scope, and power of bullies.

I came out publicly at 12 years old. This was very unusual in the mid-80s. There were no such things as Gay/Straight Alliances. We queer kids gathered in a sympathetic guidance counselor’s office (bless you, Mrs. H. I still remember giving you makeup tips and how delighted you were when you saw the results.) on a time-rotating basis so no one would figure out we were all in the same place at the same time. We knew we’d be harassed and beaten even worse if our ad hoc meetings were found out. We knew the administration would turn a blind eye, that it might make life professionally difficult for Mrs. H.

There was a 10th grade English teacher, a lesbian, who should have helped him but didn’t. Read it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Julian Assange is running for the Senate in Australia, and has said he’ll appoint Leslie Cannold as his “proxy” (I didn’t know there was such a thing) if he’s elected and can’t return to Canberra. (They let you do that? Strange.)

The point is, it’s seen as a good wheeze, because Australia (like all the places) has a misogyny problem. (Never!! No, really, I understand it does.)

This is an election where misogyny, always lurking under the surface like a tetanus spore, has erupted. Both political parties are overwhelmingly choosing men to replace outgoing MPs in safe seats, and former PM Julia Gillard told The Monthly magazine that some of the contempt that she was shown as prime minister was about being the first woman in the job.

Or, perhaps, about being a woman in the job.

…as soon as her position on the WikiLeaks Party ticket was announced on 25 July, the Tweets started – specifically – how can WikiLeaks Party supporters disavow rape culture considering that the leader Julian Assange is hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London while facing rape allegations?

Well, that was certainly my first thought.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The BBC reports:

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.

Freeman, who had earlier published a column entitled “how to use the internet without being a total loser”, reported the threats to the Metropolitan Police.

The anonymous author of the tweet had “failed to understand my column”, she wrote.

An investigation into the threats, which make the tweeters liable to be arrested, was then launched, a Met spokesman confirmed.

The anonymous accounts have since been suspended, but screen grabs of the tweets have been circulated on the social media site.

Ms Mayer said she had been tempted to ignore and delete the “not very credible-sounding” tweet.

But the police advised her, Ms Dent and Ms Freeman not to stay at their homes overnight and had searched her building for suspicious devices, she told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

The police don’t consider it a joke, or trash talk, or trolling, or best ignored.

Ms Freeman remained home as she “did not think it was worth taking that seriously”.

She explained there was no rationale for why she was targeted, adding: “There’s some kind of assumption that you have done something, that you must have written something particularly controversial…

“My great crime is that I’m a woman with some small amount of public profile – that is enough it seems.”

Yes: that is enough. I’ve been told that very explicitly – if I don’t like being abused and threatened, then I should stop writing and talking online. That simple. I’ve been told I’m a “public figure” and as such simply have to expect abuse from strangers. I’ve been accused of drama, and rage-blogging, and victim-feminism, and talking about it for the blog hits. I deserve – I asked for – whatever they choose to dish out. That’s just how it is, I’m told.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Via the Global Secular Humanist Movement page on Facebook -

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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.

I used personal examples there, because I happen to have those on hand (so, so many of those), but this isn’t actually about how I, Lindy West, am treated on the internet. This is about how people—particularly women—are treated on the internet when we challenge entrenched power structures.

We are treated like subhuman garbage, and that’s because internet trolling is not random—it is a sentient, directed, strong-armed goon of the status quo. And the more we can hammer that truth through the public consciousness, the sooner we can affect the widespread cultural change we need to begin tamping down online hate speech.

Yes. A technical fix, if it worked, would be good, but not nearly as good as a widespread cultural change which makes it be the case that people don’t want to treat anyone like that.

One of the pillars of conventional wisdom about internet trolling is that internet trolling just happens. You hear this all the time, from even the most progressive allies: Oh, well, it’s the internet. There are trolls. Trolls troll the internet. Rape threats are like oxygen. Whatareyagonnadooooo. So, I’m just supposed to accept that psychological abuse is built into my job and I’m some thin-skinned rube if I complain about it? Easy for you to say, Señor Rando. Not only is that framework supremely unsatisfying for me personally, I’d go so far as to say that it’s a dangerous and patently false myth. Internet trolling does not “just happen.” It is not some mysterious, ambient inevitability that affects all internet users indiscriminately.

Internet trolling is a force with a political agenda.

Hmmmmmmyes and no. Much of the “political agenda” is just trolling itself. It’s how some people socialize with their friends. That’s a sick, depressing fact, but there it is. It has to be fun for them, because if it weren’t, they would stop after a few hours or days. We know they don’t: they keep at it for years.

…when we ignore the issue—leaving trolls to twist in the wind—not only does it not fix anything, it actively hurts us. It poisons healthy conversations. And, more specifically, it actively drives women off the internet and out of the conversation and back into our “safe spaces”—which is exactly what the trolls want. They want us to shut up. They want us out of their territory.

But engaging with the issue is exactly what trolls want too. They revel in attention. So that’s the conundrum: As soon as we acknowledge them, they win. But if we never acknowledge them, they also win, plus discourse shuts down and we all get dumber. So what are we going to do? Well, in light of that idiotic Catch 22, I know what I’m going to do. Whatever I fucking feel like doing. I’m sick of being told that I’m navigating my own abuse wrong.

I’ve been sick of it all along.

Cumulatively, the sheer volume of hate that we’re expected to shoulder, in silence, every day, is wearing a lot of people out and shutting down rational discourse. Female bloggers are being hounded off the internet. Teenage girls are being hounded off the earth. There’s no good solution, but we have to do what we can to stop these people—unmask them, shame them, mock them, cement their status as social pariahs—for our own sanity and for those whose armor isn’t so thick (upgrade yo greaves, son).

We’re doing our best.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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.

That sounds quite good, in a way. But…a burqa?

“This is such an interesting way to reinforce positive social messages for kids,” Mr Rashid told the BBC. “The Burka Avenger is a great role model. We lack those in Pakistan.”

Many real life women’s rights crusaders in Pakistan might not agree. The use of the burka, the full cloth head-to-toe veil that is often worn by women in the north-west and tribal areas of Pakistan, is controversial in a country which has been reeling from the effects of religious extremism over the past decade.

Marvi Sirmed, an Islamabad-based journalist and human rights activist, thinks that it is not right to build a resistance figure out of a woman wearing a garment that has been strongly associated by some with the suppression of women.

“It is subversive and it says that you can only get power when you don a symbol of oppression,” says Ms Sirmed.

“It is demeaning to those brave women in the conservative parts of Pakistan who have been fighting for women’s rights, education and justice, and who have said ‘no’ to this kind of stereotype.”

In one way, yes, but in another way, it’s more like subverting the burqa.

Taha Iqbal, the head of animations for Burka Avenger, thinks that everyone should just wait for the series to come out.

He says like any other superhero, Burka Avenger has a back-story too and her reasons for wearing the burka have nothing to do with subservience.

“Besides she has to kick ass,” he says. “Tight leather pants are hardly practical for that purpose.”

No, but dude, neither is a giant bag over your body and a smaller bag over your head. Those aren’t practical for kicking ass either.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Just because. The parrot sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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.

Next question?

Following are the six creationists/evolution critics we have identified so far on the biology review teams:

• Raymond Bohlin is vice president of vision outreach for Probe Ministries in Plano and a research fellow for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific concept “intelligent design” over evolution. Founded in 1973, Probe works “to present the Gospel to communities, nationally and internationally, by providing life-long opportunities to integrate faith and learning through balanced, biblically based scholarship.” Bohlin has a doctorate in molecular and cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas, making him a star performer for anti-evolution groups. He is listed as a “Darwin Skeptic” on the Creation Science Hall of Fame website. Probe and the Creation Science Hall of Fame promote a fundamentalist, literal interpretation of the Bible’s creation story. We know that Bohlin is in Austin this week to participate in the biology review panel meetings.

Groan.

• Ide Trotter is a longtime standard-bearer for the creationist movement in Texas, both as a source of funding and as a spokesperson for the absurdly named creationist group Texans for Better Science Education. Trotter, listed as a “Darwin Skeptic” on the Creation Science Hall of Fame website, is a veteran of the evolution wars at the SBOE and is participating the biology review panel meetings this week. He testified before the board during the 2003 biology textbook adoption and again in 2009 during the science curriculum adoption. In both instances, Trotter advocated including scientifically discredited “weaknesses” of evolution in Texas science classrooms. Trotter, who has a doctorate in chemical engineering, runs his own investment management company and served as dean of business and professor of finance at Dallas Baptist University. He claims that major scientific discoveries over last century have actually made evolutionary science harder to defend:
  

  “The ball is rolling and it’s going downhill. There are not enough forces on the side of Darwinism to keep pushing it back uphill forever.”

Groan. Texas Texas Texas – please grow up.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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.

Internet has offered women new ways to express themselves. But it has also enabled some misogynistic men to open the floodgates of hate and – cocooned in online anonymity – to bully women who have penetrated traditionally male-dominated public life.

The worst thing is that the strategy of harassing and intimidating female journalists, bloggers and other female public figures, was often sucessful. Some journalists, like Linda Grant, admits she stopped writing her regular column for the Guardian, because of violent threats. Some bloggers think twice before publishing a post.

Some bloggers refuse to second-guess themselves because of what a lot of abusive trolls say, but they also get tired of the abusive trolling.

But since 2011, when journalist Laurie Penny spoke out about the violent sexual threats she regularly receives, things are perhaps starting to change. Others joined her initiative and testimonies started to flow.  More recently, American feminist Soraya Chemaly published a bone-chilling post about death threats she received via Facebook and Twitter.
Now thousands of women have joined their voices worldwide in online campaigns like #shoutingback, #silentnomore, and @EverydaySexism, to mention only a few.

It’s a start.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

That bit of Newsnight is on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0UqtZMqxT8

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Things get more interesting every day.

BBC Newsnight talked about the Twitter harassment tonight (that is, two and a half hours ago). Paul Mason wrote a related article about it. It traced the harassment back to none other than Rebecca’s “guys, don’t do that” video, and showed a bit of said video. Then it talked to oolon about the block bot.

Paul Mason sets the stage:

Since I’ve been on the trail of the people threatening high-profile women with rape on Twitter I’ve learned a lot. I get a fair amount of grief on social media, usually from the kind of people who get driven to using the F-word about Keynesianism, or the Laffer curve.

Now my timeline’s been flooded with abuse – and its alter ego, gentle condescension laden with malice – from all kinds of trolls, griefers and flamers (the latter, one of the trolls explained, are not serious, adding that it is they, the trolls, who are the kings when it comes to ruining people’s lives online).

Proposed solutions range from forcing Twitter to suspend the account of anybody reported for threats or violent abuse, to forcing all users to sign up with a verifiable e-mail address. But who are the “trolls” and can anything be done to stop them?

He talked to a technical person who thinks blocking is all one can do.

Since I did this report I’ve been flamed by a particular community. I put it to Ms Norton that if I sanitise my own experience by blocking individuals and – unlike with Stella Creasy MP or Caroline Criado-Perez – they do go away, this
just leaves me trapped in a sanitised reality while a “dirty” reality goes on around me.

She says “Throwing that ‘dirty’ conversation off Twitter doesn’t end it. And actually knowing where it is, I think that’s helpful. I thinking knowing that those dirty conversations are out there, that we can choose to engage with them or choose to ignore them depending on the time and energy and motivations that we have.”

If it’s a social problem and not a technological one, what is the root of it? Ms Norton, believes it is stark:

“The social problem is that men are raised to hate women and technology is not going to fix that. What’s going to fix that is a societal conversation about why that is and why it shouldn’t be, and why women aren’t a threat to men. And the technology gives us the opportunity to have that conversation. It’s not always a pleasant conversation, but we need to have it. Just shutting down the voices we don’t like doesn’t make the sentiments go away.”

I don’t think so. I think having extra places and ways to have the “conversation” just makes that way of seeing women more entrenched and more feverish. I think shutting it down on various media would help.

Personally, as I get enough great conversations from the people who are prepared to debate ideas without abuse, I’ve resorted to the “shared block list” strategy. This focuses the wisdom of the Twitter crowd onto the most notorious idiots and enables those who sign up to engage in a collective block, without necessarily banning the perpetrators from the internet.

I’ve installed The Block Bot and I’ll be talking to the man who coded it tonight about the strange online community that revels in the belittling of women. Though I’ve been aware of trolls, sexism and the flaming of fellow women journalists for years now, what this has taught me is that violent misogyny is probably the defining fault line of the internet, and is what has a better chance of killing the social media than Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong-un ever could.

You can already feel cyberspace divided into a world that hates women and one that does not. Fortunately the former is small, but incredibly powerful – and underestimated at its peril.

And that man is our very own oolon – whom I used to rebuke for his frivolity about the whole thing, but he (obviously) took it more seriously as time went on.

Toby Young was also on Newsnight. He boasted about having tweeted about an MP’s cleavage. The guy is a complete asshole.

Update

A sock puppet commenter pointed out that Jeremy Stangroom is talking about suing oolon for defamation. It’s true.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Sometimes the 140 character limit can produce aphoristic wisdom.

From Quinn Norton for instance.

if I always tried to police my language for those out there who want to use it to attack me, I would have no words left

anyhow, the act I do which causes the most offense is living unquietly.

Recognized.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)