Harassment isn't okay, in the real world, or online.
If you're a woman and you're being harassed on social media, there's a new resource that can help. In the wake of Gamergate, the nonprofit advocacy group Women Action and the Media on Thursday announced it has teamed up with Twitter to launch a new reporting tool that allows victims of gendered harassment to submit a detailed complaint about what's going on.
The tool lets you report the specific Twitter handles of people harassing you and provide a detailed account about the abuse, including when it started, whether you fear for your safety, and how many times it's occurred. Forms of online harassment can include: impersonation (creating a fake account pretending to be someone else), threats of violence, releasing someone else's private information, hate speech (sexist, racist, or homophobic), encouraging people to harass someone offline, and revenge porn.
WAM will escalate validated reports to Twitter and track the social network's response to different types of gendered harassment. At the end of a pilot period, WAM will analyze the data collected and use it to work with Twitter to better understand how gendered harassment occurs on the platform and improve their response to it.
"The disproportionate targeting of women online results in them removing their voices from the public conversation," Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of WAM, said in a statement. "We're so glad that Twitter recognizes that the best way to ensure equally free speech for all users on their platform is to ensure that all users are equally free to speak without being targeted by harassment, abuse and threats."
If you've been harassed online, you're not alone. A recent Pew research study found that 25 percent of young women have been sexually harassed online and 26 percent have experienced stalking, according to WAM. Pew also found that women are disproportionately targeted by the most sever forms of online abuse.
The move comes after several women in the gaming industry - like Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu - were harassed online after making comments about the gaming industry. They received death threats and tweets that made them fear for their safety and flee their homes. But online harassment is not exclusive to the gaming industry. Caroline Criado-Perez, a freelance journalist who successfully spearheaded a campaign to have author Jane Austen featured on a version of the £10 note, received rape threats for her efforts, for example.
Twitter has moved to simplify abuse reporting and banned accounts in recent months. Its terms of service prohibit "direct, specific threats of violence against others, including threats against a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or disability." But it still happens, and the anonymity of the Internet often makes it difficult to track down offenders.