Hate SpeechBy Naana Kwartemaa Obeng

Significance of Study

It is important to study the issue of hate speech and to analyze and critique factors that influence this problematic topic.

It is also essential to study this topic, because hate speech is a problem that plagues a large number of internet users and negatively impacts the lives of people. Some consequences of hate speech to victims include depression, isolation, and self harm.

Significance of the Study

Therefore, in studying this subject

we could help understand the main problems and causes of hate speech and attempt to reduce this problem in order to make online communication safer.

Personal Interest (Why I Chose this topic to research on)

I selected this topic to focus my research on because as a minority, I am subject to a lot of negative comments when I go online, whether due to my race or my gender. I have witnessed a number of minorities who have been subjugated and discriminated online due to different factors. This adversely affects a lot of lives and makes people feel inferior.

Personal Interest (Why I Chose this topic to research on)

Therefore, due to the fact that I am a minority and have witnessed a lot of other minorities being subject to hate crime it personally affects me and that is the reason why I chose this topic to study. In this research I focus on hate speech directed towards women on blogs. For instance in the political journal The Atlantic, in the article “When Misogynist Trolls Make Journalism Miserable for Women”, it states

continuation

Online threats against women are the subject of a lengthy Pacific Standard article by Amanda Hess, who argues that gendered harassment has severe implications for women’s status on the Internet and their place in the digital era. Threats of rape, death, and stalking can overpower our emotional bandwidth, take up our time, and cost us money through legal fees, online protection services, and missed wage…“(Friedesdorf, 2014)

Social importance of this study

As stated earlier hate speech has for a long time negatively affected the lives of a large number of internet users, thus studying this topic will improve the lives of a quite a large number of people.

Definition

Hate speech is, outside the law,

speech that attacks a person or group

on the basis of e.g. race, religion,

gender, disability, or sexual

orientation.

First Amendment

The issue that arises when dealing with hate speech is the fact that hate speech is protected by the First amendment free speech rights in the U.S. This makes it difficult to punish perpetrators and to seek justice for victims.

Anonymity in CMCs

Also due to the anonymous nature of online communication, it is easier for people to hide behind the computer screen to discriminate, oppress, subjugate and victimize other people online.

Theoretical Information

There are a number of theories that I would like to introduce in my research.

Implicit Personality theory: The term was initially used by Bruner and Tagiuri to describe assumed relationships of traits…The term could be used to correspond to the broad conception of classic personality theory, namely, a set of assumptions about why people behave the way they do (Schneider, 1973).

Implicit Personality theory

In this case, this theory in connection to my research relates to the factors that influence people to write hateful or sexist messages against women online.

Cyber sexual harassment

Gender harassment involves misogynist behaviors that are insulting, hostile ,or degrading towards women. Unwanted sexual attention corresponds closely with the legal notion of creating a hostile work environment, and may involve behaviors such as sexual comments about dress, touching, and display of sexual materials. Finally, sexual coercion is when someone bribed or threatened to perform sexual acts in exchange for some job-related benefit. Given the unique characteristics of CMC, women are in danger of new forms of harassment. The three dimensions of sexual harassment indicated above may take on new forms with the introduction of technology (Ritter, 2013)

AMBIVALENT SEXISM THEORY

A theory of sexism as ambivalence, not just hostility, toward women is presented. Ambivalent Sexism Theory distinguishes between hostile and

“benevolent” sexism (each addresses issues of power, gender differentiation, and sexuality). Benevolent sexism encompasses subjectively positive (for the sexist) attitudes toward women in traditional roles: protective paternalism, idealization of women, and desire for intimate relations. Hostile sexism encompasses the negative equivalents on each dimension: dominative paternalism, derogatory beliefs, and heterosexual hostility. Both forms of sexism serve to justify and maintain patriarchy and traditional gender roles(Glick and Fiske, 1997)

AMBIVALENT SEXISM THEORY

This theory can then help us to further understand why men think it is okay or harmless to offend women by spreading hate speech online. Understanding this theory will then get us one step to figuring out this issue of hate speech towards women and how it can be reduced.

Findings: Sexism on blogs

According to the results of the study done by Cory L. Armstrong and Melinda J. McAdams “… blog posts written by men were deemed more credible than those by women, inasmuch as in both studies, posts with male authors were rated higher in credibility than posts with female authors”. (Armstrong & McAdams, 2009). This is a form of hate, because it offends and reduces the importance and intelligence of women.

News on Hate Speech towards women.

Rape culture on Facebook blogs: Women's rights activists in Britain and the US have accused Facebook of promoting rape and "rape culture" after the social networking site refused to take down pages on which users made jokes and apparent confessions about sexual assault. Petitions urging the site to remove pages such as "You know she's playing hard to get when your [sic] chasing her down an alley" have been signed by more than 3,600 people in the UK and 175,000 people on the US website Change.org. (Davies, 2011) They say the material found on the pages is a clear violation of Facebook's terms and conditions, which bar hateful or threatening content. "This is hate speech," said Jane Osmond, who has campaigned on behalf of the UK petition. "I find it very disturbing that Facebook don't appear to see the connection between pages such as this and the prevailing rape culture we have in our society.“ (Davies, 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/30/facebook-refuses-pull-rape-jokepages

Everyday Sexism Project

In May 2013, a campaign led notably by Women, Action and the Media and the Everyday Sexism Project attracted global public attention to the issue of social media content promoting violence against women (Hate speech against women, 2014). http://humanrightscomment.org/2014/03/06/hate-speech-against-women/. Basically this campaign was started to reduce the sexism, and sexual experiences women face online on blogs and other CMCs

Links: Taking a stance against hate speech towards women online.

http://www.humanrightseurope.org/2014/03/nils-muiznieks-we-must-take-action-against-online-hate-speech-against-women/

http://makemeasammich.org/tag/hate-speech/ http://

www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2013/05/campaign-against-gender-based-hate-speech-on-facebook-activists-win

http://blogs.redorbit.com/violence-against-women-must-stop/

http://www.giswatch.org/en/womens-rights-gender/need-prioritise-violence-against-women-online

http://reason.com/archives/2014/02/02/is-there-a-cyber-war-on-women/singlepage

http://www.sagenews.ca/article.asp?id=3563

Conclusion

From my investigation on this topic of hate speech towards women online, I found that there was a lack of scholarly information about this issue. Even though there was a lot of information about sexism and hate speech toward women in real life there was limited information about hate speech towards women online.

Conclusion

However, I was able to find many non-scholarly articles, blogs, and other sources about this issue, which helped me to come to certain conclusions.

In order to help reduce this problem, I suggest that there should be increased education on this topic to the public, so that people are aware of this problem and how it negatively and devastatingly affects a lot of women.

Conclusion

Through my research, I found a lot of sources that addressed hate speech against women online and how it can be reduced. They were sites petitioning against this hate, and sites empowering women, in my opinion, this is a good step forward to help decrease this problem, and I suggest that it should be continued and made more public.