The study does not differentiate whether the internet harassment is made towards women by other women, which is kind of important if you’re going to talk about any kind of abuse. But like typical feminist influenced and biased research, they don’t want to reveal that kind of information as it might show that women are harassed by other women more than men and thus destroy their narrative that men are the perpetrators of harassment by default which this heavily implies in the language used. They do this in domestic violence and sexual assault reports as well by not including or even discussing male victims or same-sex abuse and completely dismissing gay and lesbian victims.
The cover of the report is a clear indicator that it is a biased report by the title alone – Cyber Violence Against Women And Girls. In their sources they cite a Pew Research survey that shows males are harassed more than females online but stalking and sexual harassment happen more to young females between the ages of 18 and 24 by a 19 and 12 percent difference respectively. For adults the difference is a mere 3%. Again, they do not differentiate who the perpetrators of harassment are. It cannot be assumed that males are doing the majority of harassment because it cannot be proven especially with the anonymity of the internet. But they’ll assume anyways because you gotta keep that false narrative alive somehow. After all, with real world violence and sexual assault rapidly declining, you have to find it somewhere else even if the place you find it is fucking stupid, insignificant, and often unsubstantiated.
In their report they talk about suicide being a risk for females that are harassed online as if suicide has ever been a high risk for females ever. In 2013 the male suicide rate was 20.2% compared to 5.5% for females.
These reports conducted by biased research organizations do not deserve the slightest respect or consideration. They deserve to be ridiculed, denied, and purged from existence. They are worthless as most things are that only paint half a picture of a problem.
All this said, yes internet harassment exists. However, giving any government the power to enforce laws over language is dangerous territory especially when enforcement is based on policies that punish mere criticism rather than explicit violent threats, e.g. “your address is 1234 Main St. and I’m coming to kill you right now.” It should be the responsibility of the individual to enforce their own safety measures by utilizing all the tools sites have established for the purpose of online safety and defense against harassment.
If this is the future of the internet, then 1984 will come at the demand of the people rather than by force of government.
