The Problem
Cyber harassment and stalking is an increasingly prevalent and important issue in our Internet-dependent society. This issue affects women more prominently than men, and is a reflection of latent discrimination and sexism against women. One report by the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering reports that chat room participants with female usernames received 25 times more threatening and/or sexually explicit private messages than their male or gender-neutral counterparts. Cyber-harassment and bullying has detrimental effects for women, especially young women, including suicide, anxiety and an inability to participate equally in society. Cyber harassment and bullying blocks women from exercising First Amendment rights. Amanda Hess, an online blogger and journalist has been at the forefront of the discussion on this topic. Platform providers, such as YouTube, Twitter and other online news articles often do not have the appropriate resources or policies for responsibly preventing or reporting cyber-harassment. Several studies have proved that allowing participants to comment anonymously increases the level of incivility in online discussions. However, anonymity is sometimes needed to protect individuals against persecution from oppressive governments, or reputational repercussions from employers. In addition, policing cyber harassment is difficult because infractions can occur between state lines and police jurisdictions. At a minimum, further awareness and education around the seriousness of this issue is needed by law enforcement. In order to sufficiently reduce the level of harassment women face online, a multi faceted approach to the current policy for online commentary is needed.
Policy Options
There are several policy options for tackling this issue.
The first of these options is to remove the ability to comment anonymously in chat rooms and online discussions. Although anonymity often protects individuals from persecution, creating an option for commenting anonymously after registering a profile with a platform provider could protect those who are given a voice only through anonymity, while also increasing accountability by users. The increase in civility that results when users are required to provide information is significant enough to outweigh the burden placed on users to register and to remember usernames, and passwords.
Secondly, police officials could have an increased role in the enforcement of cyber-harassment and stalking laws. However training and incorporating further police involvement is costly and time consuming.
Lastly, greater transparency and communication between platform providers and not for profits focused on cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking is a formidable option for policy developments on this issue. Not for profits could take a more pro-active role in the rehabilitation of individuals who have issues interacting appropriately online. If platform providers were to share information and statistics more readily with non-profits, these non-profits would have more accurate statistics and be better able to offer appropriate solutions to cyber-harassment and stalking. Any policy option enacted should be cost-effective and affect significant changes in online culture.