Priscilla Chomba in her TEDx talk "A free and fair internet benefits" said the following:

"We need to actively and collectively ensure that going forward, everyone has access to a free, fair and feminist internet."

How do you make the internet feminist? Call it La Interneta?

🤷‍♂️ Not like sexism is still a common problem

@atheist sexism is not just an internet specific problem though.

@Frederick OK. Here's a twitter profile created by a woman in Data Science to retweet stories of the sexism and discrimination others experience and share on the internet.

https://twitter.com/untappdpipeline...

But, seriously, if you need evidence for a story like that, you've either not spent much time on the internet, or you are intentionally ignorant.

@anux I'm well aware it's not just an internet problem, I've experienced disability discrimination in the work place and had to argue and complain to the CEO for a few people to get a slap on the wrist. If I could have proved everything that happened, I could have sued and won, but the burden of proof is a huge barrier, for all kinds of discrimination complaints.

@atheist I'm aware of your struggles through your rants and you have my condolences.

My intention was to highlight that we are carrying our societal issues to online societies and nobody has a solution because the problem isn't originating from tech. It's simply wrong to blame tech or solely tech for it. So yeah, we all need a fair, free and safe internet and we need it for *everyone*. Any movement towards that should have a message that reflects that goal.

To further elaborate, my point is free fair and feminist internet is not the whole story. It's a cool slogan for maybe a few decades ago when there was one prominent minority and an obviously disadvantaged class of people (women). But things have changed. We are aware of struggles of different factions which is not to say that feminists have achieved their goals and can bow out. Just that every faction deserves a safe internet. And yes that's a double edged sword because what happens when some faction like Parler crowd claims they don't have a safe internet? I don't have the answer to that. But such fringe factions shouldn't dilute the intent of inclusivity goal.

"feminist internet" is just a different way to say "censored internet"

Internet should stay free of adjectives other than "stable" and "fast"

@Frederick OK. I didn't present that tweet as a source of rigorous evidence. It was, intentionally, anecdotal. And my first degree is physics, please don't try to paint me with the same brush as anti vaxxers.

However, anecdotal evidence is a valid part of traditional discourse (see victim impact statements in trials). It's also justifiably included in response to a fairly anecdotal comment, because an individual's experiences are often more persuasive than general statistics about a group. See thinking fast and slow, section on bystander effect, Daniel Kahneman (Nobel prize winner).

Now, for some slightly more rigorous evidence of sexism, how about some statistics?

34% of men with children had received promotions while working remotely, compared with just 9% of women with children.

Source https://qualtrics.com/blog/...

Which is more convincing?

Now, another important point is burden of proof. You're dismissing this individual's experience because it's anecdotal.

I'm thoughrouly against people having to defend themselves against false accusations, I support accusations against specific individuals being investigated and requiring proof, while also supporting the premise that accusers shouldn't face negative repercussions for coming forward. That said, there's a point at which "enough people say this shit is happening so it probably is" is sufficient evidence. See that whole "me too" thing.

But "I've experienced sexism on social media platform x" is by no means one off. For evidence of that, bumble put the time into making AI recognise dick pics. https://joe.ie/tech/...

Dismissing anecdotal evidence detracts from the discourse we can have in society. It's literally going to discourage others from sharing their experiences. Feel free to go read about the experiences of others, find some stats, whatever. But it's not my job to educate you about what kind of sexism takes place in society and how "listening to people" enables it to come to light.

@anux I agree, there's a discussion in some circles about one of the greatest barriers to equality is a group of people that have faced and fought discrimination and so feel they've "done enough". It's something I try to bear in mind.

@atheist most sexism I see is on old TV shows. Don't see those kind of things on the internet, avoiding social media really helps.

Regardless of what people post blaming the medium hardly ever makes sense or brings solutions. The inquisitions and literal witch-hunts worked fine without the internet. Bullies where also highly effective and could remain anonymous without the internet. Banning torrent sites on ISP was tried in the Netherlands and failed miserably.

1. The hard stuff:

There is a lot of bigotry on the internet. Which is fucking awful.

The counter reaction is woke culture, with at its absolute worst people who are crusading and virtue signalling, often for no other reason than a secret addiction to juicy soap plots.

Then there are those who champion for their own group, exclusively. The word "inclusion" often means "I have suffered, and want justice, or even revenge, for myself. I don't care if my rage hurts other people".

I understand the sentiment, the reaction is quite natural. If bigots are banding together, it's much safer to react from a platform of counter-bigotry.

Find an abused child, 9 out of 10 times the parent(s) were also once abuse victims. It is very natural to reflect your own trauma back into the world.

So, the result is that every man who is confronted by a feminist feels uneasy.

Not because "his straight white male patriarchy is threatened", just because wokeness sullied it's own name, became a trigger in and of itself.

You don't always know whether you're dealing with the reasonable and quite logical "Please just treat me like an equal human being" feminist, or with a "All men are worthless pigs, and trans women are not women" kind of militant feminist.

As a somewhat-colored-but-not-super-dark person, I feel uneasy when people use "black people" and "white people".

As a not-quite-straight-person, I feel uneasy when people wave flags and threateningly ask "ARE YOU LGBTQIA+, OR ARE YOU AN ALLY? ARE YOU WITH US, OR AGAINST US?".

It's all so needlessly polarizing.

That stuff... stopping the pendulum of abuse and counter-abuse from swinging back and forth between polarized extremes...

That's not easily solved.

2. The easy stuff:

I would argue that we need a more decent internet.

Which I think can be created.

And I don't mean decent as in censored... There should absolutely be alleyways full of sweaty genitals and body-fluid covered faces on the internet. Fuck it, if you want to buy an NFT of a picture of a naked guy taking a shit on a burning European flag, go for it.

But there is a subtle difference between "I think there are many arguments in favor of population control" (invites academical/philosophical debate) and "You've had 2 kids, you should be sterilized!" (ad hominem accusation, threat)

In pretty much every modern jurisdiction defamation, intimidation and blackmail are illegal, but rarely enforced.

In many ways, we're seeing a growing disparity between legislation and judicial execution -- And I believe this is at the root of many of the issues we're seeing on the internet.

Responding "YOU'RE A FILTHY CHILDMURDERER" just because you disagree on Twitter is defamation.

Commenting "Does anyone know where she lives cause I would fuck her brains out" on an Instagram picture is intimidation.

Such cases should not be handled by platform reports.

Such cases are already covered by legal frameworks, and should be handled by the justice system.

Not incidentally, but structurally.

(end of rant 🤷‍♀️)

@bittersweet How much is bots intended to create the perception of massive abuse? Then use that perception to garner support for draconian laws? Which is the whole point of censorship by regulation of social platforms. So the government gets to decide who gets free speech.

There's a (fairly long, kinda old) discussion on here about sexism/discrimination people experience that might be an interesting read.

This rant is currently a discussion about sexism, containing what appears to be mostly men, where women are far more frequently the targets of sexism. One important point made in below link is "men not seeing sexism doesn't mean it's not happening". For a discussion of why that's valid and not really an attack on men, read below link.

One of the comments made is having the same conversation multiple times can be exhausting.

As it's pretty old (and contains lots of people), please don't revive.

https://devrant.com/rants/4774417/...

The previous isn't presented as rigorous evidence, more in response to people seeing sexism, tinfoil hat stuff about bots.

That said, y'all are also more likely to find it more convincing because the posters are "part of our tribe", not some random twitter profile. But anyway.