The Keyboard War

There have been a couple of very interesting, informative articles recently with regards the abuse that female bloggers/journalists receive at the hands of misogynistic trolls; some of the experiences described I've seen first hand, as it unfolds on Twitter, whereas others are even more nefarious and disgusting.

In Laurie Penny's fantastic article for The Independent, A woman's opinion is the mini-skirt of the internet, she gives a few examples of the worst abuse she has received, and all of it is truly horrendous. Likewise, other writers - from those with similar political leanings as Penny to even a Conservative, Catholic blogger - detailed the various abusive emails, Tweets and comments they had received in an article penned by Helen Lewis-Hasterley: "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online.

All of this got me thinking about the nature of trolls and anonymity on the wonderful, open space that is the internet. How do you go about policing something which, by its very nature, is infinitesimally vast and, largely, uncensored? Should we even be thinking about policing it?

It's a difficult question. As the above writers have reiterated in their offerings, there is a fine line between freedom of speech and hate speech and, whilst misogynistic abuse is among the worst on the net, the problem extends to far greater reaches than that, and the root of the problem lies in the lack of accountability for one's actions. Hiding behind a keyboard allows a person to evade all responsibility for their actions - they don't even have to watch the aftermath, if they don't want to - and they know that there is no way they can be legally or physically held accountable for the upset and distress they cause. It's an endemic problem which seems hard-wired into the web; wherever there's a comments section, there'll be trolls.

Where does this leave us? We're embroiled in the Great Keyboard War, where those from opposing factions battle through paragraphs and language, finally free to speak their minds and intimidate others as much as they like. Defending a point of view, or piece of writing from a troll is akin to pissing in the wind; where one troll bellows, more generally follow. So what can we do? Ignore them, and hope they go away, or hammer our keyboards with words of integrity and support until both sides are exhausted? Neither one is an ideal response but, in my opinion, the less attention you give to someone, the less they bother you. Whilst none of the abusers of the internet are forced to watch the aftermath, the reason they do what they do is to bully and upset people - thus, they want to provoke a response, in the same way that someone who came up and screamed abuse in your face in the street would want a response. The important thing to remember is, as blogger Dawn Foster so succinctly puts it, that 'Nobody's entitled to a reply, contrary to what the trolls may think'. Indeed.

Edit: Ironically, not long after posting this I've found a fantastic blog on the subject by Cath Elliott  via @Glinner- fascinating and horrible, please do go and check it out.