Bloggers, Stand up for 1st Amendment Responsibility
This morning I encountered a disturbing article about the harrassment female bloggers receive. While both male and female bloggers encounter tastless comments online, women are threatened with rape, abuse, and death, and the threats often extend to their families. Comments like these demonstrate that women-hating is alive and well in the 21st Century. The unfortunate consequence of this hate speech is that a forum meant to level the playing field is becoming an unwelcoming place for women.
Many prominent female bloggers are abandoning their posts or going underground out of fear and intimidation. Some believe that the male dominated industry has some that would like to keep it that way and find threatening women in sexually explicit ways does the trick. The educated man should be outraged. It is time the blogosphere hold itself to higher standards and condemn such behavior. Some bloggers support such a move and want to create a code of conduct, but others say it will stiffle free speech. To all of the bloggers in the world who are worried about stiffling free speech: THREATENING A WOMAN WITH RAPE AND MURDER IS NOT FREE SPEECH!! Come on, people. Our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters deserve better than this.
If you have a comment section on your blog you also need to have someone monitoring it and removing threatening and obscene comments. I also support the elimination of anonymity on blog posts. A lot of respectable organizations require that you register with a legitimate email address before you can participate in their online community. This may at least deter the fly-by crazies and allow the organization to ban certain commentors.
The men in the online community need to stand up for our women. Not because women need protecting, but because in a male dominated industry (and society for that matter), it is their responsibility.
For more reading on the subject, view the original article "Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers" By Ellen Nakashima at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901555.html?hpid=topnews