Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter

Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by shingen on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @06:39PM (#3618494)

People often like to make things like this about the Internet. It's not, it's about human behavior and probability. Saying anything through a broadcast medium has a calculation involved in regards to the likelihood you're going to get attacked over it.

The world is filled with trolls. It doesn't matter what attributes you possess, thick skin will serve you well in life, and that will always be true. If you're fat or skinny, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, you're going to get shit on, berated, harassed, and so on, at some time or another. Almost any sharp edge in any direction, about any topic, basically, results in blow back. That's not to say all scenarios are created equal.

You can hardly name something that isn't divisive these days. And now you know what nearly everybody thinks about everything courtesy of Facebook, Twitter, et al.

Mediums change, but trolls remain the same.

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by mc32 on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @07:33PM (#3618673)

> If you're fat or skinny, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, you're going to get shit on, berated, harassed, and so on, at some time or another.

I think it's just about disagreement and in order to empower themselves the attackers vilified and demonized the developer. It's not so different from the way people will vilify (rightly or wrongly) an entity like the RIAA or a country such as Libya or a profession such as law, or a person such as any ex-president. It's easier to disagree with someone who's been vilified beyond recognition, rather than have a discussion on the factual data.

I think this is what's happened here. The humanity of this person was removed and reduced to repugnant caricature which made it easier to pile on the fun. Yes, people do this every day.

It's not right, but it's human nature. Still, that's not a reason to ignore the issue. It's probably related to or one of the reasons why women avoid tech. Those who pursue it have to be so steadfast that they can survive all the sexism and ridicule. The closest men come to this is straight male on straight male sexual harassment. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/01/12/abuse-of-po...

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by doktrin on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @07:06PM (#3618579)

Fair point, but it's plainly obvious that the internet facilitates this type of abusive, anti-social behavior.

Also, my take-away from the article was not an attack on the interwebs. If anything, the community was blamed - not the method of communication.

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by aaronbrethorst on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @07:26PM (#3618646)

Agree. Eight years later, "John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" still rings true for me: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by jrockway on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @08:00PM (#3618792)

I don't think the Internet is a relevant part of the equation. There are plenty of trolls in the real world. Remember the "Don't taze me, bro!" guy?

(Also: Bill O'Reilly)

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by mattgreenrocks on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @10:34PM (#3619327)

The Internet is part of the equation. It makes it much easier to get away with this sort of behavior, and there are virtually no consequences. You're right: trolling still happens outside of the Internet, but we have more social norms in place to deal with it in real life. If there was a way to have more consequences to what people said online, then we might see more civility.

But, we're human, and we can't have nice things.

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Re:Female Bioware writer harassed on Twitter by Tsagadai on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @07:52PM (#3618753)

Absolutely. Trolling isn't some new phenomena that suddenly sprung up because of the internet, it is just a name that was slapped on an existing behaviour. Trolls before the internet often lurked in the Letters section of newspapers or in face-to-face social mediums. You could easily argue that ancient Roman graffiti was mostly trolling (drawing a phallus on a public figure is still common behaviour today). Anonymous trolling isn't new and it isn't going away.

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