Hey everyone! I'm Kat Lazo and welcome to another episode of Engage by Uplift, a video series aimed at having real talk for real change when it comes to sexual assault.
If you've spent more than five minutes on the internet it's likely that at minimum you've witnessed, if not experienced for yourself, harassment and trolling.
According to a new survey by the PEW Research Center, 73% of adults on the internet have seen someone experiencing harassment, and 40% of them have experienced it for themselves.
That's right, that's almost half. Breaking that down farther, people of color are nearly twice as likely to be harassed online. Breaking that down by gender, men are slightly more likely to deal with trolling, you know, like name-calling or being embarrassed, but women are more likely to face more serious forms of harassment. Like sexual threats, stalking, sustained harassment. And if that sounds bad, this study didn't even ask about queer people under the age of eighteen. Who we know experience high proportions of harassment.
It also didn't mention high profile abuse campaigns directed at Zoë Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and Brianna Wu. So, what can we do?
Here are three ways to address online harassment.
Ignoring. I know. This is like when your parents tell you to ignore the kid on the playground that's been teasing you. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it's the dumbest advice. And that rule pretty much applies here. Sometimes what a troll wants is just to get a rise out of you, and get you to argue with them. If you choose not to they might just go away. There's also a bit of a mental health benefit with the strategy. There's only so much we can fight back in one day. Sometimes we need to just walk away and act like the harassment isn't there, or talk over it, and just continue doing us. But sometimes this strategy doesn't work. Either the harassment doesn't go away or it just doesn't feel good to stay silent in the face of abuse. That brings us to option number two.
Talking back. Whether you're woman experiencing harassment, or a man witnessing it, or vice versa, you have a voice and you can speak up. You can talk back. This shows harassers that nuh-uh, you can't get away with that behavior