Men are just as likely to be harassed online as women

Thursday, July 27th, 2017

Men are just as likely to be harassed online as women:

A new study released by the Pew Research Center supports what some of us have argued all along about online harassment: that it affects men as much as women and that the problem should not be framed as a gender issue — or defined so broadly as to chill legitimate criticism.

If anything, the study says, men tend to get more online abuse than women, including serious abuse such as physical threats (though women are, predictably, more likely to be sexually harassed). However, when people are asked about free speech vs. safety on the internet, women are more likely to come down on the side of the latter. Thus, it is very likely future efforts at speech regulation will continue to be cast as “feminist” initiatives.

Comments

  1. Steve Johnson says:

    Obvious evolutionary difference between men and women – women evaluate people saying mean things about them as horrific threat – men not so much.

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