The Marginalisation of Women on Social Media

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FIRESTORMS: The marginalisation of women on social media

Hannah Storey 31st August 2018

Contents Abstract ...... 2 Introduction ...... 3 1. Firestorms and online norm-enforcement ...... 7 1.1 What are firestorms? ...... 7 1.2 The question of anonymity, social identity and norm enforcement ...... 10 1.3 Online norm-enforcement ...... 16 2. Frustrating truth seeking ...... 19 2.1 The balancing of harms ...... 19 2.2 The Tyranny of the Minority ...... 23 3. Misogyny and the silencing of women ...... 26 3.1 Silencing women ...... 26 3.2 Misogyny ...... 31 3.3 Categories of misogynistic abuse ...... 37 4. Combatting silencing ...... 39 Conclusion ...... 44 Bibliography ...... 46

Abstract

Online firestorms, massive outbursts of negative and abusive language directed at an individual, have become an increasingly frequent social media phenomenon. In this thesis, we shall see that firestorms targeted at women are an expression of the sexist attitudes of some online communities and that they are therefore misogynistic actions which enforce these sexist norms online. By silencing and marginalising the views of women on social media these firestorms disrupt truth seeking and thus undermine the purpose of free speech according to Mill, although, because of this, firestorms warrant regulation, in practice regulating firestorms is impractical and would fail to undermine their detrimental effects. Therefore, instead of championing regulation, this thesis will dissect the causes of firestorms and the circumstances in which they are facilitated so that they can be disrupted. Social media should actively break up clustered networks and encourage healthy debate across different groups in order to disempower firestorms.

Introduction

Social media has allowed millions of users to connect across the world. People who may have once struggled to find like-minded people in their local community are able to reach into cyberspace and find kindred spirits with whom they can share their interests. Even more amazingly, those living in oppressive societies can connect with people to explore their mutual dissent in relative safety. During the Arab Spring, for example, social media allowed citizens to exercise their freedom of speech1 as well as to organize and coordinate protests. Even more than this, participants in the protests were able to communicate their perspective of events to the outside world without media or state influence.

The connectivity of social media means that it has been heralded as an enhancer of freedom of speech. Anyone, as long as they have access to the technology – which of course not all people do but that is for a separate discussion – can now join Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. and share their thoughts, feelings and opinions. People whose views have previously been sidelined because they were from marginalized communities or did not have the opportunities to publish their ideas in the traditional media, now have the opportunity to speak to a global audience. Normal people can comment alongside those with power, as well as communicate with those in power, with relative ease and in unprecedented numbers.

Although there is no doubt that social media has facilitated conversations which may never have occurred or reached such a wide audience if it wasn’t for these platforms, social media is unfortunately not the egalitarian, utopic vision many expected or hoped it would be. Although social media appears democratic in structure, powerful voices still dominate and the way in which we interact online can often lead to the sidelining or silencing of views.

The clustering of online networks and the creation of cyber echo chambers on social media has been the subject of much recent debate. Echo chambers have been blamed as the cause of Brexit,2 the

1 Ghannam, Jeffrey, Digital Media in the Arab World One Year After the Revolutions, Center for International Media Assistance, the National Endowment for Democracy, 2012 2 Chater, James, What the EU referendum result teaches us about the dangers of the echo chamber (2016), https://www.newstatesman.com/2016/07/what-eu-referendum-result-teaches-us-about-dangers-echo-chamber accessed on: 10/08/2018

reason for Trump’s presidency,3 and even the destroyer of democracy itself4 and it is certainly true that the EU referendum result and Trump’s victory came as great surprises to the liberal media, and that echo chambers could well be the explanation for this.

Another social media phenomenon which has piqued the interest of society is the deluge of abuse some unfortunate social media users receive. Shocking examples of horrific abuse in enormous volumes have become increasingly common.5 In 2014 for example #gamergate saw several women targeted with harassment campaigns. Feminist and media critic Anita Sarkeesian sustained some of the nastiest abuse. At its worst, Sarkeesian received death and rape threats and she had her personal information shared online (doxing). She was forced to flee her home.

It struck me that these online phenomena may not be separate entities; that the prevalence of online abuse might make social media users wary to interact outside of their echo chambers for fear of retaliation, thus, limiting interactions between those with differing views online. Although there has been significant research into the impact of hate speech both online and offline, as well as research into the legitimacy of regulating hate speech, there has been less focus on these online mobs – also called firestorms. Although they might be considered a subset of hate speech due to the horrific language used by some, these firestorms are distinctive. The sheer number of participants in a firestorm, as well as their speed, can mean that the impact of a firestorm on the target is significant. Throughout the research for this thesis it became clear that not only do these firestorms cause people to retreat further into echo chambers, they can also silence targets completely by causing them to leave social media in order to stem the abuse. These firestorms are therefore not only harmful to the individual, they are also detrimental to their right to free speech.

Mill argues clearly in ‘On Liberty’ that the value of freedom of speech is as a mechanism for seeking the truth; that truth was best sought by constantly questioning perceived wisdom, so that it may be replaced if a better truth is identified or it may be strengthened by its ability to ward off other ideas attempting to replace it. In Mill’s account, a society which ideally facilitates freedom of speech must support the speech of a variety of actors. Supporting speech from all types of people with different experiences would allow the greatest range of ideas to be discussed. This is similarly true when

3 Hooton, Christopher, Social media echo chambers gifted Donald Trump the Presidency (2016), https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-president-social-media-echo-chamber-hypernormalisation-adam-curtis-protests- blame-a7409481.html accessed on: 10/08/2018 4 El-Bermawy, Mostafa, Your Filter Bubble is destroying democracy (2016), https://www.wired.com/2016/11/filter-bubble-destroying- democracy/ accessed on: 10/08/2018 5 Bosker, Bianca, Why we should all fear the righteous online mob (2013), https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/justin-sacco-online- vigilantism_n_4505452 accessed on: 20/08/2018

those of differing opinions retreat into groups to discuss their ideas. It is not enough that a range of views are being expressed, if those views are only being expressed to those who already hold the same (or similar) views and they are not shared between groups who hold different views. Sharing between groups allows debate, and debate is at the core of Mill’s theory on truth seeking and freedom of speech. Firestorms, which can silence individuals as well as encourage individuals to retreat into echo chambers, are therefore detrimental to truth seeking itself.

Contrary to popular belief this thesis will show that firestorms are generally not the work of anonymous online users. Instead this thesis will argue that firestorms function as a norm-enforcing action similar to Mill’s tyranny of the majority. However, given that firestorms often do not enforce society-wide norms they cannot be considered the tyranny of the majority. Instead firestorms enforce the norms of different online communities, therefore, I propose that firestorms are termed the tyranny of the minority. As norm-enforcing sanctions, firestorms punish individuals and thus discourage them and others to continue to speak out on certain topics. Just as the tyranny of the majority discourages individuality, the tyranny of the minority discourages the expression of certain views on social media. Firestorms therefore have the ability to cause the homogeneity of views expressed online. Some online communities are so successful, and their firestorms so ubiquitous, that the views which they target have already become marginalized.

One type of firestorm that is particularly common is that which is targeted at women, particularly women who attempt to occupy a position of power, criticize a male dominated space or speak out on the topic of feminism. The firestorms targeted at women also differ from other types of firestorms. Research has shown that when women are targeted by firestorms the abuse they receive is uniquely gendered. This means that the firestorm is more likely to contain elements such as sexist language, threats of sexual violence and gendered stereotypes. 6 I argue in this thesis that firestorms targeted at these women are a particularly vicious example of the tyranny of the minority. I argue that these firestorms are in fact a form of misogyny, meaning that they aim to punish women for stepping outside of gendered social norms. These firestorms enforce sexist views online and, although the sexist views which inspire these firestorms are not mainstream views, the power of these firestorms is causing the marginalization of women’s views online. Given that social media is now such an important aspect of engaging with debate, side lining the views of women online is hugely detrimental to free speech.

6 Herring, S, ‘Gender Violence: Recognising and Resisting Abuse in Online Environments’, Asian Women, 2002, 14: 187-211

Many groups are disproportionately targeted by firestorms including people of colour, people with disabilities and minorities, but for the purposes of this essay I will be focusing on women. This is for many reasons, including brevity, but also experience. It is not for me to speak for others when I do not fully understand their experience and may misrepresent it. For this reason, I acknowledge that there are aspects of prejudice which I will fail to include here. I do not intend to state that women are unique in facing a hostile environment on social media, or even that they have it the worst, but they certainly do face heightened levels of hostility and this is worth investigating. It must also be noted that identities are intersectional, meaning that not all women will experience hate speech on social media in the same way. Women of colour for example are doubly targeted due to their gender and race, and women with disabilities will similarly experience multiple levels of discrimination. This is based on different deep-set prejudices which I will not have the space to fully dissect here but might change the way in which they experience or react to firestorms.

Given their negative impact on truth-seeking, we will see that there is a clear free speech argument for the limitation of firestorms. However, pragmatically speaking the regulation of firestorms is very challenging. Governments could place restrictions on instigating firestorms but determining culpability is almost impossible. Alternatively, they could regulate the worst of the speech in a firestorm e.g. hate speech, but it remains unclear whether or not removing this speech from a firestorm would undermine its impact on the targets and therefore remove the silencing effect. For this reason, I will not be championing the regulation of firestorms in this thesis.

In order to discover how to disempower firestorms throughout this thesis we will dissect how social media facilitates firestorms and therefore how we might address them. In the real world, the most closely aligned action to a firestorm is the angry mob and yet the angry mob is uncommon and the firestorm prevalent. The reasons for this are the key to discouraging firestorms. We shall see that firestorms occur more frequently because participating in firestorms is low-cost and high reward, there is a lack of non-verbal cues, very little chance of negative retaliation and participants are encouraged to join firestorms due to echo chambers. I suggest that the most effective way to discourage firestorms would be for social media networks to undermine echo chambers. Given that echo chambers are caused by the clustering of online networks, social media sites should make a concerted effort to break up this clustering. Although it occurs naturally online, as it does offline, social media sites also exacerbate clustering through their algorithms. These algorithms mean that social media users are shown more of the same content thereby intensifying the clustering of networks. In order for social media to truly be an egalitarian space for free speech, social media

needs to rewrite their algorithms as well as taking steps to actively break up these clustered networks. This is the only way to halt and hopefully reverse the increase of firestorms on social media.

1. Firestorms and online norm-enforcement

In this chapter I endeavour to explain in detail what a social media firestorm is and its identifying features. Namely the rapid dissemination of vitriolic speech in large volumes on social media. By examining social identities and how they are constructed we shall then see how firestorms function as enforcement mechanisms of the norms of online communities. This is contrary to popular opinion which views firestorms as anti-normative behaviour. Finally, we shall see why norm enforcing actions are more frequent online than offline.

1.1 What are firestorms?

In August 2014 Eron Gjoni published the “Zoe post,” a 10,000-word manifesto about his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn. In the post, he attempted to damage Quinn’s reputation by accusing her, an independent games developer, of trading sex for positive reviews of her game.7 This was an unfounded accusation, but it didn’t stop the internet exploding with criticism of Zoe and the “ethics of games journalism.” The firestorm of abuse Quinn and many other women received in her wake has come to be known as Gamergate after the hashtag #GamerGate was used on Twitter. Quinn herself faced rape and death threats, her personal details, including her home address and phone number, were released (doxing) and someone even changed the information on her Wikipedia page to say she died on 13th October 2014, the date of her next public appearance.

If I ever see you are doing a pannel [sic] at an event I am going to, I will literally kill you. You are lower than shit and deserve to be hurt, maimed, killed, and finally, graced with my piss on your rotting corpse a thousand times over.8

In response, fearing for her physical safety, Quinn fled her home.9

7 Lewis, Helen, Gamergate: a brief history of a computer-age war, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/11/gamergate-a- brief-history-of-a-computer-age-war accessed on: 1/07/2018 8 Malone, Noreen, Zoe and the Trolls (2017), http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/07/zoe-quinn-surviving-gamergate.html accessed on: 11/08/2018 9 Stuart, Keith, Interview: Zoe Quinn: ‘All Gamergate has done is ruin people’s lives’ (2014), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/zoe-quinn-gamergate-interview accessed on: 1/07/2018

The sheer number of comments directed at Quinn was astounding. The hashtag #GamerGate was used 244,000 times on Twitter in the first week alone10 and although Quinn’s experience was extreme, she is not alone. The proliferation of hate speech towards social media users at great volume is a social media phenomenon that has become increasingly common. The phenomenon is called a firestorm:

In online firestorms, large amounts of critique, insulting comments, and swearwords against a person, organization, or group may be formed by, and propagated via, thousands or millions of people within hours11

The high speed and extreme volume of interactions are key aspects of firestorms. This is what differentiates firestorms from hate speech. Although firestorms do include hateful comments, hate speech can come in many forms including as a standalone comment, firestorms on the other hand are formed when a very large number of people interact with the same topic all at once. This is why the term firestorm best conveys the intensity of these types of attacks on social media, as well as their ability to sustain themselves. Firestorms start with a few comments from influencers (or sparks) and then expand exponentially as more people join the frenzy (building up like a fire) until eventually the peak is reached, and the fire burns itself out. Firestorms at their peak can dominate social media channels, such as Twitter, with hundreds or thousands of unique users commenting or engaging.

Chiefly, firestorms occur when large numbers of people express anger towards a company, organization or individual. The more detailed reasons firestorms occur will be covered later in this chapter however, it is important to note here that anger is a key component; firestormers, at least the initial commenters, usually feel wronged by the target. This can be for any number of reasons. In 2012 McDonald’s asked users to share their experiences of visiting McDonalds on Twitter with the hashtag #McDStories. The hashtag exploded but instead of sharing positive experiences, Twitter users took the opportunity to share their horror stories of visiting the fast food chain instead. Although McDonald’s pulled the promotion in under 2 hours, at its peak there were over 1600 conversations on the topic.

10 The star, After the storm of Gamergate (2014), https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate#fn13 accessed on: 20/08/2018 11 Rost, Stahel and Frey, ‘Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media’, Social Media. PLoS ONE, 2016, 11:6

Often firestorms occur in response to an action or comment made by a person, company or organization which social media users deem unacceptable. Instigators of the firestorm, or ‘sparks’, might start with legitimate criticisms of the initial action or comment, but commenters will quickly descend into solely offensive comments void of content or arguments; insulting, rude or outright hateful speech for example.

Vitriol is another key feature of firestorms. The definition of firestorms given here doesn’t quite capture the malice of a firestorm but a key component of a firestorm is the sheer volume of hatred: threats, abusive language and hate speech, which are directed at the target. This hatred often appears vastly disproportionate to the action of the target to which the firestorm is responding. For instance, Mary Beard, a Cambridge University don, scholar and classicist, was the target of a firestorm after she appeared on British weekly political debate show, Question Time in 2013. After casting doubt that public services were under strain due to immigration, Beard received instant backlash, which quickly turned in her words, “truly vile.”12 Soon Beard was the subject of aggressive and sexualized comments. She was called “a vile, spiteful excuse for a woman, who eats too much cabbage and has cheese straws for teeth” and “an ignorant c**t,” she was subject to questioning about the size of her vagina and humiliated by a discussion about her pubic hair.13 She also faced threats of sexual violence. It is clear that, no matter the validity or invalidity of her argument, the harassment she received was unwarranted, and some of it surely illegal.

Firestorms usually occur out of the blue and are extremely difficult to predict. Although celebrities might reasonably expect their chances of being targeted by firestorms to be higher, due to their visibility, anyone can be targeted. Catalysts are varied. An ill-thought out comment, or a controversial statement might ignite a firestorm, but so might a fallacious rumour. On top of this, attempts to stem the flow of vitriol or turn the tide, particularly by the target, are mostly futile,14 meaning the victim has very little influence on the outcome, even if the firestorm started over a fabrication.

Thus far we have identified the three key features of firestorms: speed, volume and vitriol. This is not to say that explosions of positive comments cannot occur and self-perpetuate in the way that

12 Dowell, Ben, Mary Beard suffers ‘truly vile’ online abuse after Question Time (2013), https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jan/21/mary-beard-suffers-Twitter-abuse accessed on: 1/07/2018 13Beard, Mary, A Don’s Life, https://genius.com/Professor-mary-beard-a-dons-life-blog-annotated accessed on: 1/07/2018 14 Although marketers are attempting this see Conick, Hal, How to Leverage a Social Media Firestorm to Increase Brand Value (2017), https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-News-Weekly/Pages/social-firestorm-increase-brand-value.aspx accessed on: 1/07/2018

negative comments do in firestorms, but these positive versions of firestorms do not detrimentally impact social media’s ability to offer an egalitarian space for free speech, and therefore I will not consider them here.

1.2 The question of anonymity, social identity and norm enforcement

The cause and purpose of firestorms has caused much debate and confusion, particularly the rapid descent into vitriolic and hateful speech. Many theorists have assumed that anonymity is a key factor in online aggression, and therefore in firestorms, in line with Le Bon’s classic deindividuation theory.15 Le Bon theorized that people in crowds lost their sense of personal identity, therefore losing their societal constraints and becoming more likely to act hedonistically or primitively.16 Le Bon suggested that the state of deindividuation (when personal identity is overtaken by social identity) was brought on by the lack of accountability in crowd situations. In other words, classical deindividuation theory suggests that when people feel unidentifiable in a crowd (or anonymous) they are more likely to act antisocially due to the lack of consequences.

Many theorists have linked classic deindividuation theory to anonymity online, suggesting that people who are anonymous, or feel anonymous as part of a large online community, are unlikely to suffer consequences for their actions. They are therefore uninhibited in participating in anti-social behavior such as firestorms. Surprisingly however, research contradicts this and has shown that “online anonymity does not promote online aggression in the context of online firestorms.”17 If decreased inhibitions due to online anonymity were crucial to social media aggression then introducing policies which undermine anonymity online would surely weaken this aggression, yet Rost, Stahel and Frey have shown that the reverse can be true.18 Firestormers are not likely to be anonymous.

Rost et al suggest that social norm theory provides a more satisfying explanation for aggression in firestorms than classic deindividuation theory. Although firestorms are an example of antisocial behavior we should not consider them to be anti-normative. The vitriol of the speech in firestorms

15 For example, see Suler, J.,’ The online disinhibition effect’, Cyberpsychol Behav., 2004, 7(3):321–6, Hollenbaugh EE, Everett MK, ‘The effects of anonymity on self-disclosure in blogs: An application of the online disinhibition effect’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2013, 18(3):283–302 and Moore MJ, Nakano T, Enomoto A, Suda T., ‘Anonymity and roles associated with aggressive posts in an online forum’, Computers in Human Behavior, 2012, 28(3):861–7 16 Festinger, L et al., ‘Some Consequences of Deindividuation in a Group’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1952, 47:382-390 17 Rost et al, p17 18 Ibid

has made observers assume that firestorms are anti-normative but in fact firestorms are norm- enforcing. Norms guide the behaviour of individuals as they internalise societal expectations or the expectations of the group. Firestorms arise when someone (or a company) has acted contrary to those norms. The firestorm is therefore a type of group sanction targeted at the norm-breaker aiming to punish them for their transgression. The norms being sanctioned may be contrary to general social norms and this is likely why outsider observers have struggled to see firestorms as norm-enforcing actions.

It should be noted here that firestorms are distinct from trolling. A troll is someone who purposefully starts arguments and spreads discord on the internet.19 They post inflammatory comments with the express purpose of being controversial and eliciting an emotional response. Although trolling may occur during a firestorm, or indeed spark one, participants in firestorms are generally not trolls. The actions of trolls are planned to create a stir and as such they may well act anonymously to prevent punishment. Firestorms on the other hand are the result of anger and are predicated on firm beliefs. Unlike trolls, firestormers are less likely to act anonymously.

Social norms are the unwritten societal rules which dictate how we behave and general adherence to social norms is, I suggest, uncontroversial. Social norms prescribe how individuals should act in different circumstances, but they differ from person to person, group to group. For example, there are norms which dictate how one should act as a student, as a daughter or son or as an employee. There might be even more specific norms about how one should act at a particular university, or in a particular workplace. There are norms dictated by religion, or the lack of religion and there are cultural norms, dictated by where the individual lives. People act differently at work than they do at home in recognition of these varying norms. Understanding of and conformity to norms can even predict how successful people are in different environments.

Deindividuation occurs with the immersion of the self into the group; when personal identity is superseded by social identity. Actions therefore become regulated by group norms, rather than personal norms. The lack of self-regulation may lead to anti-social behaviours, but only – and this is crucial – if the group encourages it. Deindividuation can also lead to positive outcomes. When a group tends towards positive behaviours, these are imitated by others in the group. Alternatively,

19 Oxford Dictionary defines a troll as “a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post” at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/troll accessed on: 29/06/2018

when a group tends towards anti-social behaviours, these anti-social behaviours are imitated instead.

The so-called “antinormative” behavior found in the crowd, according to deindividuation theory, is actually a display of what is normative within the crowd20

Deindividuation causes what Turner called the “cogitative redefinition of the self”21 from the personal to the collective, thus turning individual behavior into collective behavior.22 In essence, deindividuation is a reduction of self-awareness which leads to a reduction of self-regulation; group members are instead regulated by the group norms. Deindividuation can therefore only cause antisocial behavior to occur if that antisocial behavior is in line with the needs and norms of the group.

Social norms are regulated and proliferated through the use of sanctions. Some norms are enforced by the law and are therefore subject to legal sanctions, such as prison sentences or fines, but sanctions do not have to be official; communities also self-regulate through social sanctions. Elster argues that external sanctions are not always necessary, he argues that internalized norms can trigger feelings of guilt or shame, or at least the anticipation of guilt or shame, which can be enough to enforce the norm.23 He convincingly demonstrates this by musing that he does not throw litter, even when there is nobody to observe him.

Turner suggests that self-categorization with a group or community is the root of their social influence over their members. Therefore, the groups which people choose to identify with are likely to hold more influence over their actions.24 Self-categorization theory proposes that each person has many identities: a personal identity e.g. ‘I Hannah Storey’ and various social identities e.g. “we Europeans”, “we British”, “we feminists”. People define themselves with different identities depending on the situation and which identity becomes salient.25 In those situations where people define themselves through social identities, personal identity becomes less relevant, and the norms

20 Reicher, S.D., ‘Social influence in the crowd: Attitudinal and behaviour effects of de-individuation in conditions of high and low group salience’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 1984, 23: 341-350 21 Turner, J. C., ‘Social identification and psychological group formation’, in The social dimension: European developments in social psychology, 2nd ed., by Taifel, H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 518-538. 22 Trepte, Sabine, ‘Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory’, The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, 2017 23 Elster, J., Social Norms and economic theory, Jounral of Economic Perspectives, 1989, 3(4): 99-117, p104 24 See Turner, J. C., ‘The analysis of social influence’, in Social identity and intergroup relations, eds., by Turner, J. C. Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., and Wetherell, M. S., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) and Turner, J. C., Social Influence, (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) 25 Turner, J.C., ‘Some current issues in research on social identity and self-categorization theories’, in Social identity: Context, commitment, content, by Ellemers, N., Spears, R., Dossje, B., (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 6-34.

of the social group identified with become increasingly important. In other words when an individual identifies as a feminist rather than as an individual, they are more likely to act according to feminist norms. Alternatively, when they define themselves as British, they are more likely to act according to British norms. The fluidity of social identities means that group members are not in a constant state of deindividuation. The influence of group norms on individuals clearly waxes and wanes as social identities become more or less salient to the individual.

Turner’s theory also suggests that group influence is minimized if the individual does not categorize themselves as a group member. For example, if an individual joins a local political party just to see what’s going on in the meetings, but distinctly does not identify with the party, they would be unlikely to be influenced by their conversations or join in their actions. In other words, by self- differentiating themselves, they would be unaffected by the norms of the group.26

The influence of social identities offline is uncontroversial. For example, in the 1980s British mining towns had a strong sense of community in response to their livelihoods being under threat (as the mines were being closed down). All members of the communities would have voted for the British Labour party unquestioningly, in line with the norms of the community. To do otherwise would have been seen as an affront to the group. A community member who dared to vote Conservative would have likely been shunned or even attacked. Clearly the influence of group identity can be very strong. However, some view communities on social media as less valid, and therefore less influential, than communities in the real world. Someone who holds this view might assume then that social media communities are less likely than real world communities to regulate the behaviour of their members.

However, the influence of online communities on their members can in fact be very strong. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, participants have actively chosen to join that online community and have therefore chosen to strongly align themselves with the group (self-categorization). This is not to say that there aren’t outliers in online communities but given that outliers are unlikely to participate in firestorms we will not concern ourselves with them here. Secondly, the vastness of cyberspace means that the choice of communities to join is extensive, and users can consequently find communities whose views strongly align with their own more easily than they would in the real

26 Nadler, Arie and Goldberg, Marta, ‘Effect of Self-Differentiation and Anonymity in Group on Deindividuation’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982

world, where communities to join are limited geographically. Finally, social identity on social media is in fact strengthened by our ability to construct our identity online, what I call relative obscurity.27

Relative obscurity is achievable on social media because we have a high level of control over how we display ourselves online. Users can curate their online identity. Trolls clearly use this tactic to achieve anonymity online by creating a completely fake persona, but many users simply create a profile which highlights their preferred qualities, meaning their online identity is not completely fake, but it is not completely transparent either. Instead of relative obscurity reducing our ability to have meaningful connections online, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE model)28 suggests that relative obscurity actually reinforces our group bonds. This is because relative obscurity highlights our similarities whilst diminishing any differences which might weaken our feelings of unity.29 Social media users might therefore – rightly or wrongly - feel that their online friends are more likeminded than their real-world counterparts. This is exemplified by online dating. When people meet online it is easy to think they have everything in common. Whereas it is much more difficult when they meet in person. In other words, the SIDE model suggests that after people self-categorize as a member of a group, relative obscurity of online communities can enhance group identification which heightens the influence of the group.30

I should clarify here that by relative obscurity I do not mean anonymity where no information about the user is conveyed at all, instead I mean obscurity in the sense that the user only displays the information which they wish to convey. Online anonymity does not facilitate deindividuation effectively because deindividuation relies on genuine connections between group members. It is difficult to trust or identify with people who are anonymous and as such, groups of anonymous users are less likely to influence behavior.

As with all communities, online communities have and enforce their own sets of social norms or ‘rules’. However, these norms can be obscure. For example, there is a very large online community called Incels (Involuntary Celibates)31 who have hit headlines for their misogynistic views. Incels are a community of men who are not in, and unable to get into, a relationship. The community is deeply sexist and blames feminism for their predicament – being unable to find relationships with women.

27 Postmes, Tom, Spears, Russell, Sakhel, Khaled and de Groot, Daphne,’ Social Influence in Computer-Mediated Communication: The Effects of Anonymity on Group Behaviour’, Personality and Social Psychology bulletin, 2001, 53: 1243- 1254, p 1244 28 Reicher, S. D., Spears, R. and Postmes, T., ‘A Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Phenomena’, European Review of Social Psychology, 1995, 6(1): 161-198 29 Postmes et al 30 Ibid 31 Incels website, http://incels.me/, accessed on 1/07/2018

The rules, which allow threatening and abusing language toward women, but don’t allow bragging about past relationships, are for most of us unfathomable but clearly dictate their behaviour within the group.

Although norms are infinitely changeable (think back 50 years to what acceptable behavior was then), they are so embedded that when we look at communities who follow contrasting norms - as Incels do in the previous example - we can react in disbelief or horror. In 2014 Elliot Rodger committed a mass shooting in Isla Vista California. Before he carried out the shooting, Rodger posted his manifesto “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution” online where he outlined his motives for the upcoming attack. Rodger made it clear that he wanted to punish women for sexually rejecting him, “I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.”32 Rodger was a member of the Incel community and is now widely celebrated by them. His actions in Isla Vista clearly affirmed the norms of the Incel community even though his horrifying actions appear anti- normative to those of us outside that community.

In order to understand how obscure norms can become so embedded we must remember how much time people spend online interacting with these communities. The average adult in the United Kingdom now spends nearly 9 hours per day online33 and this is just the average, many spend much longer. Some might even spend longer online than they spend interacting in the real world. Embedding norms which are so contradictory to general societal norms cannot happen overnight. These norms are entrenched over hours and hours of interaction with the group.

Unsurprisingly firestorms are often targeted at individuals the perpetrators view as a threat. Henri Tajfel’s social identity theory may provide a reason for this.34 Tajfel argues that once we have identified with a social group, we will sort the world into insiders and outsiders through social categorization. The presence of an outsider causes a heightened sense of similarity to those in the group in contrast to the outsider, and further embeds group identity. Similarly, when social identity is challenged by an outsider, group members more strongly align themselves with the group. Therefore, when an outsider’s actions are seen to attack the group, it is unsurprising that the group members come together to sanction them. This might suggest that groups with obscure norms

32 Elliot Rodger’s Retribution, https://genius.com/Elliot-rodger-elliot-rodgers-retribution-annotated accessed on: 1/07/2018 33 Woods, Ben, UK now spends more time online each day than sleeping (2016), https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-spends-more-time- online-sleeping accessed on: 20/08/2019 34 Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C., ‘An integrative theory of intergroup conflict’, in The social psychology of intergroup relations, ed. By W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel, (Monterey: Brooks/Cole, 1979), pp. 33-37.

would actually be more likely to participate in firestorms, as their views are more likely to be threatened.

In summary, firestorms are anti-social but it is wrong to assume they are anti-normative. Firestorms on social media do not occur because users are anonymous and are therefore unafraid of consequences; firestorms are the response to “(perceived) violating behaviours of public actors”35 and can therefore be seen as sanctions targeted at norm breakers. Group members will only enforce aggressive sanctions when experiencing deindividuation – a loss of self-awareness in the group – and contrary to common belief, deindividuation can occur in online communities as well as offline. In fact, the SIDE model suggests online communities might be even more influential to individuals than offline communities. Firestorms reinforce group-norms, however niche, and can therefore often appear contrary to common societal norms.

1.3 Online norm-enforcement

In terms of magnitude and aggression, the real-world norm-enforcing action which is most comparable to the firestorm is the ‘angry mob’. Yet angry mobs are extremely uncommon and firestorms frequent. If firestorms are norm-enforcing actions as we saw in the previous section, then it is not immediately clear why they are more common than offline norm-enforcing actions. Firestorms rely on the numbers participating to increase rapidly and exponentially in ways that are irreplaceable offline. This phenomenon is achievable on social media due to several factors including: clustered networks, echo chambers,36 low cost interactions, lack of non-verbal cues, large online networks and a lack of negative feedback.

The term network clustering refers to the creation of transitive links between people in groups, meaning that if a is connected with b and c, b is probably also connected with c.37 Social media shows significant network clustering. Clustering occurs because social media users choose who to follow, often following like-minded people or people similar to them in terms of age, background or interests. This is called homophily.38 Social media users also generally avoid following those they

35 Rost et al, p3 36 Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T. and Carley, K. M., ‘Understanding online firestorms: Negative word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks’, Journal or Marketing Communications, 2014, 20(1-2): 117-128 37 Groeger, L. and Buttle, F., ‘Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: Evidence from case study research’, Journal or Marketing Communications, 2014, 20(1-2): 21-41 38 McPherson, Miller, Smith-Lovin, Lynn, and Cook, James M., ‘Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks’, Annu. Rev. Sociol., 2001, 27:415-44

disagree with. Many social media platforms further exacerbate clustering by recommending connections to us. Those recommendations tend to be connections of connections or those who create similar content to people in our current network. Our network therefore becomes even more homogenous.

When a topic becomes popular within a clustered network, the topic can appear to echo at a user from all directions making it appear as if everyone is talking about it. This is called an echo chamber39 and they work as follows. On Twitter, Lucy follows Matt. Matt has seen an interesting piece of news about Brexit and tweets his disgust that there will be no second EU referendum in the UK. Due to homophily Matt’s followers are also likely to be disgusted with the news, and some tweet similar sentiments. Due to clustered networks Lucy is likely to also follow many of Matt’s followers and she therefore sees several people tweeting their disgust in a short space of time. Given that she is also highly likely to agree with the opinions of those she follows, she tweets her agreement.

Network clustering can mean one section of social media is completely consumed with a topic which other sections are entirely unaware of. Even if a social media user did want to discover which topics other social media networks were discussing, it has become increasingly difficult to do so. Echo chambers are exacerbated by social media, not only in their recommendations, but also because social media sites show their users limited content. Social media is acutely designed to show favourable content to users. On Facebook for example, the news feed algorithm was created to keep us reading for as long as possible, as such it tends to only show us articles, status updates or advertisements which it believes we will like as this will keep us reading. Generally, users like content they agree with so Facebook shows users agreeable content. The more users browse Facebook, the more it knows about them, and the more specific the content becomes. Disagreeable content is thus difficult to access.

Unlike in the real world on social media people can connect with hundreds, thousands or millions of users. The echo chambers of which they are a part are consequently vast and it is therefore understandable that users start to believe that their views are supported by the majority of people. When a firestorm is sparked within a community, echo chambers mean that the same views are repeated across the users’ social media and the ideas communicated in the firestorm are thus strongly reinforced.

39 Sustein, C., The Daily We (2001), http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR26.3/sunstein.html accessed on: 20/08/2018

Engaging in a firestorm differs drastically from engaging in public norm-enforcement, like joining a public protest for example because engaging in a firestorm is very low cost. This means it is very easy to do; It is inexpensive and non time-consuming. Social media commenters can go online, make a comment, and leave straight away to make a cup of tea. In fact, Twitter, which limits the characters of messages, actively encourages short and quick communications. The effort is so minimal, social media users don’t even have to write post, they can just ‘like’ or ‘share’ someone else’s. Joining a firestorm can be done at any time and in any location with ease and firestormers can communicate globally without any extra effort. Conversely joining offline norm-enforcing actions, like joining a public protest, can require significant planning or travel and can be very time consuming. Given the ease of joining in a firestorm, it is unsurprising that we are more likely to engage in ‘norm-enforcing’ behaviour online than offline.

Another aspect of online interactions which vary from the real world, is the state of being one step removed. Being one step removed from the target e.g. behind a computer screen means there is a lack of nonverbal cues in online interactions, such as facial expressions or body language. Without nonverbal cues empathy is reduced, which might go some way towards explaining the sheer levels of aggression in firestorms (or on social media more generally for that matter).40 The context and meaning of a statement or action can also be stripped or twisted online which can lead to hostile misinterpretations, exaggerations or outright lies.

Joining a firestorm is a way for users to gain kudos in the online community as well as affirming their identity within it. Online communities are often nebulous and vast meaning that it is very difficult to be noticed. Popular online communities will have a relatively constant stream of content being created with people posting to try and gain ‘likes’ or ‘upvotes’. Creating popular content is a challenge, and consequently users will often post something which very clearly aligns with the group mentality i.e. something they know will be popular. Participating in a firestorm is an easy way to ensure popularity. Users gain approval by participating but for those trying to gain extra approval, posting ever more shocking content is a way to gain attention. The more shocking a post the more attention it elicits. For this reason, users constantly try to outdo one another, creating content that is evermore appalling and thus quickly escalating the level of abuse which victims of firestorms receive.

40 Rost et al

The chance of immediate negative feedback for online norm-enforcement is slim compared to similar actions in the real world and the chances of a retaliatory physical attack are essentially nil. Even if a firestormer is targeted for retaliation, which is unlikely given the sheer number of them, they can easily ignore the responses by leaving the platform (e.g. turning the computer off) or blocking people for example. Online firestormers can participate in an aggressive attack, and then effectively “sneak off” to safety.41 Firestormers are also usually safe from social sanctions, as their family and friends are often unaware of their actions. Unless they have done something illegal, firestormers can therefore easily avoid consequences.

In summary, given that firestorms are norm-enforcing actions there is a clear benefit of engaging in them for group members as it asserts their alignment with the group and may gain them approval. Given that joining a firestorm is extremely low cost and users are unlikely to receive negative feedback it would appear that the benefits of joining clearly outweigh the costs. Furthermore, the lack of non-verbal cues mean that firestormers are less likely to confront the harm they have caused to the victim and are therefore unlikely to be dissuaded from participating by this.

2. Frustrating truth seeking

In the previous chapter, we saw how and why firestorms occur. In this chapter, we shall see how firestorms negatively impact the free speech of their targets. Mill’s theory on the freedom of expression will therefore provide the grounding for an argument on why firestorms warrant regulation. Theorists who have discussed restrictions on hate speech42 tend to focus on comparing the harm in restricting versus not restricting speech but this approach has been unsuccessful. Returning to Mill’s original argument will show that he argues determinedly for free speech on the grounds that it is a method for truth seeking. Speech which upsets truth seeking by silencing others thus contravenes the purpose of free speech. Just as people require protection from the tyranny of the majority in order to protect individuality, they also require protection from firestorms, which I argue function as a tyranny of the minority by stifling marginalized opinions online.

2.1 The balancing of harms

41 Ibid 42 I talk about hate speech rather than firestorms as I have not yet seen an argument for the regulation of firestorms

In the second chapter of ‘On Liberty’, ‘Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion’ Mill defends his theory for total and complete freedom of expression. Mill exerts that freedom of expression is not only of value to the individual but also to the masses. Mill of course grounds his argument in Utilitarianism, suggesting that if free expression were only valuable to the individual then the silencing of one individual would be less harmful than the silencing of many, but the silencing of even one individual’s expression of their opinion is robbing the human race. This is because Mill’s theory is predicated on the value of truth and he argues that silencing even one opinion removes an opportunity to gain a stronger understanding of the truth.

Mill suggests that to silence the expression of an opinion is wrong whether or not it is correct. If the silenced opinion is true, then society has been deprived of the opportunity to replace a falsehood with the truth. If the silenced opinion is false, then society loses a clearer and more robust view of what the truth is. Either way, society has the opportunity to strengthen their understanding of the truth. This is not to say that the true opinion will always win. Society might hear a false opinion and wrongly think it to be true. However, silencing an opinion will mean society has lost the opportunity to have a stronger understanding of the truth.

Mill clearly rejects the regulation of speech even if the opinion expressed is vile and abhorrent.

if the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.43

Mill argues that we cannot interfere with speech for any reason even if it is immoral. This is not because Mill is suggesting that the immoral speech may be correct but because in order to ban speech, an entity – presumably the government – would need to decide which speech to ban. Making the decision to ban speech on the basis of its content would be to assume their infallibility.44

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.45

43 Mill, J. S., On Liberty, in On Liberty: John Stuart Mill, edited by Alexander, E. (Ontario, Canada: Broadview, 1999) original work published 1859 44 “All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility” Mill, J. S., p60 45 Ibid

It is tempting to restrict firestorms on the basis that it is devoid of all possible argument that could be true. However, it seems unlikely that Mill would support this regulation, no matter how contemptable the speech. Nevertheless, he does propose one caveat to his theory, the Harm Principle.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.46

Mill suggests that the only legitimate reason for which we might regulate speech is in order to prevent harm to others.

This is not to say that Mill advocated that all speech which ultimately causes someone to be harmed should be restricted. For example, he states that “an opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press.”47 In contrast Mill states that the same sentiment “delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer”48 would “justly incur punishment.”49 His argument being that when spoken to the assembled mob, the expression incites the crowd to violence. Nevertheless, even if the view is only expressed in print, the corn-dealer might still suffer some harm. For example, the damage to the reputation of the corn dealer might mean customers are less eager to buy from him and the corn-dealer might therefore suffer financial hardship. Mill does not address these types of harms suggesting that he was not advocating for all harmful speech to be restricted. Therefore, although the harm principle is a necessary condition for the regulation of speech, it is not a sufficient condition.

Mill does not fully explore what harm would legitimately warrant the restriction of speech except to say that instigating harmful actions was a legitimate reason for restriction. Here is the full sentence about corn-dealers which is partially quoted in the previous paragraph:

Even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought

46 Ibid, p52 47 Ibid, p101 48 Ibid 49 Ibid

to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.50

It is clear that Mill is suggesting this speech should be restricted not by virtue of its content, which criticizes the corn dealers, but because it directly incites violence toward the corn-dealers. By making this statement in front of the angry mob, a reasonable person would expect the mob to react and therefore he should not do so. Context is clearly important as is the direct nature of the harm caused.

In balancing the harms of hate speech,51 a similar action to firestorms, commentators have struggled to reach a consensus. Theorists have argued that speech can cause (or constitute) harm in many ways; it can cause (or constitute) subordination,52 it can legitimize discrimination and propagate prejudice, it can enact discriminatory norms,53 it can cause psychological harm and of course it can incite violence. On the opposing side theorists have contested whether or not this harm is done directly by the speaker, or argued that the harm to one individual targeted by hate speech is minimal compared to the harm to society if speech is restricted, however negligibly. Many of these arguments remain unconvincing either because it remains subjective whether or not the harm caused to society by the speech outweighs the harm caused to society by allowing the speech, or because the theorists are attempting to convince the reader that the harm caused by the speech is direct not indirect. Langton for example argues that pornography is (or could be at least) the subordination of women.54 Many remain unconvinced.

Mill’s argument for the liberty of thought and discussion is dependent upon the value of seeking truth, as well as the argument that truth seeking is best facilitated by the expression of a range of opinions, including the false ones. Mill argues that what we hold to be the truth needs to be constantly questioned, even if it is true. Our view of the truth will only be strengthened by questioning it.

50 Ibid 51 I focus here on hate speech, not firestorms as much of the literature focuses on individual cases of hate speech rather than the full firestorm. 52 Maitra, I., ‘Subordinating Speech’, in Speech and Harm by Maitra, I. and McGowan M. K. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) pp 94- 120 53 McGowan, ‘On ‘whites only’ signs and racist hate speech: verbal acts of racial discrimination’, in Speech and Harm, by Maitra, I. and McGowan M. K. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) pp 121-147 54 Langton, R., ‘Speech Acts and Unspeakable acts’, Philosophy and public affairs, 1993, 22(4):293-330

That the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.55

In other words, in order to fully understand something, we must truly know the grounds for our opinions, and we must know at least the most common objections to it. One could therefore argue that firestorms in fact strengthen our view of the truth by giving victims an opportunity to respond and repudiate the claims made by firestormers. Unfortunately, the victims of firestorms are not often not capable of doing such a thing – as we shall see in more detail later – as firestorms often intimidate their victims in silence.

In order to evaluate firestorms, the balancing of harms approach is not appropriate. As with hate speech this approach is unlikely to produce a consensus. Given Mill's preoccupation was with truth rather than harm, the focus here should be on which actions detrimentally impact truth-seeking. Firestorms are clearly harmful, as we shall see, and thus satisfy the harm principle’s condition for restriction but it is because firestorms have the ability to silence their victims, and thus silence whole sections of online communities, that means they warrant regulation. This silencing means that firestorms have a negative impact on truth seeking.

2.2 The Tyranny of the Minority

In ‘On Liberty’ Mill discusses what he terms ‘the tyranny of the majority’. Mill argues that democratic societies should be wary of the will of the most numerous or the will of the most active part of the society as this will can be exerted as a kind of ‘social tyranny’. Although other prominent thinkers before him had recognised the ability of the will of the majority to be imposed through democratic instruments, Mill recognised this tyranny could also be imposed socially. Mill argued that public opinion can be disastrous for individuality as the majority tend to impose their views and values on others, leaving those with marginalized views and opinions unwilling to express themselves.

The tyranny of the majority is thus a term to express how social norms are imposed on individuals. Those who deviate from the norm, are punished through social punishments and learn to keep quiet about their dissenting thoughts and opinions. Mill argued that social tyranny, although much less

55 Mill, J. S. p63

extreme than political oppression, can have a much deeper impact on individuals as it manages to suppress the formation or development of individuality when it strays too far from the mainstream.

Though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, (the tyranny of the majority) leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.56

Although social punishments, such as social isolation and disapproval, are targeted at individuals or groups, any onlooker who similarly deviates from the norm will also be discouraged from displaying individuality.

Chapter 1 showed that firestorms are often a method for enforcing social norms. As such they could be a technique through which the tyranny of the majority operates. However, chapter 1 also highlighted that the norms which are enforced by firestorms are not always held by the majority, sometimes they are the norms of a niche group. Whereas in Mill’s day niche groups would have generally held little power, social media has allowed geographically disparate likeminded people to form communities of staggering size and influence. Firestorms, which enforce norms outside of the mainstream, therefore function as a tyranny of the minority.

The tyranny of the minority functions in much the same way as the tyranny of the majority, in that it can regulate and mold the behaviour of targets (and onlookers) by distributing social sanctions to those who contravene social norms. However, contra to the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the minority originates outside of the mainstream and therefore enforcing group norms, not general social norms. This does not mean it is any less harmful.

Before she became a victim of Gamergate, feminist blogger Anita Sarkeesian was subject to a firestorm after launching a Kickstarter campaign57 to raise funds to create a series of videos examining sexist tropes in video games.58 Sarkeesian had stepped into very dangerous territory by criticizing gaming. She faced what she called a ‘cyber mob’59 in a classic example of the tyranny of the minority. Video gamers are by no means a homogenous group but there is a vocal subgroup of gaming, generally young, white, male, gamers who often express anger at people who critique

56 Mill, J.S. p47 57 An online crowd-funding website 58 Sarkeesian, A., TEDxWomen Talk about Online Harassment & Cyber Mobs, 2012, https://feministfrequency.com/video/tedxwomen-talk- on-sexist-harassment-cyber-mobs/ accessed on: 20/08/2018 59 Ibid

gaming culture. The vitriol Sarkeesian received was graphic and explicit in its detail.60 A game where users were invited to “beat the bitch up” was created where an image of Sarkeesian become increasingly injured as users clicked on the screen. Pornographic images doctored to look as if Sarkeesian was being raped by video games characters were distributed online and sent to her repeatedly. In a talk she gave about the incident, Sarkeesian describes the firestorm as a game. Firestormers gained praise as rewards for producing ever worse ways to abuse her.

The attack on Sarkeesian was a horrific example of the tyranny of the minority. Although the views of the firestormers are hopefully not mainstream, they managed to cause a significant amount of harm not only to Sarkeesian, but also to other people who might critique gaming. The attack aimed to punish Sarkeesian for criticizing gaming culture as a vocal subsection of the gaming community clearly saw her as a threat and yet it also served as a warning to those who might follow in her footsteps. The treatment Sarkeesian received was looked at with trepidation by all women involved in the gaming industry concerned that they might be next, indeed some of them were as the firestorm went on to attack many other women.

The impact of the tyranny of the minority goes well beyond the initial victim, as onlookers also absorb the lesson which the firestorm conveys. It may be that some women have been put off gaming by the incident, or no longer dream of working in the industry. It is likely many women have hesitated before critiquing the gaming industry or stopped doing so altogether. It is impossible to know the true extent of the damage.

Mill praised eccentricity in society, arguing that it was proportional to “the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage it contained.”61 He lamented the tyranny of the majority because it prevented the expression of eccentricity and alternative opinions. The tyranny of the minority online similar represses alternative views. Just as Mill suggested the public needed protecting from the tyranny of the majority

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as

60 Ibid 61 Mill, J.S., p113

indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.62

It is clear that in an online environment, protection from the tyranny of the majority is not enough. There also needs to be protection from the tyranny of the minority.

3. Misogyny and the silencing of women

Although all firestorms by definition include vile and insulting speech, women who are targeted by firestorms are more likely to experience speech which attacks or insults them on the basis of their gender. In other words, women are more likely to face hate speech:

Speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.63

In the previous chapter, through studying a firestorm targeted at Anita Sarkeesian we saw an example of how firestorms target individuals in order to punish them for breaking the norms of online communities. We also saw how firestorms can function as the tyranny of the minority i.e. niche communities imposing their views on their victims and onlookers. In this chapter, we shall discuss firestorms targeted at women and how they often enforce sexist norms of repugnant online communities. We will also see how these misogynistic firestorms can silence and marginalise women’s views online.

3.1 Silencing women

Communication is the main reason we value speech. If speech did not serve as a method for communicating our thoughts and opinions, then it would surely not be valuable to us as individuals. Returning to Mill, without communication it seems unlikely that speech would be valuable to society more generally either. Silencing is thus problematic because it frustrates a speaker’s ability to communicate. This in turn must mean that a speaker is silenced when their ability to communicate is frustrated.

62 Mill, J. S., p47 63 Definition of hate speech, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hate-speech accessed on: 29/04/2018

In ‘Words that Silence? Freedom of Expression and Racist Hate Speech’ Caroline West argues that silencing can manifest itself in many ways. One can be silenced in being prevented from making words, by having one’s tongue chopped off for example, or by being kept in solitary confinement. In the first example, the victim has been prevented from producing words altogether, in the second they were able to produce words but unable to distribute those words. In neither of these scenarios would we recognise that the speaker has the right to true freedom of expression. Production of speech and distribution of speech are thus important elements of free speech.

There are of course ways in which an individual might overcome production and distribution failure. By learning sign language for example, or by sneaking notes out from under the locked door in the previous example. However, these obstacles to speaking are arduous. Although the speaker may persevere, given the discriminatory obstacles placed in their way they may not, and the world would therefore be lacking their opinion.

Freedom of speech therefore requires the opportunity for meaningful production and distribution of speech. In other words, we must have the opportunity to make sounds (or actions) which can be heard (or seen) by others in order to meaningfully be able to say we have free speech. This is not to argue that some logical and fair restrictions (legal or practical) cannot legitimately impact the production and distribution of our speech without negating that we have free speech. For example, we don’t all have the opportunity to speak before parliament on a whim, for practical reasons we have to follow bureaucratic procedures in order to do so. This is not an unfair restriction on freedom of speech, unless those bureaucratic hurdles are too complicated as to make it effectively impossible to speak in front of parliament.

Production and distribution are only two key elements of free speech. In order for speakers to be able to communicate, speech also needs to be considered and comprehended by its audience. In other words, there needs to be consideration, meaning that speech is not dismissed out of hand, and comprehension meaning that speech can be wholly understood by the listener. For instance, if a speaker is able to make speech by producing sounds and she is unrestricted in her movements and therefore able to share that speech with others, but the audience, having seen that she is a woman, dismisses her as ‘silly’ and therefore shelves her ideas without fully engaging with them, then the speaker has faced consideration failure. Alternatively, imagine if the same woman were speaking, and the audience did not dismiss her views. In fact, they were listening intently and very much wanted to understand her. This time however she was standing behind a glass screen and her voice

was distorted such that the audience could not understand her. This is an example of comprehension failure. In both examples the speaker has not failed to produce or distribute speech, but she has still failed to communicate.

Of course, when people speak they cannot always expect listeners to engage with their speech. There are many legitimate reasons why audiences disengage. For instance, perhaps because they are prejudiced and do not think the speaker is capable of having valid views – as in the previous example - but also perhaps because they are boring, and the audience is struggling to concentrate on what they are saying. In this later scenario, the speaker has failed to communicate but through something over which they have control. However, imagine the speaker in the early example, where the audience disregarded her speech due to prejudice. Again, it could be argued that the speaker was not silenced, as she has still produced and distributed words, and the words have been understood by the listener, but they have been disregarded without consideration. This could happen to anyone yet imagine that this speaker encounters the same response whenever she speaks, so much so that she is unable to have her views considered in any circumstances. If this were the case, then she would be rendered unable to communicate and she would be effectively silenced.

It is clear that arguing for the totality of these four aspects of free speech: production and distribution, consideration and comprehension is incorrect. Sometimes speakers fail to produce speech, distribute it to whom they want to hear it, or the intended audience fails to listen or understand it. In these instances, the speaker has failed to communicate but it is not the case that they have been wholly silenced. There is no guarantee that every time people speak they will be heard or understood. However, West argues that true free speech is a negative liberty. Free speech doesn’t provide a guarantee of comprehension by the audience, but it does require that comprehension not be unfairly prevented by the actions of others. Therefore, free speech requires that agents do not act in ways which unduly prevents the comprehension, consideration, distribution and production of the speech of others.64 Consequently a firestorm which prevents women from communicating could therefore be considered detrimental to free speech.

In the UK, feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez became the target of a firestorm after starting a campaign for a woman to appear on one of the British banknotes. She faced vile and malicious attacks and threats. One tweeter asked another if he would join him in raping Criado-Perez, one

64 For a full explanation see West, C, ‘Words that Silence: Freedom of Expression and Racist Hate Speech’, in Speech and Harm, by Maitra, I. and McGowan M. K. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) pp 222-248

threated to kill her: "I will find you, and you don't want to know what I will do when I do. You're pathetic. Kill yourself. Before I do. #Godie."65 The sheer number of abusive comments, and the particularly depravity of some, initially caused her to delete her Twitter account.66 Criado-Perez had been intimidated into silence and by leaving the social media platform she could no longer effectively distribute her opinions.

The result of this frustration of the distribution of speech is that victims no longer participate in online debates or discussions and their opinions are thus silenced. A common response to this might be that the victim has chosen to leave social media. They have the option to remain and therefore they are not silenced. Leaving social media platforms is an option which we all are free to take, and of course there are many people who freely choose not to use social media platforms, so it is not to say that people who don’t use social media are silenced. However, in the scenario laid out previously, the choice is not wholly free, Criado-Perez felt that the only way to stem the flow of such horrific abuse was to leave the platform and therefore leave the conversation.

Being the victim of a firestorm is emotionally impactful, occasionally even traumatic.67 Receiving online abuse from just one of two users can be emotionally affecting, let alone receiving abusive messages from hundreds or thousands of users all at once. An Amnesty International poll in 2017 revealed that 41% of women who had received online abuse or harassment felt their physical safety was threated.68 61% said the experience lowered their self-esteem. More than half discussed experiencing stress, anxiety and panic attacks as a result of their experience. Firestorms are acts of harassment and it is unsurprising that many women leave social media after such an attack. Assuming that leaving social media is a free choice for these women is to vastly underestimate the impact intimidation can have on our choices.

Many women targeted by firestorms will choose to remain on social media, but they often attempt to protect themselves in other ways. For example, they might start to regulate which topics they discuss or where they discuss them. In the same Amnesty Poll quoted previously, 76% of women stated that they had made changes to the way they use social media following their experiences of

65 Hattenstone, Simon, Interview: Caroline Criado-Perez: ‘Twitter has enabled people to behave in a way they wouldn’t face to face” (2013), https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/04/caroline-criado-perez-Twitter-rape-threats accessed on 16/06/2018 66 Topping, A., Caroline Criado-Perez deletes Twitter account after new rape threats (2013), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/06/caroline-craido-perez-deletes-twitter-account accessed 16/06/2018 67 Zoe Quinn who was attacked during GamerGate was diagnosed with Post traumatic stress disorder see Malone, N., Zoe and the Trolls 68 Amnesty International, Amnesty revels alarming impact of online abuse against women (2017), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/amnesty-reveals-alarming-impact-of-online-abuse-against-women/ accessed on 19/08/2018

abuse or harassment online. A third of women said they stopped expressing their opinion on certain issues. One respondent said “the abuse definitely makes me pause before I weigh in on anything. It makes me fear for my family.”69 This is another example of distribution failure. Although the victims have not been completely silenced on social media, they have still been intimidated into silence on certain topics. Speech which is limited in this way is certainly not free.

Common advice to women who gain the attention of trolls on social media, is to ‘block’ them. Blocking trolls does not stop them commenting but it prevents the victim from seeing their comments, posts or tweets. It also stops the perpetrator from seeing the victim’s posts. Blocking users essentially builds a wall between the speaker and the victim. It is the common bullying advice reimagined for the internet era: just ignore them and they’ll go away. Blocking does seem to solve some of the problem as the victim is protected from further trauma. The victim is also not prevented from speaking out again as they have remained on social media. Yet, this well-meaning advice is not practical in the context of firestorms because of the obvious logistical challenge of blocking hundreds or thousands of users within a short period of time. One feminist writer, Caitlin Moran expresses it well:

For those who say, 'why complain – just block?' – on a big troll day, it can be 50 violent/rape messages an hour. Exhausting and upsetting.70

Consequently, instead of blocking the offenders some victims will make their social media profiles private, thus controlling who can and cannot see the content they distribute. This also builds a wall between the victim and the abusers; however, it also builds a wall between the victim and the vast majority of other social media users, therefore once again negatively impacting their ability to distribute speech effectively on social media.

We have seen here that firestorms can silence women through impacting the ability of their targets to distribute speech. By intimidating their victims, firestorms strongly deter them from speaking further on the topic that singled them out as a target. It may also strongly deter victims from speaking out on other similar or controversial topics, fearful that they might receive unwanted attention. In the most extreme examples, victims will leave social media altogether.

69 Blogger and activist Pamela Merritt responding to 2017 Amnesty International poll available at Amnesty revels alarming impact of online abuse against women 70 Doward, Jamie, Twitter under fire after bank note campaigner is target of rape threats (2013), https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2013/jul/27/Twitter-trolls-threats-bank-notes-austen accessed on: 1/07/2018

3.2 Misogyny

It is clear that firestorms have the ability to silence victims but not yet why women as a group, rather than as individuals, are disproportionately impacted by firestorms. In this section, we shall see how firestorms targeting women differ from firestorms targeting men and how they therefore function as misogynistic norm-enforcing actions. Consequently, we shall see how this negatively impacts the ability of all women to participate meaningfully in online debates.

In ‘Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny’ Kate Manne argues that the classic definition of misogyny as a deep male hatred of women is not a useful definition, as finding men who truly hate all women and therefore fit this definition, is nigh on impossible. Manne suggests instead that misogyny be defined as follows:

The system that operates within a patriarchal social order to police and enforce women’s subordination and to uphold male dominance.71

Thus, Manne conceptualises misogyny as the actions which punish women who break patriarchal norms. In other words, misogyny is the enforcement of patriarchal structures to which society is orientated. Manne elaborates that whereas sexism is the body of ideas which justifies the patriarchal order and expectations, misogyny is the enforcement of those sexist norms.

In some parts of the world there are legal restrictions on women taking certain jobs.72 Given that patriarchy is defined as “a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favour men and withhold opportunity from women”73 clearly restricting women’s employment is a patriarchal structure. Women breaking these laws would face a fine, prison or another legal punishment. By Manne’s definition, these enforcements are misogynistic because they enforce patriarchal structures. However, as we have seen extensively in this thesis, enforcement of norms does not have to occur through legal mechanisms. In a society where women taking certain jobs is not illegal, but it is frowned upon, the belittling and resentment targeted at the women who

71 Manne, Kate, Down Girl: The logic of misogyny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) p33 72 Gonzalez, A., In 155 countries women still face legal discrimination. The consequences are huge (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/dec/03/women-legal-discrimination-worldwide- consequences accessed on: 17/08/2018 73 Dictionary.com, Definition of patriarchy (2005), https://www.dictionary.com/browse/patriarchy?s=t accessed on: 21/08/2018

take those jobs is also a way of enforcing sexist norms and therefore an example of misogyny. The second example is an illustration of ‘social punishments’ which were discussed in chapter 1. Whereas legal sanctions make it impossible for women to take those roles, social sanctions make taking the role very unappealing. The consequence of both is surely fewer (or no) women taking those jobs.

If Manne is correct, that misogyny is the enforcement of sexist patriarchal structures, then it would be coherent that firestorms targeted at women are misogynistic if they often function as ‘punishment’ for breaking those norms. We have already seen that firestorms can function as norm- enforcement so here we will examine several examples of firestorms targeted at women to highlight the cause of these events and whether or not they fit Manne’s definition of misogyny. In order to argue that a firestorm is misogynistic we will have to examine whether or not the victim, replaced with a man, would face the same treatment or alternatively, we can consider whether or not such an event would occur in a society built on total equality between the sexes.

In 2018, Vicki Sparks became the first women to commentate a World Cup game for the BBC. Sadly, what should have been a moment for celebration was quickly soured when Sparks faced online abuse. One commenter said:

Why, oh why must we have women commentating on football?? Please someone tell Vicki Sparks she is trying too hard, I enjoy football but please girls leave it to the men!!74

Others criticised her voice, saying it was too high-pitched for commentating.75 In 2007 Jacqui Oatley experienced similar harassment after becoming the first female commentator on BBC One’s Match of the Day. A sports writer for the Daily Mail Newspaper called her appointment “an insult to the controlled commentaries of John Motson, Mike Ingham and Alan Green.”76 Former footballer Dave Bassett said he would be turning over because in order to commentate “you must have an understanding of the game and tactics, and in order to do that you need to have played the game,”77 clearly ignorant of the fact that Oatley had been a keen amateur footballer for years. The key information here is that Oatley had similar experience to her male colleagues and these

74 BBC, Vicki Sparks: First female commentator for live TV World Cup Match (2018), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44553707 accessed on: 30/06/2018 75Corner, N., Ex-footballer Jason Cundy faces backlash after calling Vicki Sparks ‘a tough listen’ and claiming women’s voices are ‘too high- pitched’ for the role (2018), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5881957/Ex-footballer-Jason-Cundy-complains-female-football- commentators.html accessed on: 30/06/2017 76 Cocozza, P., Move over Motty! (2007), https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/apr/19/football.media accessed on: 30/06/2018 77 Ibid

commentators had not received anywhere near the level of criticism Oatley had. It is clear that had she been male, Oatley would not have received the harassment.

These examples seem to be obvious manifestations of Manne’s conception of misogyny. Both Oatley and Sparks have taken up a role, positions of power even, that have traditionally been reserved for men. The criticisms levied at them for being in those positions seem only to be that women should not have those roles. Women’s voices are too high pitched is surely code for ‘I am not used to listening to a woman’ or even ‘I don’t want to listen to a woman’. If these women had been men, they simply would not have experienced this abuse.

In ‘Women and Power’ Mary Beard proposes that our conventional definition of ‘power’ as well as ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’ are traditionally coded male and as such the concept of power excludes women. Beard explains that this may be why women seeking power or who hold positions of power, such as Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel, wear the same uniform – the trouser suit – to appear masculine and therefore entitled to power. It could also explain why Margaret Thatcher famously had training to lower the timbre of her feminine voice. For this reason, women who face hostility when seeking (or holding) positions of power, could be said to be facing misogyny, as they are subverting patriarchal norms.

Many female politicians from across the world have spoken out about the high levels of abuse they receive online.78 Julia Gillard, the first female president of Australia (2010-2013), and Hilary Clinton, who ran for President of the United States in 2016, are examples of women who hold or have sought positions of power. Both have received enormous levels of sustained abuse on social media. A 2016 study of twitter abuse which targeted prominent public figures worldwide revealed that both Gillard and Clinton received double the abuse of their male rivals, and that the abuse targeted at them was more likely to be of a sexual nature or used gendered terms such as ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’.79 The firestorms targeted at Gillard and Clinton seem to be obvious examples of misogyny, sanctioning women seeking to subvert patriarchal norms. Sanctioning which unfortunately seems to be working, as studies suggest that the abuse female politicians receive online might be putting women off

78 Bliss, L., Abuse of women MPs is not just a scandal – it’s a threat to democracy (2017), https://theconversation.com/abuse-of-women- mps-is-not-just-a-scandal-its-a-threat-to-democracy-80781 accessed on: 19/08/2018 79 Hunt, E., Evershed, N. and Liu, R., From Julia Gillard to Hillary Clinton: online abuse of politicians around the world (2016), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/datablog/ng-interactive/2016/jun/27/from-julia-gillard-to-hillary-clinton-online-abuse-of- politicians-around-the-world accessed on: 19/08/2018

politics altogether.80 Manne even argues that the “vicious misogynistic mobbing”81 of Gillard was a major factor in her losing the leadership of her political party.

Beard herself has been the target of many firestorms. As a well-respected Classics Professor at Cambridge University Beard’s expertise is in no doubt and yet she is regularly admonished online. In 2017 Beard faced a “torrent of aggressive insults” after defending a BBC schools’ video that featured a high ranking black Roman soldier. Many people had taken to social media to complain of ‘political correctness gone mad when Beard asserted that “there’s plenty of firm evidence for ethnic diversity in Roman Britain.” In response Beard’s competence was questioned,82 she was called a ‘basic bitch,’83 her appearance was derided, and her safety threatened. When Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an American Professor of Risk Analysis, joined the debate to contradict Beard, the abuse worsened significantly as his supporters joined the affray. As a classics professor there is no doubt that Beard had more expertise on the topic of the Romans than Teleb, and yet throughout the debate between Beard and Taleb the firestormers continued to acknowledge his professorship, while erasing hers by referring to her as Ms Beard.

As we have seen throughout this thesis, women who critique gaming are particularly vulnerable to online abuse. In 2011, feminist Anita Sarkeesian released a crowd-funding campaign to fund a series of videos called “Tropes vs Women in Video Games”84 where she critiqued the use of sexist tropes in video games, such as the ‘damsel in distress’ trope where a game is constructed around a male character saving the hopeless female, 85 or the ‘women as reward’ trope where male characters are rewarded with attention from attractive women in the game for a job well done. 86 She was subsequently targeted by an angry firestorm.

Gaming is stereotypically white, middle class and male, and this community is thus a classic example of a male dominated space. In recent years’ the dominance of men in gaming has been threatened as more women have become gamers than ever before, yet gaming has been sold as for men for

80 Ryall, G., Online trolling putting women of politics, says union (2017), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39940086 accessed on: 20/08/2018 81 Manne, Kate., p249 82 Boseley, S., Mary Beard abuse on Twitter over Roman Britain’s ethnic diversity (2017), https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2017/aug/06/mary-beard-Twitter-abuse-roman-britain-ethnic-diversity accessed on: 1/07/2018 83 @Autowired twitter feed, https://Twitter.com/Autowired/status/892722730642145280 accessed on: 20/08/2018 84Sarkeesian, A., Tropes vs Women in Video Games, https://feministfrequency.com/tag/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/ accessed on: 17/08/2018 85 Sarkeesian, A. Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women (2013), https://feministfrequency.com/video/damsel-in-distress-part-1/ accessed on: 17/08/2018 86 Sarkeesian, A. Women as Reward – Tropes vs Women in Video Games (2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6oxBLXtkU&feature=youtu.be accessed on: 17/08/2018

decades87 and advertisements which are often targeted at the male gamer further reinforce this notion. Sexism in gaming is ubiquitous. Women who identify themselves as female during multiplayer online games regularly face sexualised comments and abuse88 and because of this they habitually resort to playing these games under gender neutral monikers, or not speaking so as not to reveal their gender to other players.89 The message is clear that women are unwelcome.

Although gamers will participate in a variety of online and real-world communities and the group are certainly not a monolith – it goes without saying that many gamers do not participate in misogyny – there is a theme across many of these communities which encourages the denigration of women.90 When women are not the target of outright harassment, they are the focus of sexist jokes or sexual objectification.91 This sexism is then reinforced by common tropes used in video games, which hypersexualise, objectify and devalue women – ironically the topic of Sarkeesian’s video series. This culture of toxic masculinity is so firmly embedded that it is unsurprising that gamers punish women who deign to partake in online games or criticise gaming culture by targeting abuse at them.

These gamers see themselves as the protectors of a masculine medium.92 They act similarly to the groups which attacked Oatley and Sparks whose only crime seemed to be commentating football while being female. They see themselves as defenders of gaming, a medium which they enjoy and believe will be destroyed or irreversibly changed by those criticising it.93 To these firestormers, these women have done something unforgivable and are therefore deserving of punishment. The idea is clearly to deter them from continuing. The analysis in chapter 1 shows that the salience of group identity is increased when under threat. It is therefore unsurprising that gaming, which has faced a large amount of criticism for being sexist, is being protected so viciously through firestorms.

After releasing a recent research into online harassment on Twitter the founding member of Women, Action and Media (WAM), said the following:

87 Campbell, C., Gaming’s toxic men, explained (2018), https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/25/17593516/video-game-culture-toxic-men- explained accessed on: 17/08/2018 88 Website fat ugly or slutty documented the abuse female gamers received between 2011-2015 sorting the abuse them into categories such as ‘slutty’, ‘ugly’, ‘death threats’ and ‘unprovoked rage’. http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ accessed on: 17/08/2018 89 O’Halloran, K., ‘Hey dude, do this’: the last resort for female gamers escaping online abuse (2017), https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/oct/24/hey-dude-do-this-the-last-resort-for-female-gamers-escaping-online-abuse accessed on: 17/08/2018 90 Ciampaglia, G. L., Can online gaming ditch its sexist ways? (2017), https://theconversation.com/can-online-gaming-ditch-its-sexist-ways- 74493 accessed on: 17/08/2018 91 Ibid 92 “These groups are not merely forming around a particular text or a particular medium. They see themselves as the protector of it” See Campbell, C., Gaming’s toxic men, explained 93 It should be noted that people who criticise violence in gaming as responsible for violence in society receive similar levels of abuse as those using feminist critiques.

It's been concluded over and over again that women who are presenting themselves online as a feminist and speaking on feminist issues are absolutely targeted for very severe online harassment94

It appears that the worst thing a woman can do online, other than ‘invade’ a male space or criticise a male dominated community, is to speak up about feminism itself.95 Online abuse is now expected by women who criticise some aspect of the patriarchy.96

After establishing the everyday sexism project,97 which records women’s day to day experiences of sexism, Laura Bates regularly receives abuse on social media. Initially, even before it was well known, the project received around 200 abusive messages a day, however spikes or firestorms occurred every time the project was discussed in the news. 98 Bates herself has been the subject of sustained abuse for speaking out about everyday instances of sexism and their impact on women.

Prominent feminist author and columnist Jessica Valenti has described receiving a “daily barrage of attacks and threats online by people who are threatened by feminism.”99 Valenti became the Guardian’s top target for abuse in 2016 and cites her regular columns on feminism as the reason. 100 Not incidentally the other top 9 were women too. The abuse reached its pinnacle when she a received a rape and death threat targeted at her 5-year-old daughter. She subsequently closed all her social media accounts.

These are just two of countless examples of women speaking up about feminism who are subsequently targeted by firestorms. One was silenced, at least on social media, and one was not and yet firestorms do not just impact women by silencing the target. The warning function of these misogynistic firestorms means that onlookers also internalise patriarchal norms. Onlookers from a

94 Bowman, J., Firing over Facebook comment sparks debate about online abuse (2015), http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/clementine- ford-facebook-abuse-firing-1.3346861 accessed on: 21/08/2018 95 Lewis, R., Rowe, M., and Wiper, C., ‘Online abuse of feminists as an emerging form of violence against women and girls’, British Journal of Criminology, 2017, 57(6): 1462-1481 96 Holmes, L. A., If you want to write about feminism online, be ready to take on the haters (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/apr/01/if-you-want-write-abaout-feminism-online-be-ready-to-eal-with- the-haters accessed on: 21/08/2018 97 The everyday sexism project, https://everydaysexism.com/ accessed on: 19/08/2018 98 Amnesty International, Laura Bates: Violence Against Women Online (2018), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/laura-bates-online-violence-against-women/ accessed on: 19/08/2018 99 Boggioni, T., Prominent feminist writer drops off social media after rape threat against her 5-year-old daughter (2016), https://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/prominent-feminist-writer-drops-off-social-media-after-rape-threats-against-her-5-year-old- daughter/ accessed on 21/08/2018 100 Valenti, J., Insults and rape threats. Writers shouldn’t have to deal with this (2016), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/14/insults-rape-threats-writers-online-harassment accessed on: 21/08/2018

similar demographic to the victim i.e. women are likely to particularly take on the message. This can mean that they are strongly discouraged from speaking up online, particularly about ‘masculine’ topics or feminism, as they are afraid they will themselves be targeted in such an aggressive manner. I posit that these firestorms mean women are less likely to speak out on social media, particularly on those topics, and therefore firestorms are hampering the ability of women to engage in online debate. This marginalizes women’s voices online and skews online narratives toward dominant forces. This is clearly harmful to women, but also to society generally who are deprived of alternative views. Furthermore, the targeting of women who hold positions of power may be discouraging young women from following in their footsteps.101 The damage of firestorms is clearly immense, and the silencing impact of them evident. Something needs to be done.

3.3 Categories of misogynistic abuse

Many of the reasons women are targeted by firestorms align with considering firestorms a form of online misogynistic norm enforcement. Mostly women appear to be targeted after speaking up on, or criticising, traditionally masculine topics and activities or patriarchal structures themselves, through feminism. However, in order to determine that they are misogynistic we must show that firestorms targeted at women are distinctly gendered.102

The gendered nature of online abuse which women receive was first pointed out by Herring in 2004.103 Subsequent studies have confirmed that women are more likely to receive gender-based harassment.104 We shall see here that the content of abuse directed at women, is indeed distinct from that targeted at men. The abuse women receive can fall under a number of categories such as threats of sexual violence, objectification or reducing women to their body parts, categorising women as weak and oversensitive, undermining the achievements of women and lascivious contempt (hypersexualising women only to tear them down). This does not purport to be an exhaustive list, but does provide examples of how women are threatened, humiliated and undermined by firestorms. This extensive list makes it unequivocal that the abuse women receive online is gendered in nature and therefore firestorms targeted at women can be considered misogynistic acts.

101 Ryall, G., Online trolling putting women of politics, says union (2017), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39940086 accessed on: 20/08/2018 102 Manne, K. 103 Herring, S. 104 Duggan, M., Online Harassment 2017 (2017), http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/07/11/experiencing-online-harassment/ accessed on: 17/08/2018

The first of these categories are threats of sexual violence. Caroline Criado-Perez, the British Feminist, received a threat a minute after starting her campaign for a woman to be on one of the British bank notes. The threats included vivid and explicit detail about how the commenters were going to rape and kill her: for example, ‘KISS YOUR PUSSY GOODBYE AS WE BREAK IT IRREPARABLY’ and ‘I’m going to pistol whip you over and over until you lose consciousness while your children . . . watch and then burn ur (sic) flesh.’ When British MP Stella Creasy publicly supported Criado-Perez she was told ‘If I meet you in an alley you will definitely get fucked’ and ‘Hi slut . . . im going to cut off your head and then FACEFUCK your silly little head.’ Although we can assume that the majority of these threats are not intended to be undertaken, they remain terrifying and humiliating for their victims. The threat itself is the punishment and clearly aims to warn the target to watch what they are saying. Some threats explicitly show their intent as corrective actions. For example, after Anita Sarkeesian critiqued the representation of women in video games she was told “I’ll rape you and put your head on a stick if you ever touch my video-games.”105

Another category of abuse which women are targeted with aims to humiliate the target. For example, when women are targeted with ‘lascivious contempt’106 meaning that commenters hypersexualise their targets only to derogate them being too ugly, fat, old or gay. A combination of desire and disgust. After exposing misogyny online, freelance journalist Sady Doyle was told “I will fuck your ass to death you filthy fucking whore. Your only worth on this planet is as a warm hole to stick my cock in.” American writer Lindy West received this type of abuse after appearing on television to critique ‘rape jokes’. ‘‘I love how the Bitch complaining about rape is the exact kind of Bitch that would never be raped . . . . Bitch have you looked in the mirror?” Lascivious contempt reduces the target to a sexual object and as such it aims to reduce their status and power in respect to the speaker.

Another way firestormers attempt to reduce the status and power of the target is to linguistically reduce women to their body parts. For instance, on the website ‘don’t get me started’ which targeted academic Beard after her appearance on Question Time “there was a photo of a vagina, or

105 Sarkeesian, A., TEDxWomen Talk about Online Harassment & Cyber Mobs 106 Jane, E., A, ‘Back to the kitchen, cunt’: speaking the unspeakable about online misogyny, Continuum, 2014, 28(4): 558-570, p560

at least of the area around a vagina, with a pair of glasses superimposed on it, to make it look like a face.”107 Beard was literally reduced to a female body part.

The final category which I will discuss here is when firestormers attempt to undermine and patronize their female targets, often by emphasizing stereotypical female characteristics in a traditionally sexist manner. For example, Eleanor O’Hagan, a journalist from the Guardian newspaper describes being called a “silly little girl” in response to her political commentary.108 Other women describe being told that there are more important things to deal with and to stop whining.109 A common feature of online firestorms is being told ‘to get back into the kitchen’. The message is clear, women aren’t welcome; stop talking.

In summary, it is clear that the abuse women receive in firestorms is distinctly gendered. The categories of abuse which women receive online disproportionately compared to men include: sexist language, reducing women to body parts, lascivious contempt, threats of sexual violence including as ‘corrective actions’, undermining women’s ability/achievements and simply telling them to stop speaking. It is therefore coherent to call online firestorms targeted at women, examples of misogyny.

4. Combatting silencing

It is evident from the previous chapters that women can be silenced by firestorms. Unfortunately, the solution to this is not self-evident. Regulating firestorms is nigh on impossible because they are collective actions and identifying culpability is problematic. Although the collective actions which comprise a firestorm are misogynistic and have been shown to silence women, the individual actions alone often don’t warrant regulation. Exploring this here will show that it is pragmatically impossible to regulate firestorms without negatively impacting the free speech of others; an unjustifiable consequence. We therefore need to be much more creative when tackling silencing caused by firestorms. We need to address the environment that allows them to flourish, instead of regulating the speech itself.

107 Patterson, C., Mary Beard interview: ‘I hadn’t realized that there were people like that’ (2013), https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/art/features/mary-beard-interview-i-hadnt-realised-that-there-were-people-like-that-8534771.html accessed on: 1/07/2018 108 Lewis, H., “You should have your tongue ripped out”: the reality of sexist abuse online (2011), https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/comments-rape-abuse-women accessed on: 20/08/2018 109 Criado-Perez, C., Caroline Criado-Perez speech on cyber-harassment at the Women’s Aid conference (2013), https://www.newstatesman.com/internet/2013/09/caroline-criado-perezs-speech-cyber-harassment-womens-aid-conference accessed on: 20/08/2018

Firestorms are collective actions, but they – generally – occur spontaneously and are not collectively coordinated. The perpetrators are therefore difficult to identify. Culpability could be assigned to the instigator (the spark) however it is possible for a firestorm to be sparked by a relatively benign, or fairly critical comment. The comment itself, taken alone, might not problematic, so holding the instigator accountable for the entire firestorm seems unjust.

An alternative option is to restrict the speech within a firestorm which, when taken out of context, remains problematic, hate speech for example or speech which incites violence. In fact, these types of speech are already restricted in many jurisdictions. However, restricting this speech would fail to disempower firestorms and therefore fail to address the silencing of women. The power to intimidate that firestorms hold is caused primarily by the sheer number of participants making negative comments. Some comments in firestorms are abhorrent (and alone may be considered for regulation), however many of the comments in a firestorm will be unpleasant, maybe even deeply offensive, but don’t warrant regulation in themselves. Take for instance the tweets: “wouldn’t it be funny if five guys raped her right now :D”, “sluts I’ll donate $50 if you make me a sandwich,” “I hope you get cancer :)” and “Why don’t you kill yourself and make a video about it?”. 110 Offensive as these tweets are it would be difficult to place regulations them. One of these comments alone is not harmful to the target, at least not at a magnitude that warrants restriction. However, a firestorm made up of deeply offensive comments like these, can still be significantly intimidating and silence its victim. Regulating hate speech alone will therefore fail to protect women from the impacts firestorms; another method is needed.

Philosophers who oppose the (over)regulation of speech often argue that hate speech needs to be addressed by more speech. The argument follows that by ‘speaking back’ the victim or their supporters can disempower hate speech by contradicting the arguments contained in the speech. By targeting its logic, the victim can undermine hate speech and perhaps even further their own cause. For instance, Caroline Criado-Perez managed to turn the attention of attackers into a positive after becoming the target of a firestorm. Criado-Perez faced vile and malicious attacks and threats which initially caused her to delete her Twitter account altogether, effectively silencing her. 111 Fortunately, her abuse also caused the media to pay attention to her cause, and a large community of supporters rallied around her. This gave her the confidence to return to Twitter. In the end, she succeeded in

110 All real tweets targeted at Sarkeesian during a firestorm. Sarkeesian, A., TEDxWomen Talk about Online Harassment & Cyber Mobs 111 Topping, A., Caroline Criado-Perez deletes Twitter account after new rape threats

persuading the Bank of England to place Jane Austen on the £5 note.112 However, the abuse she received was vile and it is not a great to leap to suggest that had she not received such support from the feminist community, and from the media, she may never have returned to Twitter, or may never have engaged in activism again, particularly in such a public way. In order for women to ‘speak back’ and to disempower hateful speech directed at them, they need support to overcome the silencing effects of firestorms.

In her article ‘Speaking Back: The Likely Fate of Hate Speech policy in the United States and Australia’, Katherine Gelber explores the idea of speaking back. She argues that individuals who have been targeted by hate speech should be provided with institutional, educational, and material support to help them speak back.113 Gelber’s proposition cleverly avoids the main criticism levied at scholars who argue for limitations of hate speech, as it does not place any restrictions on speech itself. In fact, it encourages more speech, which surely can’t be objectionable. Gelber argues that this institutional support would allow victims to “contradict the messages contained in hate speech and to counteract certain effects of that speech.”114

Gelber’s argument is logical insomuch as supporting targets of hate speech in speaking back has the potential to disempower hate speech, as in the case of Criado-Perez. Although Criado-Perez did not receive institutional support per se, many influential people and media outlets spoke out in support of her and gave her a prominent platform for speaking back to her attackers. Ultimately this gave her the opportunity to overcome them. Unfortunately, the type of support given to Criado-Perez in the previous example was extensive, and logistically it is not something all women who are the target of hate speech can be offered. It is also difficult to suggest where the limitations of such a policy would be. For instance, if a politician is revealed to be a neo-Nazi they might well be subject to a firestorm, as many people would object to a person in office holding such views. The firestormers might also feel – justifiably – lied to. As the politician is subject to a firestorm they might well be silenced. A policy, like Gelber’s, which supports victims of hate speech, or firestorms (if we were to make it more specific), could mean that the government offers support to morally questionable people. Supporting people with questionable views like this might even lend their morally questionable arguments more legitimacy, with it appearing that the government is offering them support to make their arguments.

112 BBC, Jane Austen to be face of the Bank of England £10 note (2013), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23424289 accessed on: 16/06/2018 113 Gelber, K., ‘‘Speaking Back’: The Likely fate of Hate Speech Policy in the United States and Australia’, in Speech and Harm by Maitra, I. and McGowan M. K. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) pp 50 -71, p51 114 Ibid

It is of course possible that the government could lend support only to those who seem to be making morally good or morally neutral statements. Yet this is also unjustifiable as the government would therefore be responsible for deciding on a case by case basis which victims are deserving of support, and which aren’t. Leaving the government to make value judgements about speech and truth could undoubtedly lead to governments manipulating which messages were supported and which weren’t. Even if a morally neutral government - if such a thing were possible - were making these value judgements, this policy would assume the infallibility of the government in making these decisions. The policy is therefore unjustifiable.

An alternative method for addressing firestorms is to discourage their establishment in the first place. Instead of regulating firestorms, or elements of them such as hate speech, it may be possible to reconstruct social media such that firestorms become less likely to occur. In chapter 1 we analyzed the aspects of social media which allow firestorms to flourish such as clustered networks and echo chambers, low cost interactions, lack of non-verbal cues, large online networks and a lack of negative feedback. By addressing these aspects, it may be possible to disrupt the creation of firestorms.

Some ideas which might reduce firestorms on social media are for example, reintroducing non- verbal cues into online communications by communicating through short video clips rather than short text messages, or making social media users wait 20 minutes before they can post a comment to reduce emotional reactions may well make firestorms less likely to occur. These might be interesting ideas for a new social network, however the most popular social media networks are unlikely to implement them as any mechanism which slows down the engagement of users might decrease the popularity of the social media platform.

One way that social media networks could be reimagined to halt the propagation of firestorms would be to create a culture of transparency online. In chapter 1 we discussed the relative obscurity of social media users; how users of social media create a persona online. This persona contains elements of the user’s personality, and it is therefore incorrect to say they are anonymous, but they are not fully themselves either. This obscurity has been shown to effectively facilitate firestorms. The argument being that users who do not know the full truth about one another form surprisingly strong bonds in online communities. This is because curating an online persona can highlight

similarities while diminishing differences. If social media users were forced to be more fully honest in their presentation of themselves online, this effect would be moderated.

A culture of transparency online would also inject responsibility back into the actions of social media users. People’s actions are not only regulated by legal sanctions, they are also regulated by social sanctions. We have seen that this can have negative effects, such as the tyranny of the majority, yet it can also lead to positive outcomes. Social sanctions, such as the disapproval of family or friends after an action, can have a sizeable influence on people’s decisions. Somehow online spaces don’t appear to follow the same rules. This is not because online users are anonymous, because many of them aren’t, instead it is because the online self is one step removed from the real-world self. There are many online spaces which do not overlap at all with people’s real-lives. This means that they are unlikely to receive social sanctions for participating in firestorms. Unfortunately, the privacy implications of creating a culture of transparency online are vast although I do not have the space to discuss them fully here. I am therefore hesitant to suggest users should be forced to convey their full selves on social media despite the positive implications for free speech.

An alternative way to tackle firestorms would be for social media networks to break up clustered networks. We saw in chapter 1 that networks on social media are significant clustered and polarized. This means that social media users who are from similar demographics are more likely to follow similar people on social media websites, and therefore see and engage in similar content. This causes echo chambers where social media users see the same opinions and views echoed at them from multiple users, creating the impression that everyone is in agreement, and also that everyone is talking about the same topic. Clustered networks can also mean that our own views are loudly amplified back to us, further reinforcing them. Firestorms are more easily created in this environment and therefore breaking up these clusters could be an effective strategy for stopping firestorms occurring.

We also saw in chapter 1 that network clustering on social media is exacerbated by algorithms which show users more of the content they love, and therefore more of the same. The more we use social media, the more social media learns our habits and likes and therefore suggests to us more of the same type of content. Social media reinforces our views because doing so makes us feel good, and we are thus more likely to continue using their site. After all, social media is not neutral. It is an advertising tool. Social media websites have two objectives: firstly, to find out as much information about us as possible, so that it can target adverts to us, and secondly to keep us on their website for

as long as possible in order to market as many consumable goods to us as possible. In order to keep users addicted and happy, social media shows them what they want to see, who they think the user should follow and what they think the user should buy.

Algorithms that encourage social media users to only follow those with similar and agreeable opinions need to change. Users of social media need to be more frequently challenged by alternative views and social media needs to become – or perhaps we could argue, return to being - a place where debate is frequent. This would dilute echo chambers as social media users would regularly be confronted with different and challenging opinions. Consequently, social media users would have a more thorough view of the spread of opinions. Interrupting echo chambers would also impact the power of online communities to establish unconventional norms. This would in turn lessen the frequency of firestorms as norm-enforcing actions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen that firestorms are not an example of antisocial behaviour which people partake in because they are anonymous on the internet and therefore they do not fear consequences. In fact, firestormers are less likely to be anonymous than not. Firestorms are an example of online norm-enforcement. However, firestorms generally don’t enforce societal wide norms as you might expect, they usually enforce the norms of online communities, however niche. Firestorms function as a social sanction by targeting norm-breakers with huge amounts of criticism, which quickly becomes vitriolic and at times abusive. This is intended to deter them from breaking the norm more than once.

Norm-enforcing actions must come from strong communities and we saw that, perhaps contrary to what many people believe, people in online communities can form very strong bonds. Features of online communities which we may expect to weaken bonds such as visual anonymity of group members, can in fact strengthen them. Relative obscurity of social media users was shown to strengthen bonds by highlighting the similarities of users, while diminishing their differences.

Firestorms are more frequent than offline versions of norm-enforcement because the benefits to a group member in participating vastly outweighed the costs. Participating in offline norm enforcement is costly in that it is time consuming and you might receive social sanctions in response. People must therefore very strongly believe in the norm they are enforcing before participating. On the other hand, the cost of joining a firestorm is extremely low. It is very easy to do, and the chance

of negative feedback is limited. To a community member who wants to exert their alignment with the group, or even gain the approval of the group, the kudos gained by joining the firestorm clearly outweighs the costs.

We saw that firestorms function similarly to Mill’s tyranny of the majority, as they punish individuals who break norms - in this case, the norms of online communities - and therefore deter them from continuing. This can often lead to the silencing of victims and many who identify with them. We can therefore call them the tyranny of the minority. We also showed that if firestorms targeted at certain groups were particularly ubiquitous, this could marginalise a whole subset of views. Protection from the tyranny of the minority is therefore essential for protecting not only the individual from harm, but also society from the domination of certain views online.

Firestorms which enforce sexist norms appear increasingly common online. These firestorms can be seen as a form of misogyny because they sanction women who subvert patriarchal structures by taking positions of power and speaking on traditionally male topics. They also display significant gendered language in comparison to firestorms targeted at men. Unsurprisingly women who speak out about the patriarchy itself i.e. on feminism are particularly victimised.

To some, this may seem an incredibly outdated analysis. After all, women can have any job she desires, or hold any role she wishes; the patriarchal structures have been upended. Some might even argue that these misogynistic firestorms are the frustrated wails of a dying group and they might be right. The more this group is confronted by changing societal norms which fly in the face of the patriarchy, the more threatened they are likely to become and the harder they will fight. Although it is positive to think we are taking a step in the right direction this does not change the impact misogyny online is having right now. It is clear that women who subvert those norms which we may consider outdated are manifestly and disproportionately targeted by firestorms. It is also clear that these misogynistic firestorms are having a detrimental impact on women’s voices online. Not only can targets be intimidated into silence, the pervasive threat of firestorms which target women who speak out on male-dominated topics or on feminism, is dissuading women from engaging in these debates. Women’s views are therefore being marginalised online.

Online debates on social media are an increasingly important method of engaging with society. The marginalisation of women’s views is incredibly detrimental to both women and wider society who will no longer have access to a diversity of views online. In order for social media to become a place

of true free speech then social media platforms need to make a concerted effort to break up clustered networks which allow the distillation of online communities to hide in echo chambers, and to not fully engage with a range of views. As more and more of people’s lives become concerned with the online world, we must take the marginalising of views increasingly seriously. Social media needs to return to being a place of debate across communities. Otherwise social media will continue to further entrench views, and the gulf between communities will only widen.

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